Even if I do say so myself. 
Today, it’s been exactly two years since I started Sublime Oblivion (rather, first under the guise of Da Russophile). First off, I would greatly appreciate it if you could answer the multiple-choice poll below and offer me feedback by comments or contact (bugs, complaints, etc), so that I could continue improving the site. Just check the boxes beside statements you consider true.
Please answer these questions to improve Sublime Oblivion
- Does the blog take an annoyingly long time to load on your web browser? (8%, 4 Votes)
- Do you use & like the AJAX features? (LiveSearch, RollingArchives) (12%, 6 Votes)
- Do you use & like the header dropdown menu? (37%, 18 Votes)
- Do you use & like the rotating tag sphere? (18%, 9 Votes)
- In general, do you want this blog to be simplified? in terms of design? (8%, 4 Votes)
- Or should it remain as is? (49%, 24 Votes)
- Should I focus on Russia-related article? (67%, 33 Votes)
- Or more on collapse, energy, environment, etc related topics? (22%, 11 Votes)
- I want you to try to make the Forums more active! (20%, 10 Votes)
- I want you to concentrate on writing the book! (20%, 10 Votes)
- Do the blog articles tend to be too long? (10%, 5 Votes)
- Is this one of your favorite blogs? (63%, 31 Votes)
- Do you follow the S/O feed or RSS? (18%, 9 Votes)
- Do you follow me on other social media like Facebook, Twitter, etc? (35%, 17 Votes)
- Do you *really* want me to start making videos on YouTube? (35%, 17 Votes)
- Happy New Year!! ;) (90%, 44 Votes)
Total Voters: 49
Loading ...1. This blog’s AJAX features are explained here: LiveSearch lets you type your search query and instantly have the results at hand, while Rolling Archives is the navigation bar that appears at the top of the page when you scroll down through the blog that allows you to navigate through archives and search results without having to reload the page. It’s a bit of a bandwidth and processing hog, however, so if few people use these features but many complain about long loading times, I’ll consider removing it.
2. Re-simplification, I could keep the current design, or I could try something minimalist like Rick Docksai’s Russia News blog (main difference there’ll be a static front page for navigation purposes).
3. Your responses as to what you like to read, and how you follow me, will contribute to shaping my priorities. For instance, if all of you are dying to get hold of my upcoming book, I will accelerate work on it.
4. Re-videos on YouTube. It’s technically quite difficult and the quality will be rather low since I only have my netbook camera. Hence, unless there’s great demand for it, I will postpone video-blogging for a few more months.
As for my thoughts, feelings, retrospection, on the occasion of the 2nd year birthday of S/O, there’s really very little I could add that I haven’t already said in Da Russophile, a Year On, Site History, and my interview with Siberian Light. I’ll quote from the latter:
What are your goals for Sublime Oblivion?
First, the need for alternate Russia coverage is far less pressing now than it was a year ago. The Kremlin is realizing the value of soft power and has acquired some heavy artillery over the past two years, such as the Russia Today TV channel and the Russia: Other Points of View information portal. As such, I now rarely feel the need to comment on current Russian news – demolishing the same Russophobe myths gets repetitive and boring after a while (much like grenade fishing), – speaking of which, I think I now understand why similar “Russophile” bloggers like Konstantin, Fedia Kriukov, and Kirill Pankratov jumped ship after a year or two.
Second, after a few months of blogging, I became more adventurous in my scope and ambitions. This moved me to make some major changes to the original Da Russophile, the biggest of which were: the transition from Blogger to self-hosted WordPress, the abandonment of the pseudonym stalker (yes, I love the film) in favor of my “true name“, and a certain moderation in rhetoric. I have largely abandoned activism in favor of observation and analysis. Most importantly, I’ve expanded the blog beyond focusing exclusively on Russia, to a more of an about-me-and-my-interests kind of thing – which at the moment and for the foreseeable future happen to be Russia, geopolitics, and future global trends.
