Kaliningrad Ukraine? Who did the geography for that article, CNN? I mean, they think Ukraine is in Pakistan, Slavyansk is in Crimea, Hong Kong China is somewhere in South America, and New York city is somewhere in Boston!
They have so much news only they don't know where it came from!

I've seen tons of pictures of American cities that look that bad and even worse. So when are they gonna do an article called "To be an American"? They could shoot films of gang warfare in almost any American city then ask them if they did anything patriotic.

Okay. Now we know that the author interviewed more than 130 Russians and only liked 15 of the responses - almost totally from the ghettos of large cities. And the questions were highly politicized.
1. Did anything patriotic?
2. Love of the "Motherland" = Love of the government... February 23 is Defenders of the Fatherland Day. When was it changed to "Motherland"?
3. Yeltsin's political term "Rossiyanin" and not "ethnic Russian"? - The author's a Yeltsin supporter?
4. Chechnya welcomes migrants but not Russians? - Is the author saying that Chechens are better than Russians because they are more like Americans?

But don't forget, the New York Times will force any editor or journalist to resign if they don't back the Official US foreign policy. They do not allow any articles that may be favorable to Russia. That happened to an editor very recently.
It's "Agree with the US government or lose your job" so maybe they just wanted to keep their job... In America it's called "Freedom of the Press".

Anyway, Stalin and Chechnya and immigration were in the article together because that's what the author wanted in the article. Like when the New York Times wanted a Russian in the article that was seen in Russia and Ukraine. They just put the pictures in the same article and said that one picture was from Russia. Yeah, they had to retract it but the New York Times is very experienced in creating illusions... for the government.

I wonder how different it would look if real Russians made an article about "To be a Russian". That would be worth reading.