SAMVA horoscope for the Russian Federation

The Russian Federation

Russia has existed as a country for centuries and has its own civilisation that has for long been regarded as being apart from or on a different track from the civilisation of western Europe. In 1917, the Tsardom of Russia was overthrown in a bloody coup. An oppressive and expansionist regime took over, but it broke down from under its own weight as the 1980s closed. As the yoke of communism was thrown off, a new country emerged in a series of chaotic events in late 1991. The Russian Federation is based on more humane ideals but the rulership has increasingly veered towards a confrontational stance with its Western neighbours, emphasising  Russia's imperial past. The late Indian astrologer and author, V. K. Choudhry, suggested in November 2015 that a new horoscope for the nation should be sought, which could explain its aggressive tendency. He also suggested a 22° Cancer ascending chart could be explored in this regard. Hence, while the discovery of this historical event and the associated rectification is the work of Cosmologer, it owes to Mr. Choudhry's insight into the likely ascendant and degree, as well as having the requisite chart dynamics to explain such actions by the leaders of the Russian Federation. Any authentic horoscope needs to be rectified in such a way as to possess the natal potential to explain with the Systems' Approach the nation's history but also to serve as the basis of accurate predictions. Only this way can the confidence in the authenticity of the horoscope truly be estalished.

A new horoscope for Russia

SAMVA horoscope for the Russian Federation

The 22° Cancer rising horoscope presented here is based on the date of 23 December 1991, and the time of 18:55 E02:00 STD, in Moscow, Russia (37E37, 55N45).

The 1st lord Moon is in full strength at 10° Cancer and 1H. It receives an aspect from the most malefic planet, 8th lord Saturn at 11° Capricorn and 7th house. As the aspect is over 1° orb, it is less problematic, but it lends an obstructionist disposition to the Russian character, as well as empahsis on easy gains. With 6th lord Jupiter at 21° Leo and the most effecive point (MEP) of the 2nd house, the status, wealth and relations with close neighbours become contested, with separations likely due to adamant positions taken (Georgia, Ukraine, etc.). There is some sense of religiousness, with this placement of Jupiter, more so as 2nd lord Sun is placed in Sagittarius, owned by Jupiter, and the 6th house. It increases the conflict concerning wealth, status and relations. Jupiter also aspects the 8th house of easy gains, obstacles and endings, and 10th house of government, laws and foreign trade, adding periodic conflict to these areas of life. With Rahu in the 6th house, and Ketu in the 12th, there are periodic problems related to conflict, financial stability as well as losses from war. Mercury as 3rd lord of communication and transportation and high tech activities is strong and well placed in Scorpio and the 5th house of creativity, speculation, universities, management and entertainment. With 10th lord Mars in the 5th house MEP, in aspect to the 8th house of easy gains, 11th house of income, goals and friends, and 12th house of distant foreign land, there is creativity to the management of industrial and military applications, with income dervied from these, including in farway lands. Venus as 4th lord is strong in its own 4th house MEP, from where it also aspects the 10th house, suggesting the Russian people are content with their country and that the land is big, fertile and resource rich, and that this benefits the country's government, laws and foreign trade. Indeed, with Saturn's aspect to the 1st lord Moon, Russia is a major oil exporter on the world stage.

Event giving birth to the Russian Federation
This date and time emerges from the book Gorbachev His Life and Times by William Taubman (W.W. Norton, 2017). Importantly, the book documents an almost 10 hour meeting on 23 December 1991 between the outgoing leader of the Soviet Union, Michail Gorbachev, and the President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin on the timing and modalities of Gorbachev's resignation from office.

"The Republic Presidents [of the newly formed Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)] in Alma-Ata left it to Yeltsin to work out the details of the transition with Gorbachev. So on Decmeber 23 the two men huddled in the Kremlin Walnut Room - for almost 10 hours, according to Grachev, who was waiting in suspense with other aides." - Taubman, p. 638.

By the end of the meeting, the two leaders had reached an agreement. Importantly, the description of the closure of the meeting mentions Yeltsin continuing to eat, further suggesting the meeting ended around dinner time.

