I am Russian. Was born and lived in USSR until I was 30. As you might guess I knew a boatloads of them and I think most of them including yours truly would call a BS on that. Reading Dostoyevsky does not make one know Russians.
A handful of conversations and a couple months of travel will not give a Westerner an understanding of Russia. The vast majority USSR emigrants under a certain age (that is, people truly familiar with both systems) would disagree with you in the strongest possible terms. I'm one of them. There is no moral equivalence.
I am Russian and personally I know nobody with the former or the latter experience.
I don't doubt such cases exist somewhere out there. But the prevalence of such revelations is from people re-posting emigrant press, who often do not have any firsthand Russia experience for a few years now.
The primary error in your reasoning is that you assume that I'm some kind of empowered slave holder. But that's not true.
In fact, all of my ancestors that I know of are peasants, some of them serfdom peasants, most of them surely the Soviet XX century selfdom "kolkhoz peasants".
So whatever the ethnic minorities there were in the Soviet Union and preceding Russian Empire, a) I don't owe them anything, b) I would suggest them to cry me a river, and c) I will be offended by any unfounded accusations towards Russians.
As I have shown two answers below, my opponent cannot get his facts straight and is proud of it.
Now, I don't know who are you and when you've checked your own privileges the last time. Maybe you had actual slave owners between your ancestors, and now spend time lecturing dumb Eastern Europeans how they should treat each other.
2 of my Ukrainian great-grandfathers died in WW2, many other relatives that I do not know about. Were they Russians?
Soviets did plenty of bad things, I don't get that jab. Many Russians now in Russia hate the Soviet moniker and look at the October Revolution as a catastrophe.
Only for Westerners Soviet == Russian, which puzzles me absolutely.
You would be surprised. People who grew up under Soviet education are a lot more cultured and worldly than Americans. Hint: if your worldview is a cartoon, it's probably inadequate to reality.
No, I was referring to a line of thinking very common among folks I’ve met who grew up in post-USSR Russia vis a vis the worldview of many of the people I know who grew up in the USSR before.
The former tend to think everyone is corrupt and that if people have success or wealth or anything, it’s because those people swindled someone out of it or were connected to the right people.
Those who grew up in the USSR tend to have a more meritocratic worldview, where hard work and intelligence and studying for exams will result in a better life.
Maybe the people I know [strike]are[/strike] aren’t representative of those times and places. No matter, you can find justification for either worldview in nearly any situation, whether it’s 1970s USSR or ‘90s Russia or ‘50s America or Trump’s America. Reality is nuanced and filled with thoughtful insights that oppose each other and yet are equally true. The loudest people on HN are not people trying to square that circle.
What does it mean to be a Russian-American? He left the country when he was 5? He was born in US to Russian parents? His comment is pretty ignorant. The article is fairly accurate.
I think you're reading too much into this. The people who did this particular stupid thing were Russian. That isn't a claim that all Russian people are stupid. People of all nationalities do stupid things all the time.
I'm not entirely sure where the above commenter gets their information from or if they're being entirely honest
You left Russia when you were 10, so you were basically a child. Then you "heard from family" something you've never actually experienced. On the other hand, I was there in Soviet Union/Russia going through all 10 grades in three different schools, and then getting my masters in engineering, while tutoring high school students in math to make some cash. Then I tutored undergrads as a TA here in US while getting my phd.
You have very little actual experience of Russian education, and zero experience of American education, and you're questioning my honesty?
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