Forum	Title	Content	Member	Sex	Country	Date/Time
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Russia demands punishment for Ukrainian nationalists	A lot of Ukrainian people are ashamed of what happened. A lot of people from Lviv are ashamed too. None of them supports the Nazi party called "Svoboda" though.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-11 16:31:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	'Russian' dollars for consulate fees!	All the bills I left with her were very new appearing! 10 clean 'Franklins' and one 'Grant'!! "New appearing" is not the same as "new". they really don't like it when anything is wrong with them, even a little bit. Even a little mark on a bill. It was very hard to exchange the cash every time my fiance was coming over. I think that was the problem.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-13 17:16:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	, always check the official source to be right...	We are in semi final now Play hockey, not war Yay! Sorry for off-top, nothing to add. Well said	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-13 11:17:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	One more RUB member added!	LvivLovers, congratulations! Her mother has been yearning to be a Babushka. She says to just have one and she'll take it care of it full time That reminds me of my mom (sigh). I always tell her that she should talk to my brother first, cause he's older And if your kid is going to be Orthodox, they need to have a name they can christened with. Doesn't always work. Didn't work with my name anyway, so I sort of have 2 names - one is for official documents and the other is 'Orthodox'. They are sort of close, but not the same.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-07 16:09:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Couple of things...	It worked! It worked! Milushka, congrats!	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-04-28 13:05:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Couple of things...	Based on my experience with the Moscow Embassy, my statements have a 99.999% probability of being correct. So I stand corrected, here is a very slight teenie-weenie chance of an earlier date. I'll put money down on my choice. even if chance is 0.00000000000001% it's worth trying, i think. an e-mail doesn't cost anything, so there is nothing to lose.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-04-08 13:44:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Happy Victory Day!	As I said before - nation is not an issue for me. And I don't get it when people don't like somebody just because of their nation. I'm not going to hate anybody just cause some stupid politicians may want me to. Plus the Estonian language is really beautiful. Edited by ONA, 10 May 2011 - 12:42 PM.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-10 12:41:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Happy Victory Day!	That's an Estonian in that pic So what?	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-10 11:45:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Happy Victory Day!	? ???? ??????!	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-10 07:31:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	I-134 Notary said NO	Just thought I'd add my two cents about Moscow, since their instructions are "clear as mud", I contacted them by email about the I-134. According to the response I received from the embassy the I-134 need NOT be notarized or even be an original. I wish they would make up there minds and keep their instruction updated, it would save us all a lot of time and grief. The instruction is updated: Financial documents from the petitioner ? a US citizen: please note, that Affidavit of Support (form I-134) is not required, but may be requested. Please submit financial documents to show that the applicant will not become a public charge in the United States. Such documents may include, but are not limited to: * Most recent year tax returns (form 1040) or tax transcripts from IRS * Copy of bank account * Earnings and leave statement * W-2 forms * Letter from employer http://moscow.usembassy.gov/fiancee.html It doesn't say anywhere that it needs to be notarized. Edited by ONA, 17 May 2011 - 02:59 AM.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-17 02:58:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Is translation necessary?	Thanks for your response. Here is what the US Embassy in Kiev states: TRANSLATIONS: Documents in English, Ukrainian or Russian do not need to be translated. When you arrive for the interview, you MUST present all the original documents accompanied by an English translation, which is produced by a certified translator, only if the document is not in English, Ukrainian or Russian. After the interview, all originals except the medical examination report will be returned to you. The consular officer has the right to request translation of any submitted document. I would do the translations just in case. It won't hurt + better safe than sorry.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-22 11:27:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Tsar Putin spreads his tentacles	Hmm did you know the biggest percentage of Georgia consists of Russians and Ukranians.. What is Tajikistan??? I agree not many Americans marry Georgians or even know of this country. Stalin as I recall is from Gali, Georgia.. I'm not sure how the culture is different because Georgia been under Russian Rule from 1922-1991.. It wasn't until the Rose Revolution did Georgia truly break away.. Stalin was from Gori And now, according to Why_Me you're one of those "brainwashed Russians", who say that Mr. Iosif Jugashvili was Georgian, so welcome I'm not sure what's brainwashed in that though... it's just true. I totally agree with eekee, but sometimes it's impossible to expain anything... When you keep hearing on TV and radio how bad imperialistic Russia is and how good is the States (doing the same things, but apparently, if Russia was doing it to African and Middle-Eastern countries, it would be totally fine), you actually start believing in it. Whatever. I should be thankful for taking part in those discussions anyways - I took my first state exam yesterday and apart from other stuff I had to speak about "Mass Media: information or propaganda?" Although, I'm really really tired of the same thing going over and over again.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-26 08:43:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Tsar Putin spreads his tentacles	"Russia Russia is acting in a way, that's best for Russia..."