Never knew Boris Yeltsin had visited the U.S.
That he would weep at American abundance, though a member of the ruling nomenklatura elite for decades, with access to special stores and food sources, is telling in itself.
The MiG-25 defector Viktor Belyenko when touring an American supermarket near CIA headquarters in Virginia, was convinced it was a sham, a Potemkin village false front & nothing more.
It’s stories like this that make me give thanks to God that I’m an American. Comparing our lot to those in other countries greatly contributes to personal contentment.
My sister in law visited us in the US from China in the 1980’s her favorite “tourist”attraction was a supermarket
I read Belyenkos book. To see for himself it wasn’t being shown a Potemkin Village he asked his handlers to take him to a ‘’lower class’’ place to eat. They took him to a kind of shabby place in a low rent hood and even there he found an abundance of good food.
I knew a Russian women who was convinced of the same thing - except it was even funnier. The store she thought was a government run grocery store for ‘elites’ was an old Winn Dixie in a marginal neighborhood...
There were a couple of teachers at my high school who were Soviet dissidents. They couldn’t believe the abundance in an American supermarket when they first saw it, and this was a tiny IGN in a more rural part of the country.
I’ve also heard through a friend who’s father recounted the experience of hosting some Russian scientists that they wanted to continue to visit different supermarkets as they were convinced the tour was only showing them the “special supermarkets” shown to foreign visitors. They also were in awe of a typical Waldenbooks (this was some time ago).
He was Clinton's guest in the White House in 1994. That story was hilarious because Secret Service agents discovered Yeltsin alone on Pennsylvania Avenue, dead drunk, clad in his underwear, yelling for a taxi. Yeltsin slurred his words in a loud argument with the baffled agents. He did not want to go back into Blair House, where he was staying. He wanted a taxi to go out for pizza.
Source, history.com: When a Russian President Ended Up Drunk and Disrobed Outside the White House
I think what cements conservatism in most Americans is the bone-deep understanding that the Blessings of God are bestowed upon those born in this country. I had that revelation at about age 8 and never looked back.