Monday, February 03, 2014

Russians being, well - Russian

Cody Boutilir over at NRO has a good article on race in Russia. Required reading if you have not been there or been briefed in yet. 

I won't touch on that bit, as you need to follow the link for that as it isn't Thursday - but this little pull quote struck me the most as just another not-so-isolated example about Russia being neither East nor West - Russia is just Russia. The cost-benefit calculus is a bit different;
“These are the worst days in Russia’s history,” a Nizhny Tagil woman in her 20s told me. “Things were better under Stalin. People had everything. The only thing was, if you spoke out, they killed you.”
Vacationing in Russia is, in a fashion, mildly humorous - in a dark way.

From the strangely attractive but stern women who stamps your passport, to the strange minder on the bus who tells you how much she missed the Communists.

It is a very interesting world - Americans really should poke around it a bit.

Funny thing is, once you do you realize this - as Teddy said - there is no such thing as a hyphenated-American; everyone just sees you as an American.

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