2008/5/18, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
The Russian wikipedians already missed the 200th anniversary of the conquest of Sveaborg (May 3, 1808). I don't think they will time today's final in the ice hockey world championships. But I also think they will be too early for the 299th anniversary of the battle of Poltava (July 8, 1709). So we will have to find some other way to mark the Russian victory for a place around the puzzle globe (http://www.wikipedia.org/).
Perhaps you are assuming too much of patriotism from Russian Wikipedians. For example, 3 of 5 bureaucrats live far away from Russia (2 are in Germany, one in Belgium). And up to 30% of other active users have nothing to do with Russia. The language is wide-spread all over the world, so we envy to be Russian-*language* international encyclopedia above all. Other wikis' languages seem to be more concentrated, and thus the primary country plays a more important role there. However, symbolic relations are still present, and Swedish week is an example of it.
In Russian Wikipedia, these "slogans" such as "догнать и перегнать швекипедию!" ("let's leave swekipedia behind!"), "долой шведские стабы" ("throw Swedish stubs away") and others, related to the events you've mentioned, are having joky nature; no malicious intent or harassment is behind.
A Russian expression for helplessness is "like a Swede at Poltava"
As far as I remember, it hasn't been mentioned during the discussions, although the battle itself arose in jokes.
It is surprising how well hockey-playing nations (Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Canada, USA, Germany, Poland, Czech Replublic) are doing in Wikipedia. Maybe this is what the Arabs should try.
Maybe, if they find good places to train. :)
— Kalan