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Be careful. You make the classic mistake when contempt for the ruler you shift to the people who support the ruler. Unfortunately, all Russian "liberal intellectuals" make such mistake. Therefore, the average Russians also do not like these people ("liberal intellectuals").
The average Russians know how to count. Rate is 3.75 rub/km. For example, the route from Moscow to St. Petersburg is 700 km (435 miles). 700*3,75 = 2611 rub ($ 43.5). That's a lot for 20 tons of cargo and route 700km?
P.S. Now that I've noticed - it's not about "contempt" at all, Maxim. You can't blame people for their choices, when information provided to them on a daily basis is so limited, and so are their choices.
Contempt - that's when people have all the choices in the world, yet they still choose something dumb.
They ARE fooled up to a certain degree, when they like to believe that Putin has no ties whatsoever to those "reformers of the nineties" that they hate so much. Indeed Putin didn't come out of nowhere and indeed he is very much connected to these people.
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People will damn Putin as well as soon after Stalin's death!
Just in case you don't know, it were not the "people" that "damned Stalin" after his death, but Soviet Politburo, and Khrushev in particular, because he was afraid to remain in that atmosphere of fear and suspicion while in power. ( Not that his hands were clean to begin with.)
As for the "people" - their attitude to Stalin still varies from admiration to hatred. It's true that on one hand he caused a lot of death and suffering, but on another hand he "delivered" when it comes to the security of the state and the victory in the war, when there was a question of Russian survival as a nation.
There is something like that when it comes to Putin too. On one hand - there are plenty of problems, on another hand - he is better than the previous option of so-called "liberals" that came to power before him.
As I've already said, life is difficult in Russia, historically so, and most of the times Russians have to deal with not-so-pleasant characters when it comes to their rulers.
You'd be surprised but already back in 1877, F. Dostoyevsky issued a warning regarding this subject, stating that "Russia never had and never will have such haters, enviers, slanderers and and open enemies as all these Slavic people, as soon as Russia will set them free and Europe will accept to acknowledge their freedom. Please don't argue with me, don't contradict me and don't yell at me that I exaggerate and that I am a Slav hater..."
But that is not to say that I see only Serbs coming to Russian cites and commenting there.
I see Bulgarians as well, that still can scramble their Russian together coming to express their solidarity with Russians, saying "do not confuse government with people - we still remember you and everything you did for us."
Sometimes it is good to forget current political issues and all those Putins with their Trumps and try to think about wider historical retrospective...
Serbs (with Montenegro) and Bulgarians (with Macedonia), indeed, I think these could be your most true friends. (+ Belarus- aren´t they anyway almost same as you?).
Especially Serbs (why?- the "secret" I believe here is the fact that Serbs have never been under direct Russian control. Bulgarians, however have been - thus probably because of that they aren´t as pro-Russian as the Serbs are The orthodoxy- that could be the keyword in my opinion. The all three Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria have been traditionally orthodox. I was in Bulgaria recently, I noticed it had a lot of "something" which felt like ´Russian´ in my eyes.
As for the other Slavs (non-orthodox) they seem to be rather opportunists and timeservers.
They ARE fooled up to a certain degree, when they like to believe that Putin has no ties whatsoever to those "reformers of the nineties" that they hate so much. Indeed Putin didn't come out of nowhere and indeed he is very much connected to these people.
Just in case you don't know, it were not the "people" that "damned Stalin" after his death, but Soviet Politburo, and Khrushev in particular, because he was afraid to remain in that atmosphere of fear and suspicion while in power. ( Not that his hands were clean to begin with.) As for the "people" - their attitude to Stalin still varies from admiration to hatred. It's true that on one hand he caused a lot of death and suffering, but on another hand he "delivered" when it comes to the security of the state and the victory in the war, when there was a question of Russian survival as a nation.
There is something like that when it comes to Putin too. On one hand - there are plenty of problems, on another hand - he is better than the previous option of so-called "liberals" that came to power before him.
As I've already said, life is difficult in Russia, historically so, and most of the times Russians have to deal with not-so-pleasant characters when it comes to their rulers.
I can understand that, but the Russian people are still very unique in the fact that they still have wide swaths of their population who still support a man who killed up to 40 million (!!) of his OWN people not including the soldiers who died during WWII (not his fault)
They ARE fooled up to a certain degree, when they like to believe that Putin has no ties whatsoever to those "reformers of the nineties" that they hate so much. Indeed Putin didn't come out of nowhere and indeed he is very much connected to these people.
Just in case you don't know, it were not the "people" that "damned Stalin" after his death, but Soviet Politburo, and Khrushev in particular, because he was afraid to remain in that atmosphere of fear and suspicion while in power. ( Not that his hands were clean to begin with.)
As for the "people" - their attitude to Stalin still varies from admiration to hatred. It's true that on one hand he caused a lot of death and suffering, but on another hand he "delivered" when it comes to the security of the state and the victory in the war, when there was a question of Russian survival as a nation.
There is something like that when it comes to Putin too. On one hand - there are plenty of problems, on another hand - he is better than the previous option of so-called "liberals" that came to power before him.
As I've already said, life is difficult in Russia, historically so, and most of the times Russians have to deal with not-so-pleasant characters when it comes to their rulers.
Its strange that you have only two types of rulers. Or Putinists or liberals. No others?
Its necessary to choose between two kinds of s_hit?
