I wonder how many of her relatives were taken away in the dead of night for no reason under Stalin’s rule?
It’s real easy to admire the guy with 60+ years removed from his rule.
In UZ I studied Russian with two middle aged women who were interpreters for the U.S. base. One was Uzbek, the other a Kazakh who relocated to UZ.
Unlike the young women, these had no illusions about communism & told me about relatives who disappeared in the night & about whom they were forbidden to speak ever again. They hated being addressed as “comrade” at endless political meetings, since in Central Asia people are addressed by their given names. Although like most Uzbeks I met the women admired Russian culture and secular society, their hatred for Soviet communism was total.
Both interpreters would embrace Christianity, I later learned.