Really? been there? I was many times in the 90s and I am here to tell you they have a lot more freedom than we do. They live in a utopia in fact. There is no child protective services to tell them how to raise their children, so when the school had a holiday, the kids mostly ran free and various people in the apts looked after them off and on. There are no animal services folk to tell you how many pets you can have and what kinds of licenses you are required to purchase. You can do all the additions and construction and changes you want to your OWNED property, and no one charges you a fee or makes you fill out forms to get approval. The Russians actually believe in property rights. Amazing I know.
You want to hear more? Let me know. They have a flat tax and freedoms that disappeared from this country a long time ago.
Really.
What you describe is a half-truth designed to deceive, whether it is the readers or just yourself you are trying to deceive. Take your example about building permits for construction, yes, the Democrats in the United States just love to use building permits to shakedown property owners bribes and favors or just to harass them. Only it is worse in Russia when you are not among the privileged people enjoying the patronage of the state officials. I know of one example right here in the united States, where some of those immigrants from that region remodeled a house by bribing the Democrat building inspector and then used their freedom to build as they like by moving load bearing walls away from their foundation supports. After bankrupting twice, the mess was sold at a bankruptcy auction and the new owners had to tear out all of this dangerously fouled up construction and rebuild the load bearign structures over the foundations again.
Now, I realize you are here to disseminate false propaganda and are not interested in acknowledging anything your opponents have to say, but the readers of the thread may find the following link more informative than your disinformation.
Vladimir Putin Full Length Documentary: The Putin System
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5Rkom1RpKA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5Rkom1RpKA
Vladimir Putin Full Length Documentary: The Putin System
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5Rkom1RpKA