Currently living in Moscow, details via e-mail.

are you male or female? It’s not often I’m asked out by blokes. Where are you from?

Looking forward to hearing from you. We could meet at one of the Kofe Khauses downtown.

There’s a nice one around Chisty Prudy (when you go towards the Armenian embassy).

ReluctantMuscovite

I’ll send you an email, thanks!

Ger

Mail me at khlynov@gmail.com

Thanks.

By the way I live in Tsvetnoi Bulvar in the centre of Moscow. If that isnt taking my own advice then I dont know what is.

My point about Irish is that I AM Irish. You suggested me and querty are fake westerners like those that write in Pravda. Are you actually taking the piss out of us? I never said anything about needing to speak Irish to have an opinion. If that was the case, the Irish themselves wouldnt have an opinion cos most of us dont speak the language!(I’ve only got the basics and dirty words)

As for arguing facts, I’ve put them repeatedly to LR both here and on her own site and she wont answer, SHE descended to personal insults.
And if you are a Russia visitor -which I doubt actually -you would see through most of her opinions. Clearly you dont.

“By the way Will have you ever been to Russia? If not, then shut up, you arent entitled to an opinion.”

Yes, I have. I am there regularly. I was in St Petersburg last week…. so perhaps you should take your own advice.

Incidentally, your logic is completely barmy. If I haven’t visited a country I am not entitled to comment on anything that happens in it?

Come on!

So… for example, a nice little old lady in Cork gets her head smashed in with a bottle by a drunk. And only those who have an intimate knowledge of Ireland and can speak Irish are allowed to pronounce an opinion on the morality of such an attack??

Listen to yourself. Did you really mean to say that? Even you can’t support that, surely?

And once again it proves my point. If they can’t argue with facts these guys just descend to personal insult.

I don’t need to.

first of all, if you look at what I put to her above regarding some of the ‘facts’ on her blog, you’ll see she hasnt responded. The only one not responding to facts is LR. Time and again I have posted those questions and all I received was abuse. She is unable to answer because the stuff she has posted is innaccurate. The stuff SHE puts there. The copy and paste jobs do indeed contain useful information but the spin put on them is horrendous. If you cant see that then there’s something wrong with you. Also, half the stuff put there by Pasko and his ilk and Anna Appelbaum (married to the Polish Minister for defence, if you dont mind) – is totally biased against Russia. Some of her personal attacks are outrageous as well.
The bottom line is that it suited the US to have Russia as it was in the mid 90s – on its knees. And that Russia is starting to slowly stand up is upsetting a lot of people.

As for working for the FSB, Pravda…groan. Do you have any new lines instead? Here’s a line for you in Irish: ”Ta si ghoail doite agus amadan” -she’s a dried up bitch and a fool(the literal translation is too rough tp put here). If you can find someone in Pravda or the FSB that can speak Irish, then fair play to you. If not, go change your record.
By the way Will have you ever been to Russia? If not, then shut up, you arent entitled to an opinion.

Ger

As a rule, I don’t argue with people who are so right.

I believe there are only two ways to deal with someone like LR:

1) ignore her completely and laugh off everything she says; just for fun, I put a comment in her blog that I completely agree with everything she says about Russia and that thanks to it now Russia seems to me quite a good country – she didn’t display this one, of course;
2) act the same way as her. I must say she uses a classic way of dealing with criticism – maybe you’ve heard a Russian saying “против лома нет приема”, literally “against a crow-bar, one can’t hit back”. Only, you know, this method is usually not employed by healthy, reasonable and cultured individuals, for they don’t want to degrade down to her level.

I bet she’ll be delighted to learn that she is using the method that is best described by a Russian saying; what a pity that I don’t care what she thinks!

Konstantin2005 has already brilliantly diagnosed her unfortunate condition: http://konstantin2005.blogspot.com/2006/09/kim-diagnosed-at-last.html

I just think we, who are reasonable about Russia, shoud all rejoice that LR keeps writing for it will help to convert more people to Russophiles!

LR publishes a very detailed collection of articles on Russia today. If you ignore her admittedly sometimes intemperate comments you are left face to face with a damming indictment of the state of Russia today,

….Written by OTHERS, not by her.

Because you can’t answer that you (those of you who aren’t already working for the FSB professionally and posing as LR critics)just start throwing insults about.

If you deleted every comment LR had made on her blog you would be left with material which was no less horrifying, even if a little less colourfully presented.

Any intelligent observer of the howls of rage generated by the LR interview would presume, as I do, that those shouting loudest are trying to psyche themselves up into some mutual cameraderie of victimhood and outrage. What you need to realise is that that is NOT the same as being in the right, even if it gives you a cosy feeling of being part of the same tribe.

Guys it won’t wash.

(By the way some of your names sound as real as the ones of those “Westerners” who write opinion pieces for Pravda.)

[Flash of insight..... maybe you are the same?]

thanks for the support! I dont have a whole lot of it here! I asked her all these questions on her own site and she banned me and another guy, Sergei Varginskiy, who totally humiliated her by actually getting a letter from the Austrian tourist board which ruined one of her posts, totally exposing it as lies(she claimed that some Austrian resort was going to have a quota of Russian visitors). What gets me about this whole blog stuff, which I’m new to, is that someone can be such a sad individual and so consummed with hatred to even bother posting this stuff. Her interview shows she understands NOTHING of Russia at all. Khodorkovsky, President? I have more chance and I’m Irish. The Russians just wouldnt have it, never mind President Putin! Go look at her profile. She suggests replacing the Russian anthem with a Woodie Guthrie song. I kid you not. Sometimes I really do think she just someones idea of humour. There cant be someone so mad, stupid, rude,ignorant of Russia and tasteless. There just can be! It must be make believe! Of course, all of us eXile readers are morons. She misses the point completely. It also pisses her off totally that I’m Irish -she claims to have studied there and probably has happy memories of getting drunk there, a major pastime back in the old country. That someone who is neither American nor Russian criticises her bothers her greatly.

