MX177 02.08.2013 - 14:16
The weak point of the US defense has finally been found. It turns out that for seventy years Americans have been afraid of the Russian balalaika like hell! At least that’s what Komsomolskaya Pravda journalists say.
Last week Barack Obama banned public speaking musical groups who play in Russian folk instruments. If we add to this fact the mention of how last fall the American president extended the ban on the free sale of balalaikas in the United States until 2020, then a strange delusional picture emerges before us. Why is the American government terribly afraid of this groovy and, at first glance, very harmless musical instrument? Before you read the answer to a burning question, try answering it yourself. I give you four answer options to choose from.
This happened in 1940. Since then, the decree has been regularly extended. Since 2000, by Clinton's decree, the ban has been extended to Alaska, which was the only place where sales were permitted. Balalaika is considered folk in Alaska musical instrument. At the time of Roosevelt, these lands did not yet have state status, so the ban was circumvented thanks to loopholes in the law.
The reason for the ban was formally the fact that the balalaika is banned in Russia: by the Orthodox Church and the state because “it allows you to mock the authorities.” In fact, in the then USSR the ban had already been lifted. But Orthodox Church just banned. Roosevelt was right about one thing - this tool is really dangerous for the authorities, since it can be used as “soft power”.
Today the ban remains in an incomplete form. Playing the balalaika is not prohibited, although you must have a special license to do so. Mass sale of this tool and industrial production are not permitted. Single private sales are permitted.
Troll 02.08.2013 - 15:31
Why is the American government terribly afraid of this groovy and, at first glance, very harmless musical instrument?
MX177 02.08.2013 - 18:35
Playing the balalaika is not prohibited, although you must have a special license to do so.yyy
after 5 years carved balalaika)
Troll 02.08.2013 - 19:24
main balalaika of mass destruction
That's it!!! With such a thick balalaika you can poison them like cockroaches with chlorine tail!
Nekromanger 02.08.2013 - 19:54
And this is a new division Russian army armed with balalaikas made at the Izhevsk plant under the leadership of Kalashnikov:
ivik 02.08.2013 - 21:34
MX177
The history of the issue dates back to pre-war times, when the then head of the Washington administration, Franklin Roosevelt, signed a secret decree banning balalaikas in the country for a period of 10 years.
In this regard, I remembered one TV program.
Stalin was known to love watching movies. He watched domestic, German, American films. He had favorite actors and unfavorite ones.
So, he really didn’t like US film actor Gregory Peck. Allegedly, he even tried to physically eliminate him (allegedly an operation was even being developed to kill this film actor in which Ukrainian emigrants were supposed to be involved).
Why - this actor created extremely attractive, very convincing film images - “well, a man of capitalism cannot be bad” - this was the opinion that the viewer formed when watching films with the participation of Gregory Peck.
I don’t know how true this is, but in any case, nothing similar was said about any other film actors (in terms of the strength and persuasiveness of their influence on Stalin).
Probably Roosevelt had a similar opinion about the balalaika.
I personally like Gregory Peck - he's a great movie actor. There are probably no such people nowadays.
Kammler 08/03/2013 - 12:01
I really didn’t like US film actor Gregory Peckbefore that they forgot to write or And so - curious OBS.
Troll 08/04/2013 - 10:30
And this is a new unit of the Russian army armed with balalaikas
Such groups are just as destructive for moral basis USA is like the Beatles for a moral framework Soviet Union! Complete decay of bourgeois morality... Oh, my entryway, my entryway...
neil 04.08.2013 - 23:07
TrollYes, exactly because the Soviet government was afraid of electric guitars and long hair on men's hairstyles. And it was not in vain, as it turned out later... As soon as the reins were released, everything went to hell! I would not be surprised to learn that Snowden, since childhood, loved to listen to the Russian balalaika and preferred half-boxing. Now I have discovered Dostoevsky for myself.
AAG 05.08.2013 - 16:54
Holy shit 😀
Neforo 05.08.2013 - 19:49
Safon1 08/14/2013 - 15:00
The black boy takes an example from ours sanitary doctor Onishchenko, he also prohibits all nonsense. This comes from their seething, indignant mind.
Neforo 08/14/2013 - 21:35
By the way, why did Obama decide to legalize 11 million illegal immigrants? Is he counting on gratitude for the party in the elections or is a huge economic effect really expected?
Troll 08/14/2013 - 23:27
By the way, why did Obama decide to legalize 11 million illegal immigrants?
Balalaika has heard enough...
The black boy takes an example from our sanitary doctor Onishchenko,
Don't go after Onishchenko! If not for him, half of Russia would have died from dysentery and lethal obesity. He's great! I respect him.
ceolos 02/28/2014 - 12:08
"The soul flies doomed
From balalaika to knife...
