swastikas

Dr Jessica Frazier, of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, told the BBC swastikas had been found in China, Japan, Mongolia, the ancient Mediterranean, among native Americans and, of course, the British Isles.

"Its (the swastika's) original meaning is an enigma," she said. "Perhaps it is just an elegant geometry which has an instinctive appeal across the world."

The earliest swastikas might have had some religious or astronomical meaning. Then again, they might not.
The swastika always faces right. The left hand symbol is properly called the 'Swavastika', says Dr Quinn.






Swastikas and swavastikas in British Museum.

ну не дураки ли?

On the map above, it is shown in the centre as the orange area, and labelled in the Russian Cyrillic text. It remained part of Soviet Ukraine, known as Lvov - a Russified version of its name - until the USSR collapsed in 1991, when it reverted to the name of Lviv.

Британские ученые не догадываются о существовании украинского языка.

Paranoia leads Vladimir Putin to the point of no return

As Sunday’s referendum, in which the people of Crimea will decide whether to join Russia, approaches, the images on Russian television are astonishing. They are more propagandistic and venomous than anything I can remember even from Soviet times. Breathless presenters whip up hysteria with bloodcurdling stories of atrocities being committed by the “neo-Nazi junta” now governing Ukraine. Overheated “victims” beg Putin to help, kindly Russians offer to give refuge to the terrified people fleeing Ukraine, and menacing music accompanies montages of swastikas, fascist thugs armed with clubs, and black-and-white images of Hitler’s troops and burning villages.
It is all apparently aimed at preparing the public to accept that there may be war, and that Russia will be fighting in a just cause. Yet I have a horrible feeling that President Putin believes all this stuff. He receives his information mainly from his trusted secret services – men like himself, schooled in the dark arts of KGB disinformation. I worked as a media consultant to the Kremlin from 2006 to 2009, close enough to gain a sense of Putin’s growing paranoia.
I believe this has three causes, the most important of which, perhaps, is his own terror of being dislodged by popular revolution. Putin believes the Ukrainian uprising was fomented entirely by the West. He puts two and two together and gets five.

So what can the West do? Not much. Insisting that Putin talk to Ukrainian leaders he regards as putschists is pointless. He won’t. Sanctions will not stop Putin either. It is also too late now to give him the assurances he has sought about Russia’s own security. He is convinced the West is out to get him, and has dug in for the long haul.

telegraph