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Comment by asveikau | Hacker News Reader

This website gives strong Russian propaganda vibes. Apparently it is owned by the Russian state. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_Beyond

Given all that's going on, I found it jarring that it uses the Russian spellings of Kharkiv and Kyiv. I did find the content a little interesting. The other articles on that site seem rather strange, like they exist purely to give westerners more favorable views of the Russian state.

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Written years ago when, let’s admit it, most of us were still writing “Kiev” because we didn’t know better and were, of course, ignorant.

I didn't realize the article was from 2020.

Anyway, it is true this website is state owned and the other articles have heavy propaganda vibes.

But is there anything wrong with the linked article?

The article looks neutral (besides for spelling of city names using Russian notation).

Which, to be fair, is something that much of the Ukrainian population still does. It's mostly foreigners that see this as something important.

A lot of Ukrainians I know seem to be speaking much more Ukrainian than they did a few years ago. People from Russian speaking towns.

There does seem to be a serious de-russification vibe, stronger than ever and definitely not just something foreigners are interested in.

I'll give just one small example that I'm reminded of... There's been a lot of drama about signs when you enter a town. Russians will capture a town, paint the sign with their flag, change spellings to replace і with и, etc. Ukrainians will recapture, repaint, and switch to their spelling... It's a thing.

Russia focused so much on language issues to justify what it's doing that it backfired - in any discussion where Russian vs Ukrainian can be brought up, it will inevitably be symbolic now, regardless of what people speak.

You don't get heavy propaganda vibes when reading Times, The New York times or The Economist?

There's nothing inherently wrong writing it Kiev in foreign languages. Of course, during todays Russian war of agression against Kiev and the Ukraine, it's a good show of support to write it Kyiv. But out of old habit I write Kiev most of the time.

My understanding is that most residents of Kyiv/Kiev speak Russian day-to-day, and therefore are more likely to use "Kiev" themselves. Russian language ≠ Russian state

It's a bit convoluted. Those people may speak Russian, but then "Kiev" is not a Russian spelling - it's a transliteration of one into other languages. And since those other languages are already foreign, they might as well prefer "Kyiv" for, basically, symbolic reasons.

I mean, I don't call Germany Deutschland either, so I don't really think it's ignorance. Nor do I call Prague "Praha" except when I'm actually speaking Czech. Kiev is much easier for native English speakers to pronounce, and I'm not going to switch to a more unwieldy pronunciation to make some sort of political point.

Sorry about that, I didn't realize this before I shared it. I had no agenda in sharing it, I did see that it had some Ukrainian contributions listed. I found it because I was trying to find the creator of Filler, when I stumbled upon this list. And not that anyone asked, but I am a Wisconsinite and I support Ukraine.

I don't think there's any need to apologize, I just wanted to highlight the source.

There is nothing wrong about Russia or sharing russian media. Demonization of Russia is crazy and hypocritical. We should start demonizing the USA more, for their wars of agression against Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, Panama and many more. Russia is unfairly demonized, and it is a vicious demonization that is not given to countries that have done far worse to the world, like as the USA.

There is a difference.

The website is government owned.

Look at the front page. It's not journalism. It's promoting the image of a country.

If they had something at the bottom saying "paid for by Russian tourism board" then it'd be fine. I just wouldn't call it journalism.

Do you use a proper spelling of the of Paree?

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