Recently, I came across a book at home that I hadn’t thought about in a long time. It’s called “Russia: Faces of a Torn Country.” The title may not be particularly original, but it is certainly apt. The book covers Russia as it was a quarter-century ago: a kind of madhouse. The Soviet Union had just collapsed, hopes for a new beginning had proven largely illusionary, ex-functionaries and cunning businessmen had seized the inheritance of the Soviet Union for themselves and were enjoying their sudden wealth as the rest of the country slid into poverty. Grandmothers stood in the wind and rain for hours at the tolkuchkas, flea markets, trying to sell their wedding china alongside students advertising their lovingly assembled stamp collections. Meanwhile, war raged at the periphery of the realm.
Spiegel: The mysteries of the Russian mindset
Two young people cross the Moskva river on the Bolshoy Ustyinskiy bridge in front of the Kremlin in Moscow on August 15, 2017.