But my friend
He plays ditties best of all!" (c)
In general, skeptics should think about the seriousness of this tool. Have you ever (3.14) been hit with a balalaika? A seemingly gentle instrument is actually very strong, grippy and essentially a bat with two sharp edges!
Ingermanland 02/28/2014 - 20:24
ceolos
Have you ever (3.14) been hit with a balalaika? A seemingly gentle instrument is actually very strong, grippy and essentially a bat with two sharp edges!
JPaganel 03/01/2014 - 23:45
What enchanting nonsense...
It is especially pleasing that the article refers to LiveJournal, which, in turn, does not refer to anything at all.
GL714 03/02/2014 - 12:25
1.) The website that said it is illegal is directly out of Russia and is run by some very anti-anything but russia people.
2.) The other thing I did was send an email to the head of the biggest Balalaika associations and here is his response to “is selling the Balalaika illegal in the US?
There has never been a ban of any kind in the U.S.
Balalaikas haven"t always been plentiful here since not a lot of folks in the U.S. make them and during the Soviet times importing them was a challenge, but there"s certainly no restriction on owning, buying, selling or playing them.
Max McCullough
Executive Director
Ingermanland 03/02/2014 - 04:41
GL714Holy shit.
Max McCullough
Executive Director
The Balalaika and Domra Association of America
We need to do something cooler. For example:
YesMarcus Jackson
Chairman of the Bronx Gusliers Association
Le Roy Johnson
President of the New Orleans Saw, Ax and Washboard Society
Tyrone Brown
All-American Pity Lovers Club
ceolos 03/02/2014 - 11:41
IngermanlandNo, I don’t have a musical education :-) But I have some experience of an epic battle with seasoned balalaika players :-)
Did you miss solfege as a child?
wolfovich1 03/04/2014 - 01:33
MX177
At least that’s what Komsomolskaya Pravda journalists say.
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On March 22, news appeared in a number of Russian media that US President Barack Obama extended the decree banning balalaikas until 2020. Websites were full of messages under the headings “New US sanctions against Russia.”
Next, there is usually an explanation that such a ban has existed in the United States for 70 years, and its effect is updated every 10 years. Some reports talk about a complete ban on the sale of balalaikas, but sometimes it is indicated that, in general, this musical instrument is not prohibited, but a license is required to play it, but its production or sale on a large scale is supposedly truly prohibited.
In fact, there were and are no bans regarding balalaikas in the USA. About this wrote on Twitter, the press secretary of the US Embassy in Russia, William Stevens: “I just heard an excellent urban myth - the United States prohibits the import and sale of balalaikas. This is 100% untrue."
In a commentary for StopFake, Maxwell McCullog, executive director of the Balalaika and Domra Association of America, which has existed in the United States since 1978, debunked the myth: “In the United States there are and never have been any restrictions on owning or making a balalaika, as well as on playing it. There are balalaika orchestras in dozens of American cities, some of them no less than those that exist in Russia. No special license is needed."
McCullogh adds: “It is true that there are no factories in the US that make balalaikas or domras, but this is not at all due to any licensing restrictions. There is simply not enough demand for such a business to be profitable.”
The story of the 70-year ban on balalaikas in the United States has been circulating on the Internet since 2011 and periodically pops up on social networks and even the media. The messages always retell the same text, without citing sources.
Screenshot of ibigdan blog page
Some Russian media realized the absurdity of this story. A few days after the announcement of the ban, KP denied its existence.
Ecuadorian authorities have denied Julian Assange asylum at the London embassy. The founder of WikiLeaks was detained by British police, and this has already been called the biggest betrayal in the history of Ecuador. Why are they taking revenge on Assange and what awaits him?
Australian programmer and journalist Julian Assange became widely known after the website WikiLeaks, which he founded, published secret documents from the US State Department in 2010, as well as materials related to military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But it was quite difficult to find out who the police were leading out of the building, supporting him by the arms. Assange had grown a beard and looked nothing like the energetic man he had previously appeared in photographs.
According to Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno, Assange was denied asylum due to his repeated violations of international conventions.
He is expected to remain in custody at a central London police station until he appears at Westminster Magistrates' Court.
Why is the President of Ecuador accused of treason?
Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa called the current government's decision the biggest betrayal in the country's history. “What he (Moreno - editor’s note) did is a crime that humanity will never forget,” Correa said.
London, on the contrary, thanked Moreno. The British Foreign Office believes that justice has triumphed. The representative of the Russian diplomatic department, Maria Zakharova, has a different opinion. “The hand of “democracy” is squeezing the throat of freedom,” she noted. The Kremlin expressed hope that the rights of the arrested person will be respected.
