>Dude, you are just projecting your spite. This would be laughable if I didn't know you were serious. So it's actually just scary how how you make things up.

I lived in Russia for the first 27 years of my life (but I've been out for 11 years). The claimed phenomena definitely existed and was widespread back then. I was an odd duck by being ready to openly accept my mistakes / misdoings, and I was not alone, but that was not common.

I'm sorry to scare you, please drink a cup of warm tea and listen to some good music, it will relax you. I haven't made up a thing though, I've observed this culture personally for decades. I grew up in it. Not sure what you mean by "spite" - nor do I care that much - and of course, I could be mistaken, but these were my observations and my conclusions, nothing is made up.

Please don't cross into personal attack, no matter how wrong someone is or you feel they are. It just makes everything worse.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

I realize that's not easy on divisive, emotionally charged topics, but everyone commenting here is required to try.

Yes, let's judge an entire culture by a random bus stop experience.

Replace "Russian" with "Black" and this would be considered a racist post.

I think this comment already has at least a half of the culture war bingo. If you add a couple of -isms and maybe a -phobia or two, you will have a definite winner.

That has to be sarcasm. Or trying to be funny, but not very well.

Point contextually not clear. "Be careful of sources?" That would be as generic as Cato's "Oh, and should I remind you that we should destroy Carthage".

I assume you mean me. But which country do you mean? I lived in several. I grew up in a culture I am describing. I still maintain contact with many people living there. I base my conclusions on my experiences and data I gathered for decades. You base your conclusions on ignorance and stereotypes - you have no other choice since you don't know me. But you try to mock me - unsuccessfully, of course, because you don't know anything - maybe you should spend a bit of time on gathering your own information instead.

It probably happened many times in the past too. This culture is not new.

There was almost nothing “conservative” about Leninism. The same goes for Stalinism. Your comment actually just made me want to but “The Atheist Manual” (or something similar, can’t remember the exact title) that was published in 1950s USSR and which I found in a Romanian translation in an antique bookshop that I usually frequent.

Three or four parties could easily happen in the USA of they'd change their electoral system. FPTP system and lack of culturally divergent regions (like Scotland in the UK) is the reason there are no third / fourth powers. If, say, half of Congress were elected by party lists, there'd be a lot of political diversity fast.

France had been ruled by kings, and before that, the Roman Empire for thousands of years, and then one day we had a revolution and became freedom-loving leftists. Same can happen in Russia -indeed, same DID happen in Russia, until the USSR turned into a totalitarian state under Stalin.

Also, the US can totally have a multi-party system if they reform their electoral system. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

He said no such thing, he said that the planet was named "Матросская тишина" (seaman's silence) after this prison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrosskaya_Tishina .

And you are aware that he's playing the russian version of the game, right? Translating some bits for the english audience. I'm sure he's perfectly aware what the name of the game is in russian (it's literally in the first shot of the video).

Seems like you watched 5min to just quickly find something to discredit and immediately dismiss it.

> Should I find Manhunt or Postal to be a mirror of American culture? "Interesting perspective", "insightful social commentary"?

Not a "mirror" of a culture, but if you were not already versed in American culture and watched an insightful review of those games pulling on various culture trends which make up those games, I see no reason why it couldn't be an "Interesting perspective" or "insightful social commentary".

Feel free to read the responses others have given to my initial post, they cover your complaints quite handily.

> Was Lenin a conservative?

Lenin ruled for barely 4 years. Since November 1917 till late 1921, when he already had been gravely ill and was largely removed from all power and left as a figurehead. In 1923, he had his third stroke, and his days were numbered. So, compared to overall Russia's history, Lenin's four years have been but a brief episode. Stalin, who replaced him, was a conservative ruler (though of course not the kind of "conservative" that we have now in America, obviously), so were all up to maybe Gorbachev - who ruled for about 6 years overall. As you can see, not being a conservative leader in Russia means a rather short tenure, somehow.

> Now this have changed and we have entered very 'interesting' times.

If you think people in Russia will raise up and overthrow Putin because of the suffering he has inflicted on them due to his insane lust for conquest - don't hold you breath for it. He has much better chance do die as a Tsar (which is what most Russian Tsars did) than to be deposed. Russian people, as a mass, have absolutely zero inclination to overthrow Putin's regime.

Is it? Is the culture of Paris fairly homogenous? New York? London? Berlin?

I would imagine the place has some shared cultural understandings, generally, but that a big city is going to be much more heterogenous. But maybe I'm thinking too micro scale.

In fact, it's the same country and the same establishment. While Chernobyl is currently, as everybody knows, Ukrainian territory - at the time it was the territory of the USSR, and the dominating culture was Soviet - which despite being theoretically "internationalist" actually meant "Russian Imperial". People who made decisions there may have been born anywhere, but they all spoke Russian, and they all looked to Moscow for authority. And the establishment largely did not change in Russia since then - while some people went away, naturally or forcefully, and some new people came in, the new people now in Russia were largely parts of the same establishment as in the USSR - they just went up a number of rungs on the ladder when the top elites had to retire. The classic case is Putin - who is ex-KGB - but if you look at his team, you'll see most of them have roots in the old establishment or have been brought in by the people from the old establishment. In contrast to Ukraine, where old elites largely lost power (new ones are far from perfect either, but that's a topic for another day) and have been replaced, in Russia this replacement never really happened - and that may be a good key to why what is happening now is happening.