A bunch of the people I work with are Russian, for some reason. On my team of 10, 6 (and the primary drivers of our project) are Russian. We had a 7th, but everyone hated him, and he hated everyone, but particularly me. I guess I stole his keyboard or something. I give you this background to explain why, when I saw and article about campaigns by the Rus in the Caspian Sea, I was interested. I'd heard of the Rus, the tribe that founded Russia, and decided to read up on them.
Apparently, the Rus were a Scandinavian tribe (also known as Vikings!) who were drawing tribute from a group of different tribes, mostly Slavs, in present day Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. At some point, the Slavs threw out the Rus, but fell to fighting amongst themselves. A charming little passage, which I think is a great example of the victors writing history, tells the story of how the Slavs invited the Rus to come rule them.
The four tribes who had been forced to pay tribute to the Varangians — Chuds, Slavs, Merians, and Krivichs drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them further tribute, and set out to govern themselves. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to custom. Thus they went overseas to the Varangians, to the Rus. These particular Varangians were known as Rus, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans and Angles, and still others Gotlanders, for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Veps then said to the Rus, "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come reign as princes, rule over us". Three brothers, with their kinfolk, were selected. They brought with them all the Rus and migrated[1].HAHAHAHAHA oh that's rich. But no really, that's their story and they're sticking to it. Good for them. But when was the last time in world history where you were able to find a nationality who invited another nationality to come rule them? Oh, those Russians, they're so good at re-writing history.
Red Barns
When Cougar, Flipper, and I went to Canadia for the Vancouver Half-Marathon, we saw a ton of barns along the freeway, and we started wondering my they're traditionally painted red. According to the Wikipedia article on barns, it's probably because the ferric oxide that was used to create red paint was the cheapest coloring available. It might also be because the ferric oxide acts as a barrier against molds and fungi. So there you are.
Canadian migrant workers
When we actually got to Vancouver, there was a noticeable lack of people of Mexican ethnicity. It surprised me because there are plenty of Mexican people all over Washington, and Vancouver has large populations of other immigrant ethnicities, including Chinese, Punjab, Sikh, and Filipino. Why wouldn't there be more Latin American migrant workers? If we have such huge numbers of them in the United States, why don't they in Canada? Wikipedia is mostly silent on this issue. All I could find was a blurb stating that there is no good source of information about illegal immigrants in Canada. That seems strange to me since they have better social benefits than the US, lots of agriculture, and are not difficult to get into from the US. Strange. I can only speculate that the Canadian government is more effective in enforcing labor laws then the notoriously lax US government.
3 comments:
Ha! Very insightful Zart!
Nice work.
Another theory (on red barns):
Wealthy farmers added blood from a recent slaughter to the oil mixture. As the paint dried, it turned from a bright red to a darker, burnt red.
I'd heard that one too. The ability to paint your barn red with the blood of your slaughtered animals was a sign of wealth, because you were wealthiest enough to eat them.
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