As for my current plans:
- Continue my series of Sublime Strategic Reports on the global trends, regions, and geopolitical dynamics that will shape the 21st century.
- Build up the Sublime Oblivion Forums community.
- Do more Russian-English translations of uncommon and interesting material.
- Continue monitoring developments in Russia’s demography, on which I have an extensive and original portfolio.
- Expand my presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (videoblog), and LiveJournal (на русском).
- Make forays into journalism and / or related research as time permits.
- My most ambitious project is my forthcoming book on future history, which I hope to finish by spring 2010 and publish soon after. See the last question for more details.
The only thing I can really add is that I started the Collapse Party to “… Reinforce resilience… Inform the people… Prepare for collapse!” (see party manifesto for more details). I hope we can get a community going there in a few months once we reach a critical mass of people to keep the blog and forum active.
I will be on “hiatus” for the next week (skiing in Park City, Utah). Expect more stuff from mid-January.
Best, AK.
No related posts.
Happy Birthday to you!
I don’t follow twitter but I do click on interesting articles posted on your twitter feed on this blog.
It would be good if you did a piece on Myths about Communism in Russia and the USSR especially the Stalin era which some Russian historians who have looked through the archives come to different conclusions than what we are told in the mass media with the likes on Robert Conquest who wrote the book Harvest of Sorrows claiming the 32-33 famine in Ukraine was man made worked for the British Foreign Office Information Research Department anti-Communist propaganda department Information Research Department and had books published with a CIA book distributor.
1988 Village Voice article by Jeff Coplan “In Search of a Soviet Holocaust: A 55-Year-Old Famine Feeds the Right”
http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/vv.html
The only problem is that alternative research citing the archives as evidence are in Russian with only a few articles by Professor Grover Furr in English. Has a good evaluation on what the M-R pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR which was not about partitioning Poland.
http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/homepage.html
Happy Birthday Anatoly
Whilst your articles on the environment/ collapse/ etc are interesting, I think that because you are bilingual and have some interestingly eclectic politics that you should focus on Russia. Especially as most of the Western media coverage of Russia seems to consist of regurgitating ‘other Russia’ press releases.
Thanks a lot for all the wonderful, well-researched and thought-provoking writing over the years.
Thank you all for your replies.
Pleasantly surprised, so I’ll keep all the cool AJAX features – even the ones that aren’t used much.
Thanks for saving me the time!
The problem is that in recent months I’ve become much more interested in the latter (besides, I’m writing a book on the topic).
However, since the core readership remains most interested in Russia, I will certainly continue posting on this topic as well. I’m currently taking two classes on Russian history, so at the very least I can copy and paste the essays I write for them here!
Thanks! It is truly appreciated.
I highly recommend Google Reader.
Again, thanks. Details on how to get in touch with me via social media can be found under Sublime Net in the middle column.
Sorry guys & gals, but I’ll probably have to disappoint you for a few more months. For a start I need a half-way decent camera. I don’t want to be one of those fools talking into his webcam in the living room. Then there’s the video editing with which I have little experience.
And a happy new decade! I’m currently writing “Decade Forecast: The Geopolitics of Scarcity Industrialism”.
@Anatoly
Re Russia and other themes, I thought that the ‘core articles’ worked well. As you said in your interview there is a ‘grenade fishing’ element to tackling Russophobes, which gets boring to write, but I thought the core articles made a quick list of debunks easily available.
Thing is, I don’t really have any more ideas for “core articles”. I’ve done Top 50 Russophobe Myths, Responses to Russophobe “Arguments, 10 Myths about Russia’s Demography, etc. Do you?
Small improvements I made
1) Best of Sublime Oblivion & Best of Da Russophile “navigation pages” added.
2) On further thought, I agree with Gregor that “Core Articles” are a good idea to feature and so I’ve added a tab of the same name to the sidebar.