Karelia: Russian, Finnish, or should it declare independence?

[Vixen]

Why do you think that Zivan will explain it? AFAIK, Zivan is Jewish and
1) Judaism does not share the Christian obsession with an afterlife
2) in particular, Judaism does not have a "Last Judgment" nor a distinction between Heaven and Hell - the dead just go to Gehenna, end of story
3) neither the writings of St. Paul nor Revelation are part of Jewish scripture.

You're the Lutheran around here, you defend it.

A Jewish friend of mine told me very plainly that Jews do believe in some kind of 'seven heavens'. He was very offended at the suggestion they spend all their time in sheol (_sp?) afterlife, a murky twilight zone.

I understand the Russian Greek Orthodox go straight to heaven as soon as they die, whereas as we have to wait until the thousand years are up, so maybe they are on to something.

 

[Agatha]

Please try harder to stick to the topic, which is independence for Karelia. Theological points belong in the Religion and Philosophy forum.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Agatha

 

[Vixen]

Russian researcher into Stalin atrocities is allegedly being persecuted in Russian Karelia:

His real crime, they say, has been dedicating himself to documenting Stalin’s 1937-38 Great Terror, in which nearly 700,000 people were executed, according to conservative official estimates. Dmitriev, 62, found a mass grave with up to 9,000 bodies dating from the period.

It is well known that the Stalin regime executed >1,000 Finns and Karelians in 1937 -1938.


Could it be Russia is covering up mass graves, and this is the real reason Karelia remains a waste land?

In 1997, Dmitriyev, a self-taught researcher and ethnographer, discovered a mass grave in the woods of Karelia full of skulls that had holes in them. So began a two-decade-long effort to locate, identify and commemorate more than 9,500 victims assassinated there on Josef Stalin's orders in the 1930s. Through archival work and expeditions in the woods, Dmitriyev turned the unknown killing field into a memorial where the relatives of the dead could finally pay their respects, lay flowers and cry. A giant stone marking the site, known as Sandramokh, is engraved with the words "People, Don't Kill Each Other."

"It cannot be that a person would just disappear without a trace. If he was starved to death or executed, the person must have a grave," Dmitriyev said in one video interview before his arrest. "Memory is what makes us human."

Dmitriyev's supporters speculate that he drew local officials' ire when the commemoration events at Sandarmokh started attracting broad public attention. Some experts also believe that because the Russian government today is heavily staffed and influenced by members of security agencies, whose predecessors conducted the purges, Dmitriyev's work is a thorn in their sides.

Writer Dmitry Bykov said Dmitriyev's case is a metaphor for today's Russia.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/fears-russia-researcher-stalin-purges-arrested-103506235.html

 

[LondonJohn]

Russian researcher into Stalin atrocities is allegedly being persecuted in Russian Karelia:



It is well known that the Stalin regime executed >1,000 Finns and Karelians in 1937 -1938.


Could it be Russia is covering up mass graves, and this is the real reason Karelia remains a waste land?

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/fears-russia-researcher-stalin-purges-arrested-103506235.html

No, it categorically is not the "real reason".

Even if there are mass graves of up to 9,000 bodies somewhere in (Russian) Karelia, this is an almost-literal drop in the ocean of (Russian) Karelia's total land area.

By some gigantic stretch, the most likely reason why (Russian) Karelia remains relatively unpopulated (NB: not a "wasteland" - but that deliberately (and misleadingly) pejorative term is duly noted....) is that insufficient numbers of Russians wish to live there. And that in turn is almost certainly due to 1) its relatively remote (to other major Russian centres of population) location, 2) its topography, and/or 3) a lack of investment in suitable infrastructure (which is in its turn almost certainly informed by (1) and (2).

 

[Agatha]

[mod =Agatha] As the Russian monarchy thread has become a joint discussion of monarchical restoration, independence for Karelia and Finnish actions in WWII, I am closing this thread. To merge the threads would lead to it being impossible to follow the discussions, and to split out the derail would mean such extensive editing of substantive posts that the result would be a mess.

Please continue your discussion of independence for Karelia in this thread. [/mod]