
On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm - wellactually
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/world/europe/russia-internet-norilsk-youtube-arctic.html
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0x38B
Enjoyed the excellent photos and reporting.

As far as "Life without fast internet":

"Residents adjusted. They created an intracity computer network that, among
other things, allowed locals to download pirated movies and TV shows without
connecting to the wider web. Going on vacation, several said, meant sitting in
a hotel room, updating smartphone apps and taking in the bounties of the
online world, even if the beach beckoned."

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PopeDotNinja
It sounds like what people do (or did a could years ago) in Cuba [1]

[1] [https://www.wired.com/2017/07/inside-cubas-diy-internet-
revo...](https://www.wired.com/2017/07/inside-cubas-diy-internet-revolution/)

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neonate
[https://web.archive.org/web/20191021001258/https://www.nytim...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191021001258/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/world/europe/russia-
internet-norilsk-youtube-arctic.html)

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rconti
This is just really confusing to me. I had no idea that propaganda was so
resurgent in Russia. I thought openness to modern/popular media would have
knocked down a lot of misinformation about "the west".

I think of Russians as being active participants on the Internet; I would have
thought that this would keep a bit of a lid on single-point-of-view
propaganda. (Obviously there's plenty of misinformation on the internet, but
it's not all from a single political view)

Why is Russia pushing so hard to spread Internet access in such a situation?

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empath75
Only 1/3rd of russians can speak english, supposedly -- and most of Russian
language media online is controlled from moscow.

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adventured
Only? ~33% is a high number that is also not reasonably close to being correct
(as your supposedly is correctly suspicious of). I saw that figure on the
Russia Beyond site, it's heavily misleading. Russia is rather notorious for
having a very low percentage of English speakers.

By contrast, 33% is nearly as high as in France and Italy and is far higher
than in Spain. Obviously it's false.

Only 3% of Russians are fluent in English. Only 5% spoke English as of the
2010 census. Even that is probably a stretch, as it's just a result of listing
languages people claimed to know (which says nothing of the true capability).
If we were generous to the last decade of English adoption, it's likely still
well under 10% that speak it at all. You can also see this in action in
Eastern Ukraine and Belarus, where English adoption is extremely low compared
to most of Europe.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-
speaking_population)

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cpursley
I can confirm, Russia has extremely low English competency. 3% sounds about
right from my experience (I live here). Which is a good thing of course, as it
forces me to learn Russian.

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freehunter
I was pretty surprised recently when I visited St Petersburg. I went on a tour
and the tour guide spoke flawless English for the whole three hour tour. Until
someone asked her a question in English. And another. And another. And with
each one it became more apparent that she did not speak English, she just
memorized the tour in English.

One of the more interesting things I took from the trip.

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empath75
She probably knows some english, just not conversational. I can read spanish
and I could certainly memorize a spanish language speech and even pronounce it
fairly well, but I struggle to have anything beyond and extremely basic
conversation in Spanish.

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codeulike
Just last week I stumbled upon this gallery of photos of Norilsk

[http://www.bbc.com/culture/gallery/20190321-norilsk-the-
city...](http://www.bbc.com/culture/gallery/20190321-norilsk-the-city-where-
the-sun-doesnt-rise)

 _Taken over seven months in 2012 to 2013 as part of her Days of Night /Nights
of Day project, Russian photographer Elena Chernyshova’s images reveal what
it’s like to live in one of the world’s most isolated cities. In Norilsk,
winter lasts nine months – and during the polar night the sun doesn’t rise for
two months._

One of the roads in the city is on Google Street View

[https://goo.gl/maps/LrzbFMFLuUvY7sdJ8](https://goo.gl/maps/LrzbFMFLuUvY7sdJ8)

edit: And all the way along the street, you see 4 people in Google-coloured
red/green/yellow/blue snowsuits. haha
[https://goo.gl/maps/Z1dFVZBF9fHV1enk7](https://goo.gl/maps/Z1dFVZBF9fHV1enk7)

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incompatible
I have to wonder if the view of the West they are now getting from "YouTube
personalities", Facebook and Instagram is much more accurate than they get
from Putin. Different, certainly.

