"...The trauma impressed on most Russians a sense that even oppressive, autocratic government was preferable to the mayhem of anarchy, and the regime took care to remind them of it."

"Events had also demonstrated that even in the early 1600s Russians were coming to share a common national consciousness. It has been argued that the imperial nature of the ethnically diverse Russian state inhibited the development of Russian nationalism, but a strong sense of patriotism - perhaps as strong as that manifested in Elizabethan England - was shared by Russians from the north and sout, east and west. Russians knew who they were, and it was not only their Orthodox religion, contrasting with the Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths of their neighbors, that defined t hem; nor just their language, which, except for the Old Church Slavonic used for religious purposes, was not yet a standard or literary one; nor their customs, which varied to some extent from region to region - though all these elements contributed. They shared a sense of community associated with the land, and, as the letters sent out to mobilize a national army demonstrate, even strangers among them, such as Muslim Tatars, were not excluded. They too were accepted as part of the Russian political community."

As I recall posting some time back, Russia's recently completed Crisis was compared to the Time of Troubles.

I see no one has added to this thread in recent months, so I'll throw in my two cents and hope someone didn't already make the same observation several posts back.

The attempts to identify the onset and duration of various 20th-century Russian generations and cycles appears to overlook one glaring reality: the fact that the USSR lost forty million people between 1920 and 1945. That is fully 25 percent of the country's 1920 population. A great many of those lost souls were born between 1900 and 1940, corresponding to America's G.I. and Silent generations. And not only did the USSR not have an enormous generation born in the decade after the war's end, as America did, it had during that period an acute shortage of young men, especially in the smaller towns of Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus.

Now if the American Civil War, which "only" killed one in every fifty Americans, had such a profound impact on the U.S. mechanism of historical cycles that an entire generation - the Hero/Civic type - is MISSING from the Civil War Saeculum - what would be the effect on the Soviet Union's cycle which encompassed the 1920 to 1945 period to the violent or otherwise unnatural deaths of SIXTY TIMES the number of people who died in the American Civil War? Would that Soviet cycle contain four generations? Would it contain a High, an Awakening, an Unraveling and a Crisis in the manner that a cycle covering a less cataclysmic era would have done? I say it would not, and indeed it would have lacked one stage in the cycle, just as the American Civil War saeculum lacked one generation/stage.

I would argue instead that Russia's 20th-century demographic traumas - wave after wave after wave of them, starting with the First World War, which killed at least two million, the Russian Civil War which killed upwards of a million more, Stalin's starvation of the Ukraine in the early '30s which killed at least five million and possibly ten, the purges of the mid- to late-'30s, various other unnatural deaths (mostly by starvation) during the first thirty years of Bolshevik rule, plus the staggering numbers associated with the Second World War, plus the victims of the Gulag system, plus at least a million who died in a famine which swept the USSR in 1946-47 - make a mockery of any effort to characterize its history, at least between 1914 and 1950, as composing the tidy and orderly succession of generations and eras Strauss & Kahn and their followers use as a template for interpreting American history.

And I would also argue that Russia has never really recovered, at least psychologically, from that half century of trauma. (If there WAS an actual cycle in progress when that horrendous period began - a cycle in the sense that we use the term so blithely here - it must have mutated into something far different than what we in America and other fortunate lands experienced. And if so, how then does a country which lives through such times reboot its generational-cycle mechanism and start over?)

-sigh-

The big reason you're not seeing the boom in births in Russia at the end of WWII is because WWII occurred during the Russian 1T-era, and the postwar was largely a 2T (remember how very many of us Xers were born during the American 2T?). Trauma occurs in the cycle... at all points of the cycle. What makes it a cycle is the way the society reacts to the trauma, as well as the general moves within the society over time.

