[Nix-dev] NixCon St. Petersburg 2016

[phreedom at yandex.ru]

On Thursday, January 21, 2016 01:50:46 Jonn Mostovoy wrote:
> I hate modern regime of Russia as much as the other guy.

Unfortunately, it's not just the regime.

> I just want to point out that anti-LGBT laws, censorship, oppression of own
> citizens, geopolitical expansion has nothing to do with daily activities of
> normal people in big Russian cities.

Anti-LGBT laws, censorship, oppression of opposition(read as: people who have progressive 
values similar to yours) and wars have immense support in Russia.

An example, from the poll which predates massive anti-US,-EU propaganda and the 
invasion of Ukraine: http://www.levada.ru/old/03-07-2013/novyi-opros-ob-lgbt
Things went downhill from back then.
"How will your attitude change towards a person you know if they come out as LGBT*?":
Will change for the better: 2%
Won't change: 29%
Will change for the worse: 50%
undecided: 19%

You're certainly going to have interpersonal difficulties with Putin's worshipers and you're 
going to encounter many of them in your day to day activities. Although, this is unlikely to 
translate into a substantial danger if you are just visiting.

> St. Petersburg, the cultural capital of Russia is safer than a lot of
> European cities. Of course, there are less safe districts, but such
> districts exist in London, Paris, New Jersey, you know.

This is factually incorrect. The murder, rate which is a good proxy for violent crimes rates 
and is reliably reported, is among the worst for large cities in europe. Crime rates, 
however, are much lower in a small number of (expensive and mostly central) districts and 
can be comparable to eg *average* Berlin rate.

> Besides, one can just go to the conference and then back to the hotel. That
> was what I was doing on a recent bip conference in Lviv. I had some
> prejudice regarding safety, thus I was doing more networking and listening
> to interesting talks and less sightseeing.

Which is surprising, since Lviv is substantially safer than SPB.

--Evgeny

> On Jan 20, 2016 11:59 PM, "Daniel Peebles" <pumpkingod at gmail.com> wrote:
> > First off, thanks for offering to organize it. It's a big undertaking and
> > you're offering a huge gift to the community. Unfortunately, my big
> > concern
> > (outside of my own enthusiasm for being a tourist in Russia) is around the
> > LGBT situation there. I'm sure there are many people in our community who
> > would not feel safe visiting Russia these days, and many of those might
> > also not feel comfortable speaking up on this list to even vote against
> > the
> > location.
> > 
> > As an anecdote, @aphyr, a prominent (and generally awesome) expert on
> > distributed systems, recently wrote this piece on his feelings about
> > attending conferences in Russia:
> > https://gist.github.com/aphyr/64ef5320e87c4b09772a
> > 
> > Anyway, if the majority of the community is in favor for holding it there,
> > that's its prerogative, but I do think there are some very real downsides
> > to the location.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Dan
> > 
> > On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 4:23 PM, Vladimír Čunát <vcunat at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 01/20/2016 10:11 PM, Arseniy Seroka wrote:
> >> >     I assume EU people will need visa but it should be easy to get
> >> >     them,
> >> >     right?
> >> > 
> >> > Yes, that is the only problem, And we will help anyone who will go to
> >> 
> >> conference
> >> 
> >> > to get visa. We can send invitations and provide any information to our
> >> > embassy to make visa getting process easier.
> >> 
> >> Hopefully the diplomatic situation between EU and Russia won't get any
> >> worse in the meantime.
> >> 
> >> --Vladimir
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
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