Russia is a spectacularly beautiful country with epic arts, athletics, culture, and the most vibrant people in the world. I’ve been a lifelong Russophile ever since seeing my first ballet (Swan Lake, front row) at Lincoln Center in New York at the age of 3 and danced into my 20s.
But just because the BBC and lamestream US media has such an immature approach to understanding the country, doesn’t change the fact that beneath the facades of spectacle, there linger a lot of deep wounds and demons that dictate how the government behaves, and reveal how the population has yet to overcome the traumas and dramas of their brutal past. And there are consequences.
It’s a shame also illiteracy abounds regarding the dynamics of Russia’s development following 1991 and that Americans are so detached from recognizing our own role — good and bad, not just in the Cold War, but our ongoing one we’re to play in the world moving forward as the Western world’s been thrown into crisis — largely due to failing to make sense of the past.
None of that appeared to get in the way of the Russian people welcoming those from other countries. Obvious the older generations might have difficulty with old bruises etc. but it’s a different generation now who want to be accepted and let the past be in the past.