“or maybe he’s just being honest? Do you walk around downtown at night in a major american city? Probably not!”
You’re really trying to compare a US citizen walking around a US city to a US citizen walking around in Moscow? Are you incapable of gleaning the difference re: security concerns here? Don’t be fooled by what a few try to tell you about how “safe” it is for you, a US citizen, there. Use your logic.
There are zero security concerns. For comfort, it helps to speak Russian or have someone with you who can translate signs and the odd conversation, but no one, especially from the government, is going to harass you.
What about Paris or London?
Obviously you haven't been in ANY of these American cities at any time of day. Nor have you read any news article in newspapers from there either.
And no, I'm not even talking about "bad" neighborhoods; now ALL neighborhoods, in those cities and many others here, are extremely unsafe!
I've never been to Moscow, never want to go there, but I doubt that it is as dangerous as these once GREAT and very safe American cities once were. And before you decide to poo poo what I've written, unlike YOU, I have actually lived, FOR MANY YEARS, in two of the American cities I named. I live somewhere else now and would NEVER go back to either one.