Winston Churchill once described Russia  as :  "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.,"   This Blogger has had cursory, limited, and superficial, dealings in Holy Mother Russia. He found that the best key to understanding it was reading E.M. Forster’s epic novel about Colonial India, A PASSAGE TO INDIA.    The novel explores the layers of India, riddle, mystery, enigma.   The good-hearted Brit colonizer, CYRIL FIELDING applies his Anglican modernity and tolerance to understanding India, and fails. DR. AZIZ applies his Muslim mental superiority to understanding the nation his religion conquered, and fails.  The Hindu mystic, PROFESSOR NARAYAN GODBOLE may or may not understand India, but he will never tell.   Russia has layers and layers and layers. The modernized Russian, the insular Russian, and, at the hidden core, the atavistic Russian, combining the Mongol and the Viking.   The atavistic Russian does not like suffering; however, he does believe suffering is the

Ukraine is Russia’s Ireland   Ukrainians are Russia’s Irish.   However, it is worse for the Ukrainians than for the Irish; since there is no Irish Sea separating Ukraine from    Russia, just vast vistas of grains.   Imagine if you will, how much more England would covet Ireland, if Ireland contained Camelot and Avalon, Stonehenge and Westminster Abby, Stratford on Avon and Blenheim  on its soil, and not British soil.   That is Ukraine’s existential problem in a nutshell; on its current land, it contains the mystical ground which gave Russia, the LAY OF IGOR’S CAMPAIGN; the first two Saints canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, Boris and Gleb,  were from Kiev. The Russian Orthodox Church itself started in Ukraine . The scene of Russia’s first great military victory, as a great European power, is located in Ukraine, Poltava.   On current Ukrainian soil, is the mystical ground which gave Russia-RUSSIA. Ukraine is Ireland; Russia is Great Britain.   The current carnage in Ukraine is th