I got an incentive. I did have the intention to speak about Russian people and imagine what it would be to live in in a country that has time and time again throughout history shown how things are done there, how dangerous Russia is to people who do not share the beliefs of the current leaders, freedom of speech is nonexistent and how that seems, from a Finns point of view, to affect to the people living there and to the people living in the neighboring countries.

Of course, thank goodness, I have no idea what it is to live in Russia and I'd like to keep it that way. But I would think that the reactions vary very much as people come from different backgrounds, see things differently and react to things differently. Just like in any other country. But the thing is that in Russia there's also the government provided "incentive". Polls done in totalitarian countries are what they are, more or less unreliable. The info people get is restricted and also people are scared of what might happen to them if they say their opinion out loud.

Who is Aleksandr Solženitsyn? --> https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Sol%C5%BEenitsyn

Then there are of course those people in Russia who publicly oppose the government. Again throughout history. That truly takes guts. I don't know what I would do if the consequences would be to go to prison for criticizing the leaders or actually fear any harm being done to my family or perhaps even end up being assassinated because of speaking the truth.

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1503457457393352706

If you have not yet heard about this demonstration, I suggest you click the thread open and roll down to the YouTube video. And of course there's also the translation in the tweet thread.

I also thought about writing about the thing how now everything is different. How people are appalled about the fact that Russia has started a war and invaded Ukraine. How war is now in Europe and never before there has been so many war crimes and so many people helping refugees because how terrible everything is. News coverage in Finland is mostly about Ukraine war. And I do understand that. We have 1340 km border line with Russia, only about 5,5 million people which is about 38-39 million less than the population of Ukraine and the constant information war that has been going on for several years is quite alarming. Remember how Russia gathered it's troops near Ukraine border because they had just "normal military drills" with Belarus and when asked if they had any intensions in invading Ukraine, they said no, no intensions. Right.

Here's a convenient meme of the relations between Finland and Russia. The person in the left is Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö.

S.N. "Isn't it so Putler that you have no reasonable cause to invade Finland?"
Futin: "No I don't."
S.N. "Therefore you won't invade Finland?"
Fuckin: "Ntz🤡"

So can you trust what the government of Russia or Putin says? What have they said before and done? The obvious conclusion is that trusting Russia would be foolish. Of course there's a slight irony in there too.

I'm really curious to know that what has changed? Russia occupied Crimea and the news coverage about that wasn't even close to the scale of what it's now. And of course Russia has invaded other countries too and completely destroyed, wiped out and annihilated cities, people and countries before this. For instance Georgia and Syria. And that's only the last 20 years. See what other countries Russia has either tried to invade or has invaded or how Russia has treated it's own people throughout the history. Click and read the full thread.

https://twitter.com/MaximEristavi/status/1495323069539405826

So I would suggest that...

...but considering the current situation I feel that it might be a shitty vacation or that it might suddenly be longer than you first intended it to be. "Where to go, how many rubles to visit museums, what to buy, careful what you say or have said in the internet, do I get to go to prison..." Just the normal things tourists need to think about when on a vacation.

But I guess any experience is a tick to the checklist of experiences, no matter how bad they might be. Below is a picture of a former Russian beautyblogger (in 2022) who has finally learned after one year of sanctions and war with Ukraine what it is to live in the almighty Russia. Hardships make you look older.

Life is hard when you have to plow the field without designer shoes and when all the plows are forged to war tanks and guns. (That is not a plow, I know, it's probably a harrow but using the word plow suits better here.)

But I went slightly off track there, I was going to say that even though I have no idea why this war is now so much more covered in the news but the occupation of Crimea wasn't, I have a very good guess of the reasons why the war against Ukraine and the refugees fleeing from Ukraine seem to matter more than all the refugees before from other countries. Let's just call it what it is.

Racism.

Did you know that Ukrainians can travel almost free in Finnair plains? Did you also know that by just showing their passport Ukrainians can travel for free in the Finnish railways (for a limited time, I think until the end of April) and also in public transport in the major cities. Did you also know that none of the other refugees from other countries can't do that or never have been given the chance to the same? I hear other countries also have decided similar things.

Good for Ukrainian refugees, utterly disgusting that it's not for other refugees too who have had to leave their homes because of wars.

But.

I won't write about that either. I'd love to continue writing about how openly racist companies and people are but perhaps in some other post.