...which means supporting a repressive murdering Soviet style dictator in Belarus. At least we know where you stand in regards to Belarus and it's citizens. And as far as the Orange and Rose revolutions...if you want to compare Ukraine after the Orange revolution and the rights of it's citizens vs Belarus...please do. There is no comparison. Ask anyone here who's spent time in both country's. I think that people from Belarus should care about themselves. Why Russian people should do something for them? It's like saying that it's clear where Americans stand on the situation in Iraq (when it's clear, that there was no weapon of mass distruction there). But... America is fighting for oil and for it's own good. Can I blame them? I might, but I won't. I compare the rights of citizens in Ukraine before and after the Orange revolution and it seems like the situation is becoming worse and worse. Plus nowadays it's not only Crimea that wants to be a separate state, but a lot of people from the Western Ukraine say that it will probably be better if the western Ukraine was a separate state. The "orange" government did no good to the country, there are more and more separatist views.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-23 09:00:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Tsar Putin spreads his tentacles	Also, the fact that people from Crimea were accepting Russian passports, wanted to get them - tells a lot. Sems like they don't really like what's going on in their country, not even with the 'right to vote'. What's up with the right to vote by the way? I don't know any Ukrainian people, who thinks that they got it. Are they all missing something?	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-22 03:53:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Tsar Putin spreads his tentacles	Why_Me, you clearly don't understand one thing: paying for so-called 'revolutions', starting wars in the Middle East etc. the States is doing the same exact thing - they are trying to act in a way, that will help the country to get some profit. Still nobody (except for Al-Qaeda) thinks it's right to blow up something in the States. So you should probably look at yourself before trying to blame anybody else. Russia is acting in a way, that's best for Russia, the USA is acting in a way, that's better for the States, and they both use other countries as their puppets, it's not beautiful, but it's the way it is. And you don't have a single right to blame Russia until the USA does what it does. Do you see what I mean?	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-22 03:48:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Tsar Putin spreads his tentacles	And also, what do you think of this areticle? http://canarypapers....ia-georgia-war/	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-20 17:26:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Tsar Putin spreads his tentacles	Why_Me, I have a couple of questions also. What about American sponsorship for Yuschenko and Saakashvili? Who is next? And how does it feel to know that your taxes are used to pay for some revolution in an FSU country?	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-20 16:51:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Tsar Putin spreads his tentacles	That what FOX news said? C'mon, dont touch that Condoleezza Rice & SUKAshvili love story, cause it stinks My dad calls her Scandaleezza Rice	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-20 12:51:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Tsar Putin spreads his tentacles	To me the more interesting question is why do people in Eastern Europe seem to lean so far towards the strongest appearing candidate, regardless of his/her position on issues? In Ukrain for example, people are well aware that the socialist/communist model was a failure, but they voted back in a President that was known to be crooked, known to be affiliated with the Kremlin, and was a clear reversion to the old way of doing things. I am told it was because the old administration was divided and weak (at least in part). Could it be that people there have had so much hardship, they just want stability, and will support the strongest (and therefore most likely to promote stability) leader? You might think it's impossible, but most babushkas were happy with their lives during Soviet times (with what was happening after Stalin's death anyway), so they will welcome everything that resembles that way of life. OK, people couldn't travel abroad, so what? But they had basically all the stuff they needed On the contrary they remember 1990s, which were disasterous. Putin's (and Medvedev's) policy mostly targets that generation, which was happy during the Soviet times and then THEY go to elections and they really vote for him or for Medvedev. What's more there are some people of my age, who truly believe that Russian people can't make the right choice and they should be told whom to vote for. And one more thing - there is a whole lot of people, who think that they can't change anything and they decide not to vote at all. And then there is a small group of people, who doesn't miss any elections and votes either for a candidate, who doesn't have even a slight chance of winning or ruins the voting paper by drawing a smiley face or a flower, or writing a curse word on it. Those people also have been singing this song for over 20 years	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-10 07:52:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Interesting Article on Scams in FSU	Anyone here have any rugs hanging on their walls? My grandmas do... But it's an old trend.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-13 16:34:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	More Visa News	I don't think I can agree with Alla. I think most of 'big' criminals are either in the States, or somewhere abroad and they have no problem in getting their visas. And I don't think they're interested in going to Vermont anyway. (I don't think they know that Vermont exists). Those criminals, who would steal anything in the car, but not the car itself... I don't think they care about going abroad - those criminals are on drugs and they're not going to get plane tickets and fly to the States - all they need is just to get their drug dose. Almost the same thing with prostitutes.