I will say that, looking at Russian society from the inside (by which I mean, of course, the stories of people who lived it) rather than from a single set of numbers, the Russian saeculum is pretty damn clear. It's just that one defining feature of the Russian saeculum is that it's neighbors tend to go berserk (that is, into their 4T) shortly after Russian society is hitting it's most stable stride (that is, into it's 1T). I have my own super-weak idea that the repetition of Highs-featuring-suck-times is at least some part to blame for some of the more fatalistic aspects of the Russian national character.

In any case, there you have it

Thanks for the reply, Justin, though your "sigh" strikes me as a bit patronizing. I am after all not a simpleton asking one of the world's great geniuses a lame question the genius has had to endure being asked for years on end.

Nor was the fact that the USSR didn't have a postwar demographic surge, as America did, my main point, or even an ancillary point. (Though I would dispute your dismissal of the influence enormous war losses had on the first several years of postwar population growth. Twelve million American servicemen came home from the war and started making babies. The number of Soviet servicemen who came home from the war and started making babies was far smaller, because close to ten million Soviet servicemen were in their graves at the time.) It was simply an example of the differing demographic realities faced by Soviet and American societies

Anyway, I still maintain that if a catastrophic event in a nation's history can disrupt the rhythm of its generational cycle, as the Civil War is argued to have done to the American cycle in progress at the time, why is it assumed that a Russian/Soviet cycle would not be similarly disrupted, and in fact altered, by the succession of catastrophes, spanning thirty-some years, which visited that country while the cycle was in progress? The American Civil War was a mere playground squabble compared to what the Russian people were hit with.

The Strauss-Kahn theory looks very nice on paper, and I'd like to believe that it's a reliable way of understanding history. My mind is certainly open to the possibility. But much of what I read on these threads suggests the theory is embraced a little too tightly as settled fact, by people whose awareness of the intricacies of human history (and, more to the point, human psychology) may have, lets say, a few holes here and there. And I guess that gets to the heart of my unease with the uncritical acceptance of mechanistic theories of societal dynamics in general. Anthropic mechanism and other deterministic approaches to human history too often either ignore or dismiss some key workings of the human mind, and they tend to deny the concept of free will.

In addition, I suspect that some of Strauss & Kahn's supporters here are less interested in figuring out how their theory fits into the flow of history than they are in making history fit into the theory. (Even if they have to take out a hammer or a butcher knife to make it fit.) That sort of thing is the behavior of dogmatists, and dogmatism of any sort makes me nervous.

Interesting that you include in your (slightly pompous) list of signature quotes an observation by Noam Chomsky. It would not surprise me to hear that Chomsky doesn't buy into Strauss-Kahn's theory; he is a determined antideterminist who tends to reject mechanistic models of historical dynamics.

The -sigh- is simply my reaction to this thread being re-awakened to a tune that has been played and answered more than a couple times in the past here. You're new, and the archives are vast, so I accept the point that it was unjustified. I'm sorry for having done it.

That said, the authors' assertion that the American Civil War disrupted the generational cycle is itself suspect -- here again, I would refer you to the archives; many many electrons have been spilled on the matter at this site. So if you're looking at the "Civil War Anomaly" as a template for what happened in Russia, well... it's just not a very good tool. It's, if you will, the grand weakness in S&H's overall narrative. And an unnecessary one, too.

In any case, I've come to my views on the cycle in Russia primarily not from a mechanistic or numerological standpoint, but rather from simple investigation of the social environments that held there at various points in time. The great strength of S&H's theory, after all, is that it identifies patterns in modes of social interaction that appear to be self-propagating. So when I encounter an environment where children are prized, protected, and indulged (oh yes, and where the number of them in individual families is noticeably higher than whatever living memory considers 'normal'); where stability is not a goal so much as a simple basic assumption on which people live their lives; where confidence is widespread that a brighter future is necessarily and obviously on the way... It comes off a whole lot like a "High", as per S&H's description. Granted, outside Russia, I've never felt one of those.. so I could be wrong. Although my wife's and my parents were far from the only children of the American High to get the sense that things in Russia now seem a lot like they were in the US back when they were kids...
Similarly, friends of mine who were born in the early 60s in the USSR, when we kick back and shoot the shit, tell tales of growing up irreverant, unimportant, and semi-feral a lot like me and the kids my age I hung with back in the day. Their Afghanistan crowd comes off more than a bit like our Desert Storm guys. The rhyme is tight enough for me to pencil-in the heading "Awakening" above it. Especially when I contrast it with the stories told by Russians more roughly the same age as me who, from early on, moved as teams and groups just sort of instinctively.