As I said before, not gonna write about those things. Not now, that is. What I do want to address is this comment I got. Or perhaps this is more about the commenter and people like him than the comment: TL;DR. https://peakd.com/@baah/re-insaneworks-r8pc2g

And I thought that I write long comments. As I wrote, it is too long, didn't read it, but when scrolling down I couldn't avoid seeing the same texts and images that few social media places are full of. Putinism, propaganda, cluelessness, illogicalities that are said to be facts but if you even think about them, just a little bit, you realize that there's something fishy there. And of course some of the claims, when you fact check, crumble down very easily and few of the so called "facts" that some of the trolls spread, you can identify as part of the information war that has been going on for a while now. This comment maker, a true trolley troll, is a lost cause. At least for me because I have zero desire on trying to even discuss with him about any of his writings because it's never a good thing to start a comment calling someone with any slur. I'm not offended but not gonna be provoked or go to the direction where he wants me to go. And I have no interest in talking with anyone about the "facts" he want's me to talk about after that long comment. So, too long, didn't read. But thank you @opidia for tagging this troll to one of my memes post. I really appreciate what you did. This experience is like when you walk outside on a beautiful summer day, smelling the air and flowers and some turd, an internet troll walks by and let's out a horrible spray of gas that smells like the farter has been eating at least one year old fermented skunks, drunk beer made from cabbages and corpse flowers, spiced it with nuclear waste and washed themselves in sewage water. I like him so much that I've told him repeatedly how repulsive he is, even though he doesn't get it. But without his long-ass comment, I perhaps would have not written this post. And this will be more than a memes post, this will be a useful post!

I've already written more than I usually write and I haven't even started with the subject that I'm going to talk about. But now I will.

As I already said, the loooooong commenter, the trolly troll, the spammer, changing his mind, making him see at least a tiny bit of truth, is not my goal. I couldn't care less. I don't know which is sadder, are these his own opinions or is he paid to say all that, it's irrelevant. It's been entertaining commenting back to him because I too, sometimes, get bored and if you clicked the link to the comment and scrolled down to my comments you can see that I've been using him as an excuse to find MORE MEMES! _{I did say in one of the previous meme post that when I do something, I dig really deep and do things properly. And I'm not done yet with memes. Not at all! So the troll just ignited my resent passion for memes. I thought that I was over memes but apparently am not.}

The other, more important reason why I write this is that I bet there might be at least one person reading this (not many I hope) who are tilting to the way the troll thinks, but whose mind could be changed to a healthier direction. And I also aim to give you tools for media criticism. Furthermore a quick glance at the information war that is going on everywhere.

A help guide wouldn't be anything without this kind of tittle:
_{I'm going to make it bigger so you know it's the real tittle.}

How to spot misinformation, trolls and how to deal with information war?

But I feel that after all these memes and considering how long this post already is, I should continue this topic in a second post (Yes! A sequel!) that has a bit more serious approach in it. (Serious? So boring.) _{I promise to write it soon. Within a week. (Oh, such pressure already.)}

I know what you're thinking. "This long introduction and now you're just going to end the post without writing about the thing you've talked about? What an anticlimax!"

Yes. Exactly so. Ain't I the worst?

Then again...

No, I'm not thinking about writing about the topic I said I would but thinking about ending this post with memes. How does that sound? A shitload of memes about Putin and Zelenskyi and war and general attitude and you know what... TRACTORS!

BTW: Look what I found: https://pixelforest.itch.io/farmers-stealing-tanks. A browser game in which you command a Ukrainian tractor to tow away Russian tanks.

So here we go. You have been warned. I'll give you everything I got. (almost) Memes, memes, memes, political art and satire. Have you seen all these before? If you're not interested, which would be kind of baffling because the word memes was in the tittle, click yourself outta here or roll all the way to the bottom. There's one essential art work I want you to see.

Previous posts with memes:
https://peakd.com/hive-177682/@insaneworks/toying-with-ai-art-and-mixing-it
https://peakd.com/hive-177682/@insaneworks/its-meme-and-satire-time-again
https://peakd.com/hive-133617/@insaneworks/serious-business-and-memes

One last meme. Don't believe the follow me text, it's not the same person as the one in the drawn picture. The hilarious person in the picture and who you should follow (if you're the following type) is this person: https://www.instagram.com/khaby00 and: https://www.tiktok.com/@khaby.lame

And one last art work which is absolutely spot on.

When ever possible, walk, go by bike or use public transport. And demand your government to do more for pedestrians, cyclist and remind them constantly of making the public transit better.