Gorbachev and Yeltsin in December 1991

"When the meeting finally ended, Gorbachev downed two shots of vodka, confessed he wasn't feeling well, and disappeared into a back room. Yeltsin and Yakovlev continued drinking, eating and talking until Yeltsin strode off down the empty parquet corridor like a conqueror, Yakovlev remembered, "as if he were marching along a parade ground." When Yakovlev looked in on Gorbachev, he found him lying on the couch with tears in his eyes. So you see Sash, he said. This is how it goes. Gorbachev asked for some water. He said he wanted to be alone." - Taubman, p. 641-642

This was to be the final act, involving both leaders, resulting in the de facto dissolution of the USSR. Gorbachev was to announce his resignation on live TV at 19:00 on December 25, 1991, with the Soviet flag to be symbolically lowered afterwards. However, as the decision had been taken two days earlier, it became the signal event for the emergence of the Russian Federation.

The basic rationale for the chart is that this agreement between the two leaders, with the approval of the other CIS leaders, rather than the public announcement two days later, constitutes the formal birth of the Russian Federation. The collapse of the Soviet Union caused chaotic events, but that were slowly brought under control. The agreement becomes important as no plebiscite was held to validate its founding. It also became possible after the meeting at Alma-Ata.  The Russian Federation flag was presented publicly shortly following Gorbachev's farewell address. A final note: the meeting between the leaders would likely have begun at 9:00 a.m. and been concluded 10 hours later, or at around 19:00. This coincides almost to the minute with the time for 22° Cancer rising, at 6:55 p.m.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The history of Russia transcends different state formations, and never so more starkly than with the creation of the Soviet Union on the grave of Tsarist Russia. With its demise 74 years later, it was followed by the creation of the Russian Federation in 1991.

Tsarist Russia (1547 - 1917)
The Tsardom of Russia (a/k/a Tsardom of Muscovy) was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721. Following the end of the Great Northern War, Russia became an empire that stretched across Eurasia and Alaska and Northern California. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia and the Ottoman Empire. Russia played a major role in 1812–1814 in defeating Napoleon's ambitions to control Europe and expanded to the west and south. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov, ruled from 1762. With 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time. The Tsarist regime failed because it had become ossified and centralised, lacking public support.

The Soviet Era (1917-1991)

Vladimir Lenin in 1917

The Russian monarchy was convulsed in a coup d' etat by Bolshevik communists in 1917, resulting in the killing of the Tsar and his family. The Republic was proclaimed by the Provisional Government that took power after the February Revolution of 1917. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was established on 7 November 1917. The RSFSR, together with the Ukraine, Belorussia and Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republics,  formed the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics (USSR) on December 30, 1922.  The Soviet Union was created as the supreme state entity of the member republics. Great emphasis was placed on urbanisation and industrialisation, involving forced migration and draconian control of the population. The Soviet Union repressed its citizens both in the internal and external sphere. It began to collapse in 1989 from insufficient economic dynamism given the financial burden of empire. Gorbachev, as the last leader of the USSR, started the implosion by introducing in 1986 the reforms of Glasnost (e. openness) and Perestroika (e. restructuring), which resulted in growing civic disobediance and unwillingness of the leadership to arrest the collapse of the Soviet State with the application of direct military force.

Russian Federation (1991- )
In 1990, the Soviet republics, including Russia, began to assert their sovereignty within the collapsing structure of the USSR. On June 12, 1990  Russian Sovereignity was declared in the name of RSFSR with the adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty by the First Congress of People's Deputies. This act marked the beginning of constitutional reform in the Russian Soviet state. However, the Soviet Union continued to rule over RSFSR.

From single federated state to many independent states

Between 8 - 18 December 1991, a loser supranational entity, the CIS was created to replace the USSR but without having supranational control over the member states. The Belavezha Accords was signed in Brest, Belarus on December 8, creating the Commonwealth of Independent States in which the founding republics declared the Soviet Union would cease to exist and proclaimed the CIS in its place. The Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR ratified the accords on December 12, denouncing the 1922 treaty. A few days later the Alma-Ata Protocol was signed, which declared that Soviet Union dissolved and that the Russian Federation was to be its successor state.  The timing and modalities of this transition were to be decided in the days following the Alma-Alta protocol. Importantly, the CIS did not hold state power over the member states, including the Russian Federation. As such, the establishment of the Russian Federation became a matter for its leadership, and to this key moment we turn next.

On 23 December, the leaders of the Russian Federation and USSR met to decide on the passing out of existence of the Soviet Union. In doing so, the new collective entity of the Russian people was given birth, broadly within the former borders of RSFSR. Importantly, the state power vested in the new Russian Federation was taken from an entity that was supranational and had ceased to exist. The looser CIS formation was not intended to assume the role of the USSR in the nationl life of the member states, who we all "independent states." Hence, there was a clear shift form one collective entity (USSR) to another (Russian Federation) at that time.