Ecuador sheltered Assange because former president He held center-left views, criticized US policy and welcomed the publication by WikiLeaks of secret documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even before the Internet activist needed asylum, he managed to personally meet Correa: he interviewed him for the Russia Today channel.
However, in 2017, the government in Ecuador changed, and the country set a course for rapprochement with the United States. New President called Assange “a stone in his shoe” and immediately made it clear that his stay on the embassy premises would not be prolonged.
According to Correa, the moment of truth came at the end of June last year, when US Vice President Michael Pence arrived in Ecuador for a visit. Then everything was decided. “You have no doubt: Lenin is simply a hypocrite. He has already agreed with the Americans on the fate of Assange. And now he is trying to make us swallow the pill, saying that Ecuador is supposedly continuing the dialogue,” Correa said in an interview with the Russia Today channel.
How Assange made new enemies
The day before the arrest editor-in-chief WikiLeaks Kristin Hrafnsson said that Assange was under total surveillance. “WikiLeaks uncovered a large-scale espionage operation against Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy,” he noted. According to him, cameras and voice recorders were placed around Assange, and the information received was transferred to the Donald Trump administration.
Hrafnsson clarified that Assange was going to be expelled from the embassy a week earlier. This did not happen only because WikiLeaks published this information. A high-ranking source told the portal about the plans of the Ecuadorian authorities, but the head of the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry, Jose Valencia, denied the rumors.
Assange's expulsion was preceded by the corruption scandal surrounding Moreno. In February, WikiLeaks published a package of INA Papers, which traced the operations of the offshore company INA Investment, founded by the brother of the Ecuadorian leader. Quito said it was a conspiracy between Assange and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and former Ecuadorian leader Rafael Correa to overthrow Moreno.
In early April, Moreno complained about Assange's behavior at Ecuador's London mission. “We must protect the life of Mr. Assange, but he has already crossed all boundaries in terms of violating the agreement that we came to with him,” the president said. “This does not mean that he cannot speak freely, but he cannot lie and hack.” ". At the same time, back in February last year it became known that Assange at the embassy was deprived of the opportunity to interact with outside world, in particular, his Internet access was cut off.
Why Sweden stopped its prosecution of Assange
At the end of last year, Western media, citing sources, reported that Assange would be charged in the United States. This was never officially confirmed, but it was because of Washington’s position that Assange had to take refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy six years ago.
In May 2017, Sweden stopped investigating two rape cases in which the portal’s founder was accused. Assange demanded compensation from the country's government for legal costs in the amount of 900 thousand euros.
Earlier, in 2015, Swedish prosecutors also dropped three charges against him due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
Where did the investigation into the rape case lead?
Assange arrived in Sweden in the summer of 2010, hoping to receive protection from American authorities. But he was investigated for rape. In November 2010, a warrant was issued for his arrest in Stockholm, and Assange was put on the international wanted list. He was detained in London, but was soon released on bail of 240 thousand pounds.
In February 2011, a British court decided to extradite Assange to Sweden, after which a number of successful appeals followed for the WikiLeaks founder.
British authorities placed him under house arrest before deciding whether to extradite him to Sweden. Breaking his promise to the authorities, Assange asked for asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy, which was granted to him. Since then, the UK has had its own claims against the WikiLeaks founder.
What awaits Assange now?
The man was re-arrested on a US extradition request for publishing classified documents, police said. At the same time, Deputy Head of the British Foreign Ministry Alan Duncan said that Assange would not be sent to the United States if he faced the death penalty there.
In the UK, Assange is likely to appear in court on the afternoon of April 11. This is stated on the WikiLeaks Twitter page. British authorities are likely to seek a maximum sentence of 12 months, the man's mother said, citing his lawyer.
At the same time, Swedish prosecutors are considering reopening the rape investigation. Attorney Elizabeth Massey Fritz, who represented the victim, will seek this.
There is nothing new in the fact that the sanctions imposed by the United States against Russia have long gone beyond all reasonable limits. Another thing is surprising. It turns out that since the time of Franklin Roosevelt, there has been a ban on the production of balalaikas in the USA. This is not a joke. During his second term as President, Barack Obama extended the ban until 2020.
It is difficult to say what guided Franklin Roosevelt when he banned industrial production in the country of balalaikas in 1940 on the eve of World War II. However, the fact remains. The ban, introduced for ten years, was subsequently extended time after time. The most interesting thing is that you can actually play the balalaika in the USA; it is not forbidden to carve it yourself, but you cannot produce it in factories and sell it in stores. However, the explanation for this ban, voiced by the US authorities in the middle of the last century, is completely discouraging. It turns out that the balalaika is a musical instrument that “allows you to mock the authorities.” At the same time, for some reason the authors of the ban did not explain how this actual insult to the authorities occurs. But the most incredible thing is that in Tsarist Russia Also, playing the balalaika and a whole list of musical instruments that were considered unreliable from the point of view of the church and official authorities were not encouraged.
