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Notes -
I remember that interaction! It's always nice to see a familiar face outside of context, and I had been meaning to reply to you (let no sin of omission go unpunished). To be clear, what you were taking umbrage at was a procedural point - I was upbraiding Glideer on his dropping a quote without context, rather than presupposing that the context was misleading or that no such context could be provided. He (and you) provided that context, and I think it definitely diminishes the moral weight of the passage that another redditor had earlier quoted from. As you probably know, Glideer is the resident Russo-apologist of CredibleDefense, and I like to think I give him a fair shout - I actively upvote him as long as he's saying something informative or sensible, contrary to most of the lurkers on the sub. And I remember the Odessa arson quite well - it was a good example of those awful acts that get swept away by the awfulness of other acts at the time. I certainly didn't intend to be an apologist for thoroughgoing Russophobia.
That said... I'm not too disinclined to own the label of Russophobe. I should tell you about my ten days in St Petersburg, and this seems as good a time as any. In short, to get over a girl (and get over some new ones), back in 2008 I decided to fly to Estonia and get the bus from Tallinn to St P. I had a wonderful 10 days in the city, but it was also an extreme experience. On the one hand, the abundance of architecture and beauty was breathtaking - the Spas na Kravi alone is a marvel. But the Hermitage was my favourite: a wonder, full of wonders (many of them plundered, admittedly). But in my time there I was also (lightly) assaulted a couple of times on the street; apparently the English fop look is an invitation to being shoved, punched in the back, and otherwise disrespected. Many clubs I tried to get into thought I was from the Caucasus, amusingly enough, and I had to feign being Italian to get in (apparently I'm too olive-skinned for the English story to be believable). I had my bag ripped off while I was in the subway (another marvel, although perhaps at that point I would have benefitted from doing less marveling). And best of all, I got arrested! I'd met a friend of one of my Russian expat pals at a punk bar, and one thing had led to another and I was drunkenly heading home with her for a night of cross-cultural communication. We were stopped by police, who found my identity documents insufficient (I had a photocopy of my passport, as per Lonely Planet advice, but this was insufficient). The situation probably wasn't helped by the fact that my new friend was outspoken, and from what I latterly gleaned, had told the police they were acting shamefully. Anyway, I was taken into the station, my possessions were taken from me, and I was put in a cell. My possessions were returned to me a few hours later and I was released, though not without all my English and US currency being swiped from my wallet (with enough of the night remaining for some cross-cultural activities, thankfully).
In any case, it left a significant imprint on me, and when I crossed back over the Estonian border back into Tallinn, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. But it was the little things that most annoyed me. The fact that everyone in St Petersburg seemed to dress the same way - furs for women, leather jackets for men - and the way that nobody smiled. By contrast, Tallinn was a riot of colour and gaiety. The obsession with the latest gadgets and brands, with very little intellectual substance, despite the incredible weight of history on every street corner. The urban decrepitude alongside gaudy conspicuous consumption. All of this was in stark contrast to my experience in Tallinn, and made me incredibly grateful that the rest of Europe was now being spared the turpitude of contemporary mainstream Russian culture.
All that being said, I think the Russian intelligentsiya are some of the best (and smartest) people I've ever met. As much as you might despise the people I mentioned, I should stress that these were children of relatively modest privilege. My closest Russian friend is the child of a physics professor and a geologist, who managed to snag a British guy and get into an Oxbridge PhD on the back of her monstrously high IQ, rather than connections or money. I have zero patience for the corrupt gangsters of Russia's true monetary elite, but my impression is that - for a time - the USSR genuinely cherished and rewarded at least some scientific minds, and my expats contacts are drawn almost entirely from their sons and daughters.
That's one hell of a story – almost unbelievable, but you're trustworthy. I've had a comparable amount of thuggery and injustice happen to me in all of 2008- early 2022. (Well, plus a couple fights using knives, that were, honestly, easy to opt out of if not for bad temper). Months ago you've said «welcome to Europe», and I've already had worse law enforcement interactions here in Istanbul, borderline-lethal; maybe that's more an issue of culture clash. All said, it's an okay-ish city, a livable, if petty, tumor bursting out of Eastern Rome's fossils. I still think it'd have been better by this point, had we conquered it back then; but Brits had other plans with regards to Orthodox Christians and Ottomans.
It's true that mainstream Russian culture is atrocious (well, we've fixed the part with drab clothing, more or less). But is it even meaningfully Russian or anyone else's? It's another generic segment of disenchanted global squalor powered by racing rats squeezed between street hustling and institutionalized corruption, a shitty shallow pastiche of the West plus some uninspired marketable kitsch reified by tourist eyes; McDonalds and shaverma topped with lubok, klyukva and khokhloma. To me, the symbol of its true form is a gopnik in MARVEL t-shirt; they've switched over to those from Abibas knockoffs. There's more to be liked in the Baltics or say in Germany.
I can't feel that Germans or Balts are alive, though. Prosocial, content, competent last men, serious about all transient matters, wheels of culture busily spinning in the air, smug sense of moral, civilizational and racial superiority serving no point, detached from any lofty ambition. Anglos have more «soul»; they only need like 1 SD and two diplomas extra to come across as real as Russian randos from imageboards and group chats that I've collected as friends over my life, shards of what we were to be as a people.
Maybe that's just nationalist cope. After all, Estonians have made Disco Elysium.
So it goes. It amazes me, and depresses much more, that USSR could be inspiring to anyone, that this sort of sincerity and seriousness proved to be special. Our sort of «soul» is the crudest thing, sorely lacking in dimensionality. But it appears to be a real thing. And it's still suffocating to be surrounded by people who don't have it and only rarely feel the lack, while noticing all of our tangible shortcomings.
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