It could all be my imagination, to be sure. But if so, then I'm at least satisfied that I imagine something fairly not-incoherent and seemingly in accord with at least what evidence I come across. There are a handful of folks here who seem to be inclined to force facts to fit theory. I'm sure you'll get to know who they are if you stick around for a while. As always on the Inter Nets, ymmv.

Oh, and "slightly pompous"? Either everyone else is too polite to say, or you see something new and unique. I'm curious to find out which...

---
-edit-

Chomsky? For all I care, he could be a blind pig. Doesn't mean I don't appreciate the acorn when he finds it .

Originally Posted by closedcatalan1900

The Strauss-Kahn theory looks very nice on paper, and I'd like to believe that it's a reliable way of understanding history. My mind is certainly open to the possibility.

I hope you don't mind this nitpicking point, but Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a French politician who got into trouble with the ladies. Strauss & Howe (William Strauss and Neil Howe) were/are the authors of Fourth Turning (Strauss is, sadly, deceased).

Another point about Justin '77 is that he lived for several years in Russia fairly recently, so has seen it first hand. I take his input on Russia's turnings more seriously than I do many other posters because of that experience.

Welcome to the forums, by the way.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

-sigh-

The big reason you're not seeing the boom in births in Russia at the end of WWII is because WWII occurred during the Russian 1T-era, and the postwar was largely a 2T (remember how very many of us Xers were born during the American 2T?). Trauma occurs in the cycle... at all points of the cycle. What makes it a cycle is the way the society reacts to the trauma, as well as the general moves within the society over time.

I will say that, looking at Russian society from the inside (by which I mean, of course, the stories of people who lived it) rather than from a single set of numbers, the Russian saeculum is pretty damn clear. It's just that one defining feature of the Russian saeculum is that it's neighbors tend to go berserk (that is, into their 4T) shortly after Russian society is hitting it's most stable stride (that is, into it's 1T). I have my own super-weak idea that the repetition of Highs-featuring-suck-times is at least some part to blame for some of the more fatalistic aspects of the Russian national character.

In any case, there you have it

Like right now? Russia's Western "neighbors" are having a financial meltdown wrt Euro. My guess is that said meltdowns are one reason for countries to go berserk. Like the little hissy fit between France and Germany.

If you look at the institutions, then the 1905 to 1927 period, was a Crisis period for the real estate ruled from Moscow. The trigger was the regime's failure in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, that partially set off the 1905 revolution. Attempts to democratize the regime in the ensuing decade failed, and discontent with the regime from nearly every side set off the Russian Revolution and then the October Revolution. This was a real "Mad Max"-like, apocalyptic era, with White and Red "war lords" ranging far and wide over the Central Asian landmass. Lenin emerged as a leader, and the West legitimized him because he was making them such good deals. In fact, the first country to recognize the USSR was the Republic of Estonia -- Lenin signed away Estonia, the USSR got its first legitimizing international treaty. But Lenin's health failed him - he had three strokes between 1922 and 1924, his death, which set off a leadership struggle. I think that when Stalin's main opponent Trotsky fled the USSR and Stalin emerged as the unchallenged leader, the country exited its Crisis era.

