Today I observed a conversation in Putinger’s Cat Telegram channel chat that revolved about Russia and USSR and the Westerner’s view of Russia being weak, countered by a very good string of arguments by Milana Attison. The topic resonated strongly with what I’ve written earlier in this blog in the following articles about the Wild ’90s:
- Andrey Karaulov: For Russia the 90’s Were Worse Than WWII
- The ”Wild 90s” in Russia, as reflected in people’s memory
- The ”Wild 90s” in Russia, as reflected in people’s memory. Part 2.
- The ”Wild 90s” in Russia, more memories
There were several lines of conversation going at once, but in reality they all boiled down to one thing: countering the centuries-old Western stereotype of bad USSR/Russia.
At first Milana replied to a member Jason, who postulated that everything was miserable in the USSR, based on some second-hand information, yet he did not make a distinction between the pre-War USSR or Russia after the 90’s.