It's always interesting reading the biographies of Russian diplomats and public figures:
Wikipedia snippet on Mikhail Bogdanov:
Mikhail Leonidovich Bogdanov (Russian: Михаил Леонидович Богданов; born 2 March 1952) is a Russian diplomat.[1] He is Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia and Special Representative of the President of Russia for the Middle East.[2] He is also Deputy Chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society.[3][4][5]
Mikhail Bogdanov graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in 1974.[6]
As student at MGIMO, he was the captain of the MGIMO basketball team of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and, later, he played professional basketball on the Lokomotiv (basketball club, Moscow).[1][a]
In addition to his mother tongue Russian, Bogdanov is fluent in Arabic and English.[1][2]
Mikhail Bogdanov worked in the Soviet embassies in South Yemen from 1974 to 1977, Lebanon from 1977 to 1980, Syria from 1983 to 1989, and Syria again from 1991 to 1994. He was Russian ambassador to Israel from 1997 to 2002, and ambassador to Egypt, and was concurrently Representative to the Arab League from 2005 to 2011.[6]
It's probably mostly just self-interested politics, but I still hope that some of these people have a bit of the Soviet spirit of anti-imperialism and international solidarity (and lord knows this Bogdanov has the looks).
Socialist countries tended to have very professional diplomatic corps, and in the countries where those weren't purged in 90's* this more or less keeps up.
*idk about Russia but for example surprisingly Poland, while having the shittiest possible Foreign ministry personnel being the prize for least competent party bonzos and their bootlicks, did not purged the professional diplomatic service and even 35 years later they are doing very good job at least until ministry failures cut in (like in case of that fuckup with Iran conference).
I would suspect so as well. Just as people in western politics have been strongly influenced by the system they grew up in, I'd expect Russian politicians internalized at least some Soviet values going through the system.
It's always interesting reading the biographies of Russian diplomats and public figures:
Wikipedia snippet on Mikhail Bogdanov:
It's probably mostly just self-interested politics, but I still hope that some of these people have a bit of the Soviet spirit of anti-imperialism and international solidarity (and lord knows this Bogdanov has the looks).
are we in the fucking nineteenth century?
we are, but unfortunately there will be no fucking
Yes
Socialist countries tended to have very professional diplomatic corps, and in the countries where those weren't purged in 90's* this more or less keeps up.
*idk about Russia but for example surprisingly Poland, while having the shittiest possible Foreign ministry personnel being the prize for least competent party bonzos and their bootlicks, did not purged the professional diplomatic service and even 35 years later they are doing very good job at least until ministry failures cut in (like in case of that fuckup with Iran conference).
I would suspect so as well. Just as people in western politics have been strongly influenced by the system they grew up in, I'd expect Russian politicians internalized at least some Soviet values going through the system.
Death to America