Music of the pagan gods
It turns out that the whole point is in the Christian traditions existing both in the West and in Russia. For all their external contradictions, Christian movements are equally intolerant of their pagan predecessors and everything connected with them. Musical instruments are no exception. The fact is that for a very long time the adherents of the church did not recognize any other music except bell ringing. Wind and string instruments, especially plucked musical instruments, were considered a relic of pagan times. There is some truth in this.
The fact is that in Rus', many pre-Christian gods were assigned one or another musical instrument: a pipe, a horn or a harp. Basically, such gods were the patrons of winds, blizzards, thunderstorms, as well as fertility and seasons. At the same time pagan Rus' wasn't the only weird one with the music gods. The Greeks believed that Hermes created the first lyre by attaching strings to the shell of a turtle. Pan, the patron saint of forests and shepherds in European mythology, hated by Christians, was always depicted with a flute. Well, samogud gusli, domras, balalaikas were the favorite musical instruments of Russian folklore. It was to their sounds that our ancestors performed their religious and magical rituals.
“Vessels of Guess” - into the oven!
It is not surprising that while the common people were reaching out to their original musical instruments, the church, putting pressure on the authorities, tried to exterminate them in the bud. In the middle of the 17th century, a paradoxical situation developed in Russia. On the one hand, artisans and creators of musical instruments had their own settlements, and on the other hand, their products were immediately confiscated and destroyed. Particular persecution was unleashed against balalaikas, gusli, pipes and rattles with the participation of which “demonic games” allegedly took place.
About this fact Russian history In his notes, the European traveler Adam Olearius recounted in detail: “Around 1649, all the ‘hube vessels’ were taken from houses in Moscow, loaded on five carts, taken across the Moscow River and burned there.” It is not surprising that soon it was possible to hear cheerful Slavic music only semi-legally on major holidays and only at fairs. The rehabilitation of Russian musical instruments took place only after the arrival of Soviet power. At the same time, in the USA and European countries, playing on them is still not encouraged.
The RuNet is actively discussing the news about an alleged ban on the production and sale of... balalaikas in the United States. According to a number of information sites, the ban was allegedly introduced in 1940 by American President Roosevelt, and the head of the White House, Barack Obama, extended it for another 10 years in 2010. Lawyers even name the reason for what happened - Roosevelt considered the balalaika a tool of communist propaganda. Here is an example of such text:
On October 2, 2010, US President Barack Obama extended the ban on the sale of balalaikas in the United States for another decade. The history of the issue dates back to the pre-war period of the last century, when the then head of the Washington administration, Franklin Roosevelt, signed a secret decree banning balalaikas in the country for a period of 10 years. This happened in 1940 and since then the decree has been regularly extended.
Since 2000, Clinton's decree extended the ban to Alaska, which was the only place where sales were allowed. The balalaika is considered a folk musical instrument in Alaska. At the time of Roosevelt, these lands did not yet have state status, so the ban was circumvented thanks to loopholes in the law.
The reason for the ban was formally the fact that the balalaika is banned in Russia by the Orthodox Church and the state because it “allows you to mock the authorities.” In fact, in the then USSR the ban had already been lifted. But the Orthodox Church was banned.
Today the ban remains in an incomplete form. Playing the balalaika is not prohibited, although you must have a special license to do so. Mass sale of this tool and industrial production are not permitted. Single private sales are permitted. That’s why J. Flynn’s book “How to Make a Balalaika,” which was published in 1984, enjoys fantastic popularity and has already gone through 9 reprints. For an ordinary American who wants to enjoy the sounds of a balalaika, there is no other way than to make one himself. And it will be impossible to buy a balalaika in a store for at least another ten years.
In fact, the ban on the sale of balalaikas is the US response to the demarche of the then USSR, which banned the sale of cowboy hats. In 1954, hats were allowed to be sold in the USSR, but the ban on the sale of balalaikas in the USA remained. Today is integral part Jackson-Vanik amendments.
The editors of the KP submitted a request to several American departments at once, and also reviewed all publicly available sanctions documents from the US Treasury and Commerce Departments. There is not a word about balalaikas on official websites. The final point was made by the press secretary of the US Embassy in Moscow, William Stevens: “We do not have any information about the existence of an American law prohibiting the import, production or sale of balalaikas in our country. Many American companies sell balalaikas in the USA. The ban on the production or sale of balalaikas in the United States is a myth.”