Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
And I watch Russian TV a fair bit. My impression is that things are improving, at least in the cities.
False impression.

I`ve got no urge to be rude, dear Hanna, but it would be better to say directly.
Your incompetence made you to write so much about nothing, the whole passages based on superficial knowledge.
And for me, there is no much reason in argument, since you have to realize a lot at first. Would be an idle talk...

Don't know how to take a compliment?!
I`ll give you a hint. A fat ugly girl who gets compliments all the time from her family. A junkie who "thinks" that he is cool, because his addicted friends say so. Is it good for them?

Another hint. Not everything that makes an average person happy can be counted by money. "For us, the trend is downwards. For you, it's going up. " - on which criteria, my friend? Have you heard anything about Human rights? What about the level of culture (n.b. I definetely mean not the number of written books or paintings hanging in Hermitage, but manners of exact citizen)? Public safety? Of course, there is no sence in watching Russia Today channel if you want to elaborate the question and see the reality.

And another hint... Since I began talking about money... Germany, Japan, South Korea etc etc don`t have oil, but are doing much better that "rich" Russia. (You can compare salaries and prices in my city (St Petersburg) with any of these - there is a link to a special website in one of my previous posts.) Why is it so?

I hate receiving advices myself, but... It would be good for you to try to read some russian classics. Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy explain such things. A hundreed years have passed, but the country is the same. We do have H&M`s and Volvo`s on our streets, but what happens in everyday life is far from being "civilized".

It is not about "country is run by idiots" like you said. It is about behaviour of ordinary people and their moral standarts.