Russia's Grand Troika

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (L), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (R) and Head of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov celebrate during informal meeting outside Moscow. A cartoon, just a two-and-a-half-minute segment broadcast on state television Friday gently mocking Russia's ruling tandem was a major surprise for Russians used to stern-faced messages from their leaders.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I work to see the symbolique of phenomena in our world. Noticing this photo this morning, for some unknown reason, what quickly came to mind was the word "troika". It's a Russian word, that has filtered through my mental databank from years of media, academic and social references to the nation.

I wasn't certain of it's meaning, so I googled 'What is the troika?', and found this defination:

If you look up the word ‘troika’ in a dictionary, it will say that a troika can be a Russian sledge drawn by three horses abreast or that the word can be used to describe a leadership comprising three persons.

A Russian troika

I was sweetly amazed at how in tune I must be, for the first line described what I was intuitively thinking in looking at the photo: Here's an image of the three men that are pulling the sledge ~or~ State of Russia right now. And what I was feeling and thinking was confirmed by this random website I had chosen out of many offering to answer the question for me. Synchronicity at work! Or as I like to call it, a great demonstration of my Life in harmony with the Cosmos.

And it doesn't stop there.

I hadn't realized it at the time, but I was getting my information from a Denmark website. The page details Denmark's relationship with the European Union. The next paragraph read:

In an EU context the word is used to refer to several concepts involving a special form of cooperation between three countries: the country holding the Presidency, the country which has just held the Presidency and the country which will next hold the Presidency.

A Russian Troika

Now if we continue to play in my altered Universe, let's change the word 'country' in that paragraph, to 'man'. And reading it with my substituted word, it still describes the image, affirms the recent Russian history we've witnessed, and offers a predictive element to our fun.

A Line of Russian Sledges

That's right. How many of you think that Bortnikov is in line to be a future President of Russia? Yep...looks like 'The Grand Troika' is poised to take all those loaded in that big sledge for a ride.

Winter in St. Petersburg in a troika

Putin, who kicked off his political career as an assistant to it's first democratically elected mayor, Anatoly Sobchak has proven to be a master Svengali. He's been quite successful in orchestrating a dynasty out of his cronies and homies from his St. Peterburg (formerly known as Leningrad) days serving in the Mayor's Office.

Kentke