scotcher, please do read the whole thread. It's a textbook case of how VM can take an interesting discussion and turn it into utter drivel.
(+you'll see me 'echoing' your comment )
If you look at my original response to the OP, I mentioned corruption in education and the topic of 'trust', which I thought was rather an interesting topic. There was also the stuff about getting into the country, as I'm sure you remember. Instead of developing these ideas, we have three pages of VM defending his thesis that 'all Russian apartments have one lovingly hand-crafted wooden (palace) door' .. well I won't even bother it's not worth it