Ger

ps dont bother replying LR, like Qwerty I dont care what you have to say cos its all utter shite anyway as we say in Ireland.

Dear LR, if you ever read this: please don’t bother to respond, for I really don’t care. Thanks for the good laughs, anyway.

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/22/russia-reactions-to-larussophobes-interview/

Some really hardcore stuff is due out shortly.

Sounds very tolerant readers, doesnt it?

Also, your own hypocrisy is breathtaking. Back on your own site you say there’s nothing wrong with anonymity and that you practice it and yet above you lambast Vladislav for asking about your fake name(or rather, half fake name…) Are you ‘not right in the head’ as we Irish say, or as the Russians say ‘is your roof sliding off’?)) Are you so dumb or pig headed as not to see your own double standards?
There are not dozens of people working on your site. The sickening self righteous style of writing from you is the same all over. Its obviously the work of just one person. And lastly, you criticise(with validity) Vladislav’s question about education. Yet in one of your own posts about Mark Ames you sanctimoniously attack Ames on educational grounds because of a piece he wrote about two men with PhDs, the thrust of which was that his education was inferior to that of the two PhDs and therefore his opinion was worth much less. I’d have far more respect for a Russia based expat’s opinion on Russian matters than some arts degree waffler sitting on his arse in the US talking through his backside about Rossiya, who wouldnt know borsh from bloody solyanka.
At this stage I’m starting to wonder if you are actually a huge practical joke designed just to get us all worked up. I’m not joking at all when I say that.

No prize though – sorry. I’m mean like that.

As a challenge to your readers, I might point out that I think a goodly number of commenters have overlooked a valuable opportunity to put in their own answers to some of the interesting questions you’ve asked, in addition to expressing their notions about LR. One can’t help but see this failure as rather convincing proof of hypocrisy on the part of some who, while they attack LR for attacking Russia, choose to only attakc LR and thereby miss opportunities to contribute material of substance themselves. And in fact, in a larger sense, it’s a rather interesting case study for the point I made in answering question #16, that certain people fail to show the same kind of tolerance towards LR that they demand LR show towards Russia. I believe my thesis has (once again) been proven correct.

Is that your real name? If not, you’re a hypocrite. If so, prove it.

Why do you ask me a bunch of questions without telling me why you want to know? Why do you feel the need to be so secretive?

1. (a) Who says Kim Zigfeld is a pseudonym? I’ve never said so. How dare you make this assumption without first asking me whether it is the case or not? I demand an apology. (b) Why doesn’t Konstantin of Russian Blog tell us his full real name? Why didn’t Joe Klein of “Primary Colors” tell us? Why did Alexander Pope and Samuel Clemmens publish anonymously? Why do hundreds of Russian journalists write anonymously in newsprint every day of the week? Why do so many people (maybe even you) who comment on blogs do so anonymously? I suggest you research the subject and report back to us. There are lots of excellent reasons for anonymity, and I for one have no problem with it. Therefore, I freely offer it to contributors to my blog if desired.

2. Are you asking because you want to attack me on personal grounds, being unable to deal with the substance of my reporting? If so, your question is highly offensive. For your information, I specifically make no reference to this topic because I have no desire to artificially bolster my views. They stand on their own for what they are worth. I find it very irritating when people say “you must listen to me because I graduated from Harvard” and I think it drives “ordinary” people, whose insights are often much more valuable, away from the conversation.

3. See #2.

4. I don’t keep track (I don’t get paid to do it, I’m a volunteer). In my opinion, only a psychopath would do so, and your question is quite odd.

5. See #4.

6. Dozens and dozens.

– Kim Zigfeld

1. Why do you not reveal your identity rather than hide behind a pseudonym or pseudonyms? No other blogger feels the need to remain anonymous and David Johnson even publishes his home address in his JRL.

2. What is your educational background?

3. Are you employed, and if so what is your current profession?

4. How many hours a day do you spend researching and writing posts for La Russophobe?

5. How many hours a day do you spend commenting on, or responding to comments on La Russophobe and other Russia-themed blogs?

6. How many other people, if any, are involved with La Russophobe either on a daily basis or as needed?

[Remainder of comment deleted].

Andy writes: I’ve removed the rest of Texaco’s comment, as I don’t feel that the comments of individual posts on Siberian Light are an appropriate forum to post responses to individual posts on other weblogs. Especially when the comment has only just been submitted and the weblog’s owner has not been given sufficient time to moderate the comment.

I would have informed you of this by email, Texaco, but the email address you provided was texaco@texaco.com.

Ger

by the way you are perfectly entitled to insult me as much as you want. You might as well, seeing as you’re so bad at dealing with valid questions.

And while I agree that the talk-radio, smashmouth approach is effective in building an audience and perhaps in raising awareness of your target issues, I don’t think such an approach leads to good policy decisions on complex issues. I’m not sure where I lauded the “best and brightest,” but I’d certainly rather have JFK in the White House than Rush Limbaugh, Bay of Pigs notwithstanding.