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-06 15:46:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	More Visa News	Well... it would of helped ME. Since I was born in Russia and moved to US as a child, they wouldn't issue me visa. I had to go through a lot of hoops, $1,000K, 2 months wait to get 1 year business visa (wouldn't be able to get tourist visa). Nightmare! BTW, Russian people have a tendency of stating that they don't like US and do not want to move. Total lie to save the face. Give them an opportunity and 80% of the country will move here. I am Russian originally, for the record. Depends on people, really. My parents won't agree to move to the States. Most of my friends would go visit, but don't want to live in the USA. If my fiance wasn't American, I'd rather went to Western Europe for about 5 years and then go back to Russia. So what you say might be true for 15-20 years ago, but the situation is different now.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-05-28 09:39:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Is your RUB wife slapping you around ?	Slapping is considered to be domestic violence in the US? Life is not fun in America	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-03 03:17:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	My K - 1 Interview at Moscow embassy	Congrats! And thanks for the report That's funny that they check facebook... i have a picture of my fiance as my profile pic, and he has mine as his profile picture	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-07 14:23:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Columbus Ohio	As soon as you got rid of all the cards, you won.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-16 11:38:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Columbus Ohio	Durak is another word I hear often. That's one of the 1st Russian words my fiance learned I always get surprised how much easier it is to memorize 'bad' words and slang	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-15 11:41:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Columbus Ohio	Why are you doing this to me? I'm graduating July 1st, I kind of hoped I'm never going to see any of those things again... ugh!...	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-15 04:40:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Columbus Ohio	I had a Russian girlfriend who was appalled when I used some choice words to describe our "interactions." She said, "Who teach you these words?" I didn't tell her exactly whom it was, but in fact, it was my wife who'd broadened my vocabulary a few years prior to this nice lady. That just about sums it up as to why I married my wife and not the one that was so sensitive! To each his own. That's not about being sensitive though, it's more about up-bringing. My parents are extremely strict, they would punish me and my brother for caling each other names like "durak/dura", which aren't even curse words, so there is just no way I'm going to be too liberal about using Russian mat. I did teach my fiance some curse words though, but just for fun. That's what Russian people do - we teach foreigners some curse or slang words or stupid phrases and then watch them using those words and phrases. Might be fun sometimes	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-14 11:00:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Columbus Ohio	I think they're necessary to know, unless you spend all your time with high-class (not high-class as in rich but... classy), cultured people (aka boring people!). But until you move from znakomiy to drug... better to leave it alone. Just know so you can understand. Yup, I'd said before I was boring And yes, that's why I said that people should make sure that the person they're talking to doesn't mind mat before starting to use it. Cause me and my friends don't use it unless we're really mad, surprised, upset or if it's just a part of a story. I never use it talking to my parents, older people and people I don't know very well. So if a person I haven't known for a long time would use it, I would not like it. I feel a lot more freedom in using English curse words though.... maybe that happens cause English isn't my native language, so all the curse words don't seem real or at least not as strong as Russian ones.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-13 13:10:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Columbus Ohio	Pimsleur is awesome, but you're going to be speaking very formal Russian. Keep in mind when you talk to folks who are familiar to you you'll have to "tone it down" a bit from the lessons. Also, you'll have to add some cursewords, blat. I don't think that adding the curse words into your speech is a good idea (at least until you make sure that people you communicate with use them). Plus it just sounds ridiculous when a non-native Russian speaker says them. Close the light is something I've heard many times from Russians. Although, they were saying it in English so it's most likely a difference in translations from Russian to English. If we said toes, Russians would look at us funny. That's very-very weird, cause "turn off the light" is a pretty obvious.. and basically word-by-word translation from Russian. I can't see why anybody would use the word "close"... unless they have a very poor vocabulary.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-13 10:53:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Columbus Ohio	Exactly why English is the most difficult. We don't say "close the light" we say "turn off the light." We don't say "close the light" (?????? ??????? #######???), we say "turn off the light" (??????? ????) as well. That's not even close to what I was talking about. What I was talking about is that a Russian person is more likely to say something like "It's wrong", while a native English speaker is probably going to say something like "I don't think it's right". That's exacty why it seems that Russian people speak their mind and we might seem to be pretty rude a lot of times... we're not. The thing is that we show politeness in a different way. As for which language has more vocabulary - it's definitely English. But Russian is harder to learn - and it has nothing to do with the vocabulary, really. Edited by ONA, 10 June 2011 - 05:03 PM.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-10 17:00:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Columbus Ohio	I do think there is a point with Russian where you think you know it, but you actually know very little. True for any foreign language. The problem is that your vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation can be great, but you will still have so-called 'pragmatic' accent, which can cause misunderstanding (and which is probably the only reason for my arguments with my fiance). My friend and I were arguing which is harder, Russian or English (I voted for English), and he was like, "There are so many words in English!" and he pointed to a little metal fence and asked me how many names we had in English for this object, trying to make a point that we must have a lot. I was like, uh, one, "fence." And then he and another friend proceeded to rattle off seven or eight different words for "fence," including like, village slang. I think the reason why that happens is that people in different countries have to deal with different things, different realia. One of the most famous examples of how that works is comparing how many words referring to different types of snow there are in English, Russian and Inuit (Eskimo) languages.