I don't know Finnish, but the Russian inscription on the border sign reads simply, "A checkpoint", not "Total and Utter Bastards". If your translation was an irony, it was founded only on the story of people trying to cross the border in an unregistered car, not on the sign. The ironical "translation" is diminishing my trust in your other articles.

I admire your column that brings up interesting points about Russia's policies and events. Good luck and keep up with your serious work.

It's not my translation, it's copied from another website where it was published in English, as clearly indicated in the text. And it IS an ironical criticism of Russia. Everyone understands that is not really what the sign says, but what it SHOULD say if it were honest. To put it more simply, it's a JOKE.

if they trying to cross border with fake insurance documents then surely they are 'total and utter fucking wankers'. your story shows opposite of what you want. it show russian guy doing his job efficiently, english guy behaving like asshole.

What makes you think that wasn't our point? Of course it was! Russians are always right, and foriegners are always wrong! Russia doesn't need friends, it needs enemies, and to teach the rest of the world how to live!

You see, as is often the case with Russia, the point isn't whether the country has the technical legal right to do something, the question is whether it acts in its own best interests or not. Russia can sell weapons to Venezuela, it has the right. But it is it wise to exercise it? And if it's going to exercise it, there are ways and there are are ways. But it seems poor Russians, just like you, will never understand this. That's why they're becoming extinct.

PS: Also, you could use a bit of work on your ability to take joke!

I suppose it's nice in a way for forums or blogs to have their very own troll. I'm afraid LR is just a bit unfortunate that Anonymous is so dull. (So dull and so lazy he can't even invent a name for himself.)

However, Anon, you do nonetheless add a certain piquancy to the daily reading. I try to guess which entries are going to get your goat and elicit a comment from you. So far I've usually been wrong but, now that a few days have passed, I think I'm beginning to see the algorithm.

For example, there's no trolling of your useless non-views in the serious stuff: you have no comment to make about the Matvey Ganapolsky essay "The Lie as National Idea", the "Sounds Like Stalin" article, or the Illarionov material that has been appearing recently.

Of course. These are actually difficult to argue against: they hit the bulls eye with sound argument and facts and would be difficult (impossible) to refute.

No, your level is a cheap shot at a joke that in your petty humourlessness you mistook for genuine error...

And that's the algorithm. And - sadly - the level of most Russophiles.

Couldn't a serious one, a worthy opponent, join in?

Or is it perhaps that there is no such beast and we are simply faced with countless numbers of Russophiles of the level of dear Anonymous and that for each one struck down, endless replacements move up from the rear? A depressing thought.