Everybody is doing “2014 in Review” series, listing the subjects they blogged about in the departing year. But I post so much that I can hardly remember any of it. So instead of the regular year in review, I will remind you of some posts that, I believe, represent each month of the passing year.
January 2014: The year started with a discussion of what makes immigrants so successful (yes, as I said many times, “immigrant” is the only collective identity I value and am proud of). I also shared a very painful thing students did to me.
February 2014: Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimea. I had trouble convincing people that it was important. N and I started looking for a house to buy and I discovered how hard it was for me to let go of my Ukrainian peasant origins. I was also reading Tony Judt and discussing racism and xenophobia in the USSR.
March 2014: We did our self-care and happiness challenge and it was fun. I visited Montreal and fell in love with beautiful, doll-like Lola. And people kept offending me with their incapacity to understand what was happening in Ukraine.
April 2014: I started my Bildung series that were wildly popular with readers. There was also a funny pro-Russian protest in the city where I was born. And I also met the Happy Hedgehogs mansion for the first time ever.
May 2014: I got my driver’s license and met my very first car for the very first time. I also discovered that Gen-Xers are total squares when compared to the wild and spoiled boomers.
June 2014: We finally moved and I almost died of exhaustion but still created a beautiful first dinner at the new place. And I started my endless series of posts on the collapse of the nation-state with this post written on a sleepless night between bouts of feverish packing.
Jule 2014: The blog’s readers helped me figure out what TPing a house was all about. I was supervising my contractor and engaging in profound philosophical talks with him. And N forced me to erupt in a string of ““WTF STFU LOL KGB FSB USSR but WTF???”
August 2014: I threw my very first party and it was a great success. The party made me think about social graces a lot. I also wrote about the disease of patriotism.
September 2014: I tried to get in touch with Anastasia Stogova but it didn’t work and tried figuring out the collapse of the nation-state.
October 2014: N and I attempted to celebrate Halloween but failed abjectly. But I also analyzed Putin’s extremely important speech and excelled. We also had an interesting discussion of corruption.
November 2014: I suffered because of looking like a vampire. My new phone was starting to learn my language and Kuzechka explored Amsterdam.
December 2014: I started answering questions on the USSR and shared the uplifting story of the heroes of Donetsk Airport.
This was a great blogging year. The blog readership grew by the standard 40,000 hits this year (that’s how it is every year since I stopped doing any self-promotion or commenting on other blogs), reaching 693,000. We gained some really great regular readers and commenters and lost a single reader to a ban. But this is something who had been asking for it for years. Smug, condescending folks without a trace of self-irony annoy me.
My blogging goal (not for next year but eventually) is 1,000,000 hits per year. We are at almost 700,000 as it is, so it’s definitely doable. I’ll try to think of ways to bring that goal closer.
I’m sure the next blogging year will be even better. Happy New Year!!!
Clarissa's Blog 
Not everybody is doing a 2014 review blog post. I am not, but then again only my parents read my blog. 😎
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Hmm, I know I’m old but am I old enough to be your parent? 🙂 🙂
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You are a lot younger than me. I was in my twenties when the USSR collapsed.
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Happy New Year Clarissa! Be sure to tell us what delicious dishes you are cooking up! 🙂
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Pictures are forthcoming! 🙂
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I’ve been reading a few of these yearend reviews. Typical comment on the Ukraine by a progressive blog:
“One of the very first things Willy Wonkoshenko did was order his Swastika-toting storm troops to go and kill more East Ukrainians, whose ‘official’ president he had just become (and they did). This all happened under US/EU command (Ukraine itself couldn’t fund a brass band, let alone an army).”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/01/ilargi-year-2014-5-narratives.html
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It is going to get worse. Oliver Stone is planning on doing a movie along the lines that the Ukrainian Revolution was completely organized and directed by the CIA.
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Even worse than the new American popular movie entitled “The Interview” depicting the North-Korean regime.
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Seriously? ?? Unbelievable shit.
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Here is Mr. Stone’s most recent comments on the project.
https://www.facebook.com/TheOliverStone?fref=photo
Nightingale’ in Ukraine
For those of you angry with my analysis of Ukraine yesterday, please try to understand the bigger picture I’m offering. I have no brief for Viktor Yanukovych, he may well be the most corrupt president Ukraine’s ever had. Ukraine has a dramatic history of corruption. That is not my point. How Yanukovych was removed is — and although many (perhaps a majority) of Ukrainian people wanted him out, there is ample evidence of pro-Western, third party interference, beginning with Victoria Nuland, John McCain, USAID, National Endowment for Democracy (who apparently organize very well on Facebook and Twitter), etc. Why for instance are so many policemen dead and wounded, and yet no one has investigated this in the new government?
The other point to consider in the big picture is US involvement with Ukraine going back to 1949, when the CIA and strongly anti-Soviet Defense Secretary James Forrestal created a guerrilla army codenamed ‘Nightingale,’ made up of ultra-nationalist Ukrainians. The Nazis originally set up the prototype of this militia up in 1941 to wreak havoc in famine-racked regions where Soviet control was loose, carrying out the murder of 1000s of Jews, Soviets, and Poles who opposed a separate Ukrainian state.
Beginning in 1949, for 5 years the CIA parachuted Ukrainian infiltrators into the region. To the Soviets it was as if the US were infiltrating guerrillas into Canada or Mexico.
The big picture is the US has never given up on using Ukraine as a launching pad to the underbelly of the Soviet Union, now a reduced Russia. This Cold War 2.0 policy continues in a most deadly fashion, and whether they know it or not, the Ukrainian civilian population in the middle has suffered greatly from this ideological crusade.
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Who is this Stone and how many times did his Momma drop him on his head in infancy?
This guy is a raving lunatic. Why is he not being institutionalized?
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I just Googled him. He’s a Holocaust-denying drug addict and alkie. Big surprise.
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Oliver Stone is a very famous Hollywood Director and Producer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Stone
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Never heard of him. And I wish I kept never hearing of him.
Hollywood is filled with all kinds of degenerates.
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I actually enjoyed JFK a lot (weird word but it fits). I loathed and detested all but about two minutes of Natural Born Killers and I don’t think I’ve seen anything else he’s done (and he does seem like a deeply damaged person).
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Hello, people who keep asking me where I find all those Liberals who worship Putin, are you seeing this?
This is the reason why I haven’t been on Facebook for months. I can’t deal with this crap coming from former professors and classmates.
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There has been some pushback against Stone.
http://krytyka.com/en/community/blogs/open-letter-oliver-stone
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