Although as you know, every nation deserves its rulers. But I know that Putin will bring many more troubles, not only their own people but also to others.
Sometimes it is good to forget current political issues and all those Putins with their Trumps and try to think about wider historical retrospective...
Serbs (with Montenegro) and Bulgarians (with Macedonia), indeed, I think these could be your most true friends. (+ Belarus- aren´t they anyway almost same as you?).
Especially Serbs (why?- the "secret" I believe here is the fact that Serbs have never been under direct Russian control. Bulgarians, however have been - thus probably because of that they aren´t as pro-Russian as the Serbs are The orthodoxy- that could be the keyword in my opinion. The all three Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria have been traditionally orthodox. I was in Bulgaria recently, I noticed it had a lot of "something" which felt like ´Russian´ in my eyes.
You know, it's difficult to talk about the "true friends" for Russia under the circumstances.
Particularly after the 90ies, when Russian "top management" being preoccupied with its own enrichment basically dropped Serbs with all their problems, pretended that it was "not their business," letting NATO drop bombs on them. I don't think that's the way you treat your historic friends and supporters. Back in the day if you remember the problem in Balkans triggered the WWI, with Russia getting involved BECAUSE of her loyalty. So... as I've already said before, Russia is a country of duality - two different forces and ideas pulling her in different directions. And depending on what force those on top represent for the moment - that's the direction it takes. So when Serbs ( or Bulgarians) say that they "like Russia," it's more about something rather ephemeral than Russia IS, in practical sense of it.
As for Belorussians - yes, it's just the variation of Russians, as much as Ukrainians of course. Just different parts of the country; they all can't be identical, obviously.
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As for the other Slavs (non-orthodox) they seem to be rather opportunists and timeservers.
I have an impression of "other Slavs" that they lived in such proximity to Germans, ( if not to say UNDER Germans,) for so long, that they basically lost their "Slavic identity" because it was undesirable trait.
That's is if we are not talking about Poles. Poland is the whole different story.
I can understand that, but the Russian people are still very unique in the fact that they still have wide swaths of their population who still support a man who killed up to 40 million (!!) of his OWN people not including the soldiers who died during WWII (not his fault)
He did not.
It's a myth, persistently spread in the West (in order to have a scare-crow I suppose, in case if people get too pessimistic about capitalism, in the US in particular.)
The last confirmed number was in Stalin's conversation with Churchill (I can find a link later) where he acknowledged 10 million perished as the result of collectivization. But collectivization was an inseparable part of rapid industrialization, and as I've said without that industrialization Russia would have lost the WWII.
The opened archives ( in the 1990ies) of the Russian correctional institutions yet again didn't reveal those ginormous figures that historians always projected ( the biggest number of people kept in that system EVEN during purges was not higher than 3 million people ( and that includes actual criminals too..) So the worst part of it all were of course the deaths suffered in infamous "labor camps" and people executed as the result of false accusations. However with that, one needs to keep in mind that those labor camps served the purpose ( at the end) of creating the infrastructure in the country ( not building the palaces for the rulers,) and those executed as the result of false accusations were the victims of their fellow Russians, who wrote the reports on them. ( Which is yet another good "moral" question for Russians, that pops from time to time, "WHO wrote all those "reports" accusing neighbors/friends/relatives in "anti-Soviet activities," because it was obviously not Stalin."
And these are all the reasons why Stalin remains such controversial figure in Russia.
Its strange that you have only two types of rulers. Or Putinists or liberals. No others?
No, no others. That's the situation that has been created in the political field in Russia as the direct result of the nineties.
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Its necessary to choose between two kinds of s_hit?
Although as you know, every nation deserves its rulers. But I know that Putin will bring many more troubles, not only their own people but also to others.
Yes he will.
Which leaves another good question - if Russia REALLY deserved this kind of a ruler, why it becomes than destructive for the rest of the world? Is it because the world then deserved it too?
I have an impression of "other Slavs" that they lived in such proximity to Germans, ( if not to say UNDER Germans,) for so long, that they basically lost their "Slavic identity" because it was undesirable trait.
That's is if we are not talking about Poles. Poland is the whole different story.
What if the Czech, Slovaks, Slovenes and Croats never had any "Slavic identity"? The Czech were a "master culture" in Austria opposed to the "serf cultures" of Ruthenians and Romanians, and the Poles' best friend is a non-Slavic country - Hungary. Croats had no problems of allying themselves with Muslim Bosniaks and Albanians against a mutual enemy, Slavic Serbia. Like Serbians say; "ubi hrvate, da siptar nema brate". (Kill the Croats so the Albanians won't have a brother anymore.)
Russian poet Fyodor Tyuchev said that Poland is the Judas of Slavs. A race-traitor.
What if the Czech, Slovaks, Slovenes and Croats never had any "Slavic identity"? The Czech were a "master culture" in Austria opposed to the "serf cultures" of Ruthenians and Romanians,
Define "Slavic identity" first.
( Romanians are not Slavs, but you know that, right?)
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Russian poet Fyodor Tyuchev said that Poland is the Judas of Slavs. A race-traitor.
He might be right after all, but I suspect that it has a lot to do with Catholic Church.
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The orthodoxy- that could be the keyword in my opinion. The all three Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria have been traditionally orthodox. I was in Bulgaria recently, I noticed it had a lot of "something" which felt like ´Russian´ in my eyes.
