Things have reached a level, perhaps, between the two but the fact that New Russians can be as decadent as their Western enlightened counterparts is not really a ringing endorsement of the "saving graces of western materialism."
I wanted very much to see that things had changed -- it's one reason I went to Russia. A fresh coat of paint and state sanction of the newly-canonized Romanovs doesn't quite cut it for me.
On that point, I couldn't agree more. I have had that discussion with them also. But those are hardly the liberties to which I referred.
When did you go to the Soviet Union?