I am not sure when the Soviet 2T began, but it could have started as early as 1944-1945. It is the amount of war time atrocities committed on the eastern front, this sort of storm of raping and looting, that reminds me of young Prophets - think Vietnam, Watts, Days of Rage, etc. Could 1964 (Brezhnev) be the start of the Unraveling? Brezhnev's death (1982) starts off Crisis that ends in Regeneracy (Gorbachev (1985) Yeltsin (1991)) and then continues through reestablishment of direct rule over Grozy (May 2000). So:

Crisis 1905-1927 (peaked in 1918)
High 1927-1945 (peaked in 1937 - show trials and purges, reminiscent of "The Crucible"-era America)
Awakening 1946-1964 (peaked in 1956, Khruschev's Secret Speech)
Unraveling 1964-1982 (peaked in 1975, Helsinki Accords)
Crisis 1982-2000 (peaked in 1991)
High 2001-present (Will it peak at the Sochi Olympics? )

I agree with Uzi on the split between late Unraveling/early Crisis. You can see Russia is on the verge of it with Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. All the characters fall into alignment pretty easily:

Artists:

Fiers - 87, the servant who remembers when the serfs were set free and dies at the end of the play (indicating the Death of an era)

An old miserly aunt who's mentioned as living elsewhere, that hoards her money and doesn't trust the younger generations with any of it, but will only spend any of it on behalf of her goddaughter and great-niece Anya.


Prophets:

Liubov Andreyevna Ranevskya - the landowner who fritters away money ever since the death of her only son, years ago; lives mostly in Paris where she has a lover; her property is now in danger of going up for sheriff's auction

Leonid Andreyevnitch Gaev - Mme. Ranevskya's brother who is so caught up in the ideals of everything that he makes an utter fool of himself

Boris Borisovitch Simeonov-Pischick - a neighboring landowner who has an intelligent daughter he's always bursting his buttons over, he's always in need of money and begging people for some


Nomads:

Yermolai Alexeyivitch Lopakhin - a former serf who's worked his way up in the world as a businessman, wants to help the owners prepare for the future but they won't see any sense, so he buys the property to make use of it, Captialist all the way and wants there to cut down the cherry orchard in order to build vacation homes

Charlotta Ivanna - the governess, doesn't know who her parents were, floated around for years, raised by different people, makes often snide social commentary at the situation the family is in through little "performances" she puts on

Varya - the adopted daughter of Mme. Ranevsyka who acts as housekeeper for the house and is in love with Lopakhin, but will never say it outright


Nomad/Civic Cuspers

Pyotr Sergeyevitch Trofimov - the eternal student who was tutor to Grisha, Mme. Ranyevskya's son who died; is in love with Anya, her daughter; always arguing the equivalent of a Marxist argument

Simeon Panteleyevitch Yepikhodov - a morose young man who always sees the down side to things, threatens to kill himself more than once, never can do anything right, tries to win the heart of Dunyasha, but fails

Yasha - Mme Ranevskya's footman, who's been to Paris and is living the good life, enjoys a life of pleasure and wants to suck all the marrow dry from it; willing to seduce Dunyasha, but quite willing to leave her flat and pregnant with little to no remorse.


Civics

Dunyasha - the maid who is seduced by Yasha, had been seen after by Yepikhodov before, rather dumb-minded

Anya - Mme. Ranevskya's daughter, just eighteen, in love with Trofimov


In fact the scene that spoke to me the most of representing the time period and encapsulated the entire play was Act III. That's the act where Mme. Ranevskya holds a ball on the very day that the house is to be auctioned (though they can't possibly afford such a ball, and the only guests to invite are such persons as the Postmaster and the Stationmaster). Utter chaos ensues as the family tries to avoid thinking about the fact that they might just lose everything, servants forget their place (except for Fiers), and everything is generally in one big hullaballoo.

