Steve: The Russian Supreme Court recently upheld the banning of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia on the grounds it is an "extremist" religious movement. And Mr Putin now awards the JW parents the Award of Parental Glory! Awkward moment, Mr Putin, huh?
A little awkward, isn't it? And it raises all sorts of questions. Did Putin know that he was giving the award to an "extremist" family? If he didn't, he should have. And if he did...it might be worthwhile to consider that this is not a typical JW family.
Putin may very well be saying - "this is how a JW family should be - lots of kids instead of restricting family size in order to give service to the org rather than to a family. And...a family that allows their children to be engaged in sports." Maybe that is the message. I dunno.
Note that the father claims that his kids are engaged in athletics. Sports apparently figures prominently in their family - at least prominently enough that it is mentioned by the father in his acceptance speech. Was that made up for the benefit of the "worldly" people giving him the award? Because it certainly goes against what the org tells families to do. And yet the award was posted on an official jworg website so it appears as though the org has implicitly approved kids to engage in sports.
I am a little curious about the two oldest children - are they really away working (in a Bethel somewhere?...maybe in Finland?) or, as in so many JW families...have the two oldest been disfellowshipped or "fell away"? (note that the reports from official sources say that the Novik family has "8" children but the jworg site only mentions a family of 6)
It is rather strange that a family that belongs to a religion that practices shunning can receive an award for raising a socially responsible family. A family that is being raised to not engage in the socially responsible acts of voting and serving in the military.
*it is also noteworthy that this story comes out of the republic of Karelia - right up there next to Finland. From some of the chatter I have read online, that area of Russia boasts some very wealthy JWs. Ones who give choice pieces of land to prominent people...jus' sayin'
waton: One things the dictators have right, ( not the left) fill your land with bearers of your own genes, do not surrender it to invaders.
Russia has a problem with declining population. Quite a large problem, actually.
Russia's population peaked in the early 1990s (at the time of the end of the Soviet Union) with about 148 million people in the country. Today, Russia's population is approximately 143 million. The United States Census Bureau estimates that Russia's population will decline from the current 143 million to a mere 111 million by 2050, a loss of more than 30 million people and a decrease of more than 20%.
Russia has a very high death rate of 15 deaths per 1000 people per year. This is far higher than the world's average death rate of just under 9................
Russia's total fertility rate is low at 1.3 births per woman. This number represents the number of children each Russian woman has during her lifetime. A replacement total fertility rate to maintain a stable population is 2.1 births per woman............