“Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” Winston Churchill.
On November 18, 2014 John Alsup gave a presentation on Inside Russia today. He started with that quote at the beginning of his presentation.

In the last 5 years Alsup has presented at Moscow State University in Russia, Seoul, and Rio. During his presentation here at Black Hills State University he shared a few of his experiences while in Russia. He showed a few pictures of what he did and what he saw during his trip. Some of places he visited were Kolom, which is a city just outside Moscow. He also went to St. Petersburg and the “White Palace” which is where the Russian revolution began .

St. Petersburg is like Venice Italy in that it has canals that people can take a boats ride through the city. Alsup mentioned that the canal bridges light up when boats come through and it makes night seem less dark.

Alsup also talked about his observations he noticed during his time in Russia. One in particular is that Russia is very much Anti-American. He didn’t experience much of it personally while he was there, but apparently there is. One example he gave is he showed a picture of a conference that happened a few days ago and it showed the picture of President Obama and the Russian president Putin and it looked like that there was some distance between them.

Afterwards he talked about the issue with the Ukraine and Russia and what started the conflict between the two countries and also what is going on their today. He showed us pictures of the people rallying after the Ukraine President abandons an agreement with European Union on November 21, 2013. President Putin and the Ukraine President signed a 15 billion dollar deal and this caused the riot in Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine. It resembled a battlefield on January 29, 2014.

On one final note, Alsup also talked about the oil situation. Apparently the price of Oil in Russia is going down and is expected to stay down through 2015. To make it more local to the United States, the oil boom in North Dakota is effecting the oil situation in Russia, so were not in need of much oil from the country.

At the end of the presentation Alsup opened it up for discussion and any questions the audience had. Overall the presentation was informative and it was nice to get insight on what is going on in Russia today and it helped people at least understand Russia just a little bit better.