~Chas'88

I tend to stick the 2T transition right around the death (or at least the declining days) of Stalin. Mainly because I'm lazy -- it works out well that his reign corresponds so well to the 1T over there. 1Ts are indeed (supposedly) times when the people are supportive of, or at least willing to tolerate, monolithic rule. Can't get much more monolithic than just that one guy

And yeah, the now-times are another good example of Russia getting socked during their High by spillover from the neighbors. Thing is, though, since they're not in Crisis times themselves, they seem to do a pretty damn good job of rolling with the hits and bouncing back. I know the crash of 2008, when it got to Russia like 2 days after it hit in the USA, was pretty much in the past by the beginning of 2010. The low oil prices of today are causing a bit of a pain in the neck, but as with '08, the thing you tend to hear most often from people (when they're not engaging in histrionics, which never seem to go out of style, anywhere) is that they've gotten past worse, and that this is nothing to get too worried about.

Originally Posted by 95 and alive

I think the Consensus Era that Russia is living in right now has already peaked and has peaked since this year starting with the 2012 elections. I have a feeling Russia will enter its Awakening sometime around 2018/2019.

I think you put way too much importance on elections and politics.

The Olympics might be a time for the peak, though. If we're looking for a big splash of unity and optimism and dissent-not-tolerated, it's a big enough event to maybe allow for that to do the trick. Sochi '14 was a big deal even back five years ago -- definitely something being built up to.

Then again, Sochi is kind of a backwater not-even-really-core-Russia, if you get what I mean. Full of blacks and other unsavory types, even if they are 'friends' from Abkhazia. Who's to say whether that makes a big enough difference?

Originally Posted by 95 and alive

I just think that if the 1T began in 2001, and the "peak" seems to usually begin about 10 after the turning, it would make more sense to (me anyway) have it at the 2012 elections.

It's not math or really even numbers of any sort. Don't try to force it to be.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

It's not math or really even numbers of any sort. Don't try to force it to be.

Well, here is the problem. Stalin died in 1953. How long did that Awakening last? Until Brezhnev took over? (1964) Prague Spring (1968)? Stagnation (1971)? And then, when did things start to fall apart? Invasion of Afghanistan (1979)? Brezhnev's death (1982)? Chernenko, Andropov? -- 1985-1986 seems like a good line of demarcation because of Glasnost, Perestroika, and Chernobyl. But when did the Crisis end. You say December 1999, when Putin took office? I feel like it continued on into the early 2000s. Beslan was in 2004. Cue Wikipedia:

The event led to security and political repercussions in Russia, most notably a series of federal government reforms consolidating power in the Kremlin and strengthening of the powers of the President of Russia.[9] According to American non-governmental organization (NGO), Freedom House, these reforms consolidated Russia as a politically non-free, authoritarian state since the mid-2000s.

Originally Posted by 95 and alive

If Russia is in its 1T right now, what will happen in the upcoming Awakening? I've heard that they may go back to the Soviet Union from talks from some people, but I doubt it. I think Communism in Russia has been discredited, but I don't know. There still seems to Soviet nostalgia according to articles I have read.( But, I'll let Justin 77 be the expert at that, I've only read/heard about it)

I was in Moscow last year, I can't say it felt like a 1T, because it was deserted, and most of the old Communist claptrap is still in abundance, Lenin's face in the metro, etc. But there is a strong reluctance on the part of the people to rock the boat. Better the devil they know, than whatever else could happen. Plus, the people are better off. Trust me, Russian tourists have taken over various European destinations. I was just in Crete a month ago -- there are Russian language advertisements for fur coats (In Greece, where nobody wears fur coats!) and vast hotel complexes that cater exclusively to Russians. Egypt is the same, especially Hurghada, which is why we didn't go there, because who wants to eat pelmeeni on vacation in Egypt (other than Russians)? I mean, they are nice people, but they remind me of Americans, just as Americans expect America to follow them wherever they go, so do Russians. So, they are living the life, and don't want to mess that up, even though their president is a crook, and he has lost Moscow (politically).

Maybe( excuse my ignorance of Russian politics) Russia will have a more socialistic system of government? Hmm...

Russia is a very big, sparsely populated country. Right now, everything is under one guy's control, but there is a lot of regional resentment against that. Anytime anything is wrong, he fires somebody to show accountability. I am not sure how long that act can go on. He's long past his expiration date now. He stinks.

