I was talking with a, by now former, friend of mine... he's russian and lived in arhangelsk (spelling?). He knows I love Russian language and music and am eager to visit Russia and discover this country, and everything about it. He says I think Russia is all great, but that I can keep on living in a dreamworld till I crash right into the reality of Russia...

And he said:

"You don't live in Russia!! You don't know russian language! You don't know nothing! NOTHING!!! You know NOTHING about the country I lived my whole life in. Maybe to you it's something nice and fancy but you don't know anything about it."

Hearing him talk like that, as if hopeless about Russia, and fed up, ... just made me feel awkward. What exactly don't I know? How much? How big?

He's living in America now and seems to be very happy he moved out of Russia. When I asked him what he means by 'reality of Russia' and all, he said he's not bothered to tell me and that I'll find out myself. I know, surely Russia had its problems in the past, like every country had/has, though at school we never learned about Russia in history class; it was almost always america-related, like the Vietnam War... and our own country's politics and history >_>;

I was friends with this guy since august 2005, and as time passed, it seemed that while I grew fonder of Russia, language and music, he seemed to be more fed up. Fed up by my fondness for Russia and related subjects, he declared today he doesn't care about me anymore and I'll crash into reality about Russia sooner or later.

Anyway, maybe this is a stupid question, or something I should know. But I don't.... so why o_o? What's this thing he's talking about? What's he so fed up about - or is he exaggerating?