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-10 10:38:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Happy Father's Day	Happy Father's Day, guys!	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-19 10:02:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	The Cannery chicks are in! :)	And what does smoking weed have to do with one's performance as a cashier, anyway? You're not operating heavy machinery. You're operating a cash register. Being hungover would be a far greater detriment to your performance than having smoked pot in the past month. I don't know, I don't make the rules. I just can't find any other explanation why it can be so hard for some American people of my age to find a job. I believe it is hard to get a 'real' job, but not a seasonal low-paid one. I remembered one more thing I've seen... It was 2008, my first time in the States, there was a guy at work (local), who stole something from the store we all worked in and got fired. They hired an Azeri guy instead (also J-1 W&T student). Who is to blame? Russian kids, who do illegal stuff in the States are just as stupid, but the thing is that a lot of times people are the cause for their own problems. And I'm pretty sure that the fact that there are going to be a lot less Western European students in the USA isn't going to improve the situation with the youth unemployment rate in the States (btw I think that wasn't the reason for so many denials this year).	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-20 12:14:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	The Cannery chicks are in! :)	I am wondering, also, if there might be some other reasons for foreign students on a limited time frame might be more attractive to employers: no chance of wanting to continue employment after summer/wanting benefits, lack of an understanding of our sue-happy legal system, etc. All the bosses I worked for wanted somebody on a permanent basis, but they had to hire me, cause they didn't have any other options. At one of the places where I worked, I was the only cashier for about a month and they couldn't find anybody else for that position. Still, there were kids in the area, complaining how hard it is to find a job. Well, it might be, if you smoke pot and can't pass the drug test - I don't see any other reasons. And it wasn't even in Vermont or Alaska, it was a very populated area of Maryland.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-20 08:15:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	The Cannery chicks are in! :)	I have a lot of friends who have done work/travel and most of them worked at amusement parks, tourist shops, restaurants, etc. And well, why should we give kids from other countries fun travel times when there are so many Americans of the same age who can't find a job in those spheres? I know a lot of students had problems with the law and stayed illegally, but most of the students didn't do anything wrong. Saying that there are not enough jobs for Americans... I don't know... In 2009 I was allowed to come without a job offer, in 2010 i had it, but I still had to look for a job... Both times I was hired about 3 days after I had started looking for it. So, all i want to say to those American kids, who don't have a job: stop complaining and start actually looking for it. There are tons of jobs. Isn't that weird that foreigners can find a job and the locals can't?	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-19 16:33:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	The Cannery chicks are in! :)	#######...why are they doing this ? It's the only thing this crappy village has going for it other than flights out of this sh*t hole. Cutting back on the cannery worker chicks? Please tell me your just kidding. I wish I could tell you I was kidding, but I can't. http://wollt.org/en/...j1-workers.html and a link in Russian, i don't know if google will be able to translate it, but: http://gazeta.ru/new...n_1862001.shtml Plus you can ask the girls that managed to get there. Too bad, that's exactly the way I was able to visit the States and stay there for 3-4 months 3 summers in a row. Thank God, I wasn't going to get J-1 visa this year.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-19 14:16:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	The Cannery chicks are in! :)	Every year for three months during the summer, it's like a taste of heaven hits this fishing village when it gets populated by hot RUB chicks working the cannery's. They come here on some kind of temp worker visa. Work and Travel J-1 visa. There should be a lot less of them this summer, so many J-1 visas got denied this year	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-19 10:12:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Russia cuts electricity supply to Belarus	This is why Putin has problems with Georgia.. They soon will be in Nato and the EU.. He refuses to honor the agreement he made after the 5 day war.. His troop numbers are still tripled in Abkazia and Ossetia.. Abkhazia and South Ossetia don't want to be parts of Georgia since 1992 and it has nothing to do with Putin What happened in 2008 has by far more serious cause than most American people might think. It's weird though, why the same people, who say that Chechnya should be independent are against independent Abkhazia and South Ossetia.	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-23 15:55:00
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus	Russia cuts electricity supply to Belarus	The most recent thing I could find was that as of last night at midnight, Russia was going to shut off its delivery of electricity to Belarus. But the article also said that only 10% of its electric power comes from Russia. The problem for Belarus is the same as so many other countries, they have no money. http://telegraf.by/2011/06/russia-delays-electricity-cutoff-for-belarus.html I'm pretty sure Lukashenko knows where to find the money, but what does he care?	ONA	Female	Russia	2011-06-22 14:48:00