Originally Posted by 95 and alive

In reading a 2009 article about Soviet nostalgia, 60% of Russians are nostalgic for the SU. However, it is a drop from 75% in 2000.

I think Russians are far too nationalistic to play along with the "brotherhood of nations" game the Soviets imposed on everybody. What happened in 1991 was, in part, a Russian rebellion against the multinational, atheist Soviet state. So, no, I don't imagine a return to a multinational empire centered on Moscow, especially one with a planned economy. They are just nostalgic for a time when they mattered more in international affairs and won more Olympic medals.

Originally Posted by Uzi

Well, here is the problem. Stalin died in 1953. How long did that Awakening last? Until Brezhnev took over? (1964) Prague Spring (1968)? Stagnation (1971)? And then, when did things start to fall apart? Invasion of Afghanistan (1979)? Brezhnev's death (1982)? Chernenko, Andropov? -- 1985-1986 seems like a good line of demarcation because of Glasnost, Perestroika, and Chernobyl.

Sure; whatever. That works, too. I'm not picky about specific dates nearly as much as about general eras.

But when did the Crisis end. You say December 1999, when Putin took office? I feel like it continued on into the early 2000s. Beslan was in 2004.

I was in Russia when Beslan went down, when those two planes to Rostov got blown out of the sky, and in Moscow when the VDNKh Metro and Sokol line were bombed... I was close enough to actually hear that first one go off with my own ears. It was nothing at all like what would have happened in the 4T-US when nasty blowback hits a place. People were angry and unhappy, to be sure. But nonetheless, the overall sense was that the grownups were in charge and were taking the appropriate measures to keep things in-hand.

I started going to Russia in '03, after the apartment bombings that really kicked off Putin's surge to power. So I can't say what it was like in the early years of the '00s. People have told me, though, that after the apartment bombings "things changed". For us turnings-weenies, that's a damn powerful phrase -- and in all possibility, Wikipedia's got it wrong where they locate their critical moment. The ink may have dried after Beslan, but the stuff was happening a fair bit before then. So since word is that in the very wee hours of Putin's reign things got different for society in Russia, I'm left dating that fuzzy area as a turning.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Sure; whatever. That works, too. I'm not picky about specific dates nearly as much as about general eras. I was in Russia when Beslan went down, when those two planes to Rostov got blown out of the sky, and in Moscow when the VDNKh Metro and Sokol line were bombed... I was close enough to actually hear that first one go off with my own ears. It was nothing at all like what would have happened in the 4T-US when nasty blowback hits a place. People were angry and unhappy, to be sure. But nonetheless, the overall sense was that the grownups were in charge and were taking the appropriate measures to keep things in-hand.

That's what they were told.

I started going to Russia in '03, after the apartment bombings that really kicked off Putin's surge to power. So I can't say what it was like in the early years of the '00s. People have told me, though, that after the apartment bombings "things changed". For us turnings-weenies, that's a damn powerful phrase -- and in all possibility, Wikipedia's got it wrong where they locate their critical moment. The ink may have dried after Beslan, but the stuff was happening a fair bit before then. So since word is that in the very wee hours of Putin's reign things got different for society in Russia, I'm left dating that fuzzy area as a turning.

My friends did study abroad in Russia in 1995. They had a fine time. Of course, they stayed with the wealthiest families in Saint Petersburg. Honestly, Russia is far too confusing for me to "figure out." I can't speak Russian, and the Russians I know my age don't strike me as fundamentally different in any way: if anything they are entrepreneurial, Nomad types.

Originally Posted by Uzi

That's what they were told.

Heh. If you think Russians are inclined to believe what they are told... The Soviet system pretty well cured them of that character trait (and, if anything, left them in the diametrically-opposed position of distrusting things the rulers say because the rulers are the ones saying them. That's not to say that they don't see them as competent rulers; just that they see them as fundamentally liars.

