[Recovering Ex-hippie]

The literature and music is a thin veneer over a brutish, drunken underbelly that the Czars, Stalin and now Putin have manipulated for centureis. Much of the Russian schadenfreude at Georgia’s victimization is the Russian’s envy of a culture that has blossomed under democracy and freedom AND economic progress.

[MarMema]

That and the fact that without Georgia and Ukraine, the Russian menu is a tad boring. :-)