Yeltsin stops the August 1991 coup attempt.

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS

Russian State bankruptcy on 17 August 1998.

The collapse of the Ruble in August 1998

The Russian financial crisis hit Russia on 17 August 1998. It resulted in the Russian government and the Russian Central Bank devaluing the ruble and defaulting on its public debt. Such an event is considered quite damaging to a nations creditworthiness, i.e. its ability to borrow on international financial markets. The crisis had severe impacts on Russia as well as the economies of many neighbouring countries. The oil price began to recover when the transit of Rahu to a debilitated transit Saturn passed in late 1998. As Russia is a major oil exporter, this explains the default as well the subsequent recovery in the state finances.

Astrology of the event

Rahu-Saturn period was operating. Transit 8th lord Saturn was debilitated at 10° Aries and 10th house in aspect to own placement in 7th house. Transit Rahu at 7° Leo and 2nd house was in aspect to transit Saturn and 2nd lord  Sun at 8° Sagittarius, while transit 2nd lord Sun was in deep infancy at 0° Leo and 2nd house. Finally, transit 6th lord Jupiter, ruling the ability to repay finanical debts, was at 3° Pisces and 9th house in aspect to transit debilitated 10th lord Mars (co-ruling state finances with the Sun), at 4° Cancer and 1st house. Hence, the astrology of this event is quite clear, boosting the confidence in the chart.

Beslan School Siege on 1-3 September 2004.

The horriffic massacre of young children

The Beslan school siege started on 1 September 2004, lasted three days, involved the illegal imprisonment of over 1,100 people as hostages (including 777 children),and ended with the deaths of at least 334 people. The crisis began when a group of armed Islamic militants, mostly Ingush and Chechen, occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia (an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation) on 1 September 2004. The hostage-takers were the Riyad-us Saliheen, sent by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who demanded recognition of the independence of Chechnya, and Russian withdrawal from Chechnya. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building with the use of tanks, incendiary rockets and other heavy weapons.As of December 2006, 334 people (excluding terrorists) were killed, including 186 children.

Astrology of the event

Mercury-Ketu period was operating. Transit Ketu ruling separation was in the 4th house ruling primary and secondary schools. It was afflicted by natal Saturn as 8th lord of obstacles and endings in the 7th house of foreign relations. Transit 4th lord Venus was in old age in the 12th house of losses in exact conjunction with transit Saturn. Transit Rahu, ruling confusion, was in the 10th house of public life in aspect to Sun, representing the leader, and as 2nd lord indicating the status of the country in the 6th house of conflict. The astrology therefore offers a good match for this event.

Russian annexation of Chrimea

The Crimean peninsula was annexed from Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February–March 2014 and since then has been administered as two Russian federal subjects—the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol. The annexation was accompanied by a military intervention by Russia in Crimea that took place in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and was part of wider unrest across southern and eastern Ukraine, which Russia was intricately involved in. Russia formally incorporated Crimea as two federal subjects of the Russian Federation with effect from 18 March 2014. The annexation was met by protest from the UN General Assembly and with Western countries imposing a trade embargo on Russia. In August 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, retaining control of two areas there, South Ossetia and Akhbazia.

Astrology of the event

Mercury-Jupiter period was operating, with transit 6th lord Jupiter exactly conjunct Rahu at 16° Gemini and 12th house. This event shows up quite clearly.






Prediction
The transit conjunction of transit Ketu and transit 8th lord Saturn at 23° Sagittarius and 6th house MEP in the summer of 2019, and the repeat conjunction in the fall of 2019 at 20° Sagittarius is likely to cause problems in Russia of a financial nature and possibly involving conflict.


Appendix: the earlier tentative chart has been shelved
The new 22° Cancer rising horoscope replaces a 23° Gemini rising chart that was rectified by Cosmologer in August 2008. It was the basis of successful predictions, but could not explain well enough the aggressive tendency displayed by Russia, first internally and then externally. It was based on the union of Russia and Belarus, a supranational confederation, established in a 1996–99 series of treaties that called for monetary union, equal rights, single citizenship, and a common foreign and defense policy. It ended after Russia proposed that Belarus join the Russian Federation and when the President of Belarus declared in 2014, "We are not Russian—we are Belarusians." Lukashenko has pressed a revival of Belarusian identity, following the Russian annexation of Crimea and military intervention in Eastern Ukraine. He has also encouraged the use of Belarusian. Trade disputes, a border dispute, and a much relaxed official attitude to dissident voices are all part of a weakening of the longtime warm relationship with Russia.