My friends did study abroad in Russia in 1995. They had a fine time. Of course, they stayed with the wealthiest families in Saint Petersburg. Honestly, Russia is far too confusing for me to "figure out." I can't speak Russian, and the Russians I know my age don't strike me as fundamentally different in any way: if anything they are entrepreneurial, Nomad types.

People willing to expat have common traits, no matter their generation. And Russians are all (some incurable Muscovites notwithstanding) rednecks -- which is something else that transcends generational archetypes.

At the same time, for getting to know people, nothing beats sitting around bullshitting with them for several months or more. Or going out to wander the woods for a couple days is good, too. And I'd sure as hell be bad at doing that with a bunch of Estonians

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Heh. If you think Russians are inclined to believe what they are told... The Soviet system pretty well cured them of that character trait (and, if anything, left them in the diametrically-opposed position of distrusting things the rulers say because the rulers are the ones saying them. That's not to say that they don't see them as competent rulers; just that they see them as fundamentally liars.

People willing to expat have common traits, no matter their generation. And Russians are all (some incurable Muscovites notwithstanding) rednecks -- which is something else that transcends generational archetypes.

At the same time, for getting to know people, nothing beats sitting around bullshitting with them for several months or more. Or going out to wander the woods for a couple days is good, too. And I'd sure as hell be bad at doing that with a bunch of Estonians

One thing I notice (not necessarily wedded to it but just finding it possible interesting) is the response to events particularly when things go South; for example the recent flooding and 100+ resulting deaths.

Here in the US, the initial responses are all about trying to rectify the existing problem - rescue victims, provide food, shelter and comfort, stop further damage, etc. Slowly (but surely), it eventually turns to who is responsible and who will pay.

On the other hand, it seems that there (Russia) is almost an immediate response of figuring out who is to blame and punish them. For example, Putin’s first reaction to the flooding clearly gave priority to this response.

As you know, I'm married to a Russian, and this apparent difference (again, I'm not wedded to the perception) seems to come up in several ways.

Not asking for marriage counseling just wondering if you've notice anything along these lines.

Putin is to blame, which is why he has to make someone else responsible for it ASAP. It's kind of pathetic. "I may be the one ultimately in charge, but ... you guys should have been doing a better job!"

Originally Posted by Uzi

Putin is to blame, which is why he has to make someone else responsible for it ASAP. It's kind of pathetic. "I may be the one ultimately in charge, but ... you guys should have been doing a better job!"

That's true. Some of it among the people, though, might be a holdover from Soviet days, when the whole country (on the white level, of course. Grey and black are different things entirely) was very strongly arranged along those lines.

I'd comment that the who-to-blame reaction is something I can only recall encountering in any abundance from the public sphere there. Privately and individually, people seemed to better have their priorities straight.

Can't say. Saw a Russian band two days ago at a festival called Schilling in south Estonia. They spoke in English to the crowd, which surprised me, but they were pretty young, so they probably figured young people don't know Russian (which is actually true). It was like the Soviet era had never happened. And everybody loved them. Here they are -- The Retuses
http://vimeo.com/24873666

I chatted up one of my friends who told me that the protests in Moscow have been a very big deal, and that United Russia actually lost Moscow in the last election, but that there doesn't seem to be a good alternative, so people are tolerating Putin until one comes along ... He's definitely past his expiration date. He has already "jumped the shark" so to speak.

Originally Posted by Uzi

I chatted up one of my friends who told me that the protests in Moscow have been a very big deal, and that United Russia actually lost Moscow in the last election, but that there doesn't seem to be a good alternative, so people are tolerating Putin until one comes along ... He's definitely past his expiration date. He has already "jumped the shark" so to speak.

My buddies are mostly Yabloko and LDPR (the one non-communist opposition party still allowed to be a party). They've been saying the same thing about every election since '04. And yet, nothing changes and there's no real push* to make it change.

*see, for ex., the battles on the streets of Moscow back in '93. The guys who did that are still around and feisty, if they wanted to be.