Originally posted by Neubob
Personally, I'm holding out hope for the leaders that Russia will produce from the generation that is currently in its 20s. They are of a different breed, through and through. Many of them don't even think that it's odd to greet a stranger with a friendly smile while passing them on the street--something that cannot be said of most of the preceding generations. A small detail, perhaps, but big things are often manifested in the minutia.
Unfortunately, those of them who show the most promise, and are the most open-minded, have parents that send them abroad for their secondary education. The result is that few want to return.
Russia is not a tainted land, and the people that it produces are not all doomed from the start. The problem is that it takes time for an entire culture to shed some of its historical scars, habits, patterns. At the very least, it will take the dying of the last generation of hardliners, for a pristine generation to have a chance at real rehabillitation. Unfortunately, oppressive Russian regimes seem quite often to overlap each other.
Neubob, it seems to me that you are a little biased
People smiling in the streets don't look like white crows here. We just don't fake smiles. Youngsters sent to study to the West are definitely outside my social niche, they are more alien here then most of the Western visitors. I have enough experience with "golden youth", since late-80s, they are mostly moral freaks to me. People calling their country "ðàøêà" (rushka) and everyone who doesn't have a "pager" (beeper) in early-90s or a father's car with a driver now - "áûäëî" (cattle)... And this morons usually couldn't afford to buy a bottle of cheap port-wine, drinking with us on our money looking as if we owe them, while we already were working, making our own lives, not hiding at our parent's lap (I am speaking of late-80s/early-90s). They collapsed every time they came in contact with real life.
Now young people who study and work as engineers, programmers, in applied science like geology are the real hope for our country, not mother's sons who get MBA and start preaching here, selling chocolate bars and chewing gum. Usually this guys and girls are generally much better educated then average "managers" or "economists", they are fun to talk to, they enjoy their lives and jobs.
I am listening to good old Aquarium in my walkman now, "Akustika", "Radio Africa" and "Den' Serebra" this week. Songs written in 81-84, underground rock from SPb. How nice, it's the music of my youth, no young kids will ever make anything like that.
What we understand and they don't: money won't solve all your problems.
As for an older generation - I'll post my recent experience later (maybe tomorrow), a brilliant example of a Civil-War mentality... First time in maybe15 years when I had to jump off the moving train at 30-40 km/h
Another observation: I think St.Santa had hit the bull's eye in his post after he visited Russia a few years ago: we are a "we'll fix it" nation. "We'll fix it, nevermind!" (ðàçáåð¸ìñÿ!) should be our motto. We see a problem and solve it, we just can't see any unsolvable problems.
