How depressing it must be to have lived through the collapse of the soviet union, realize the magnitude of lies, see the hope of a new Russia, and then have to go through this.
I considered myself old and cynical but the level of hypocrisy recently is astonishingly, absolutely mind blowing.
Most of those born in USSR did not go through that realization. I am from KZ and it's the same here, if a bit more toned down (at least you don't see open praise for Stalin, probably because we were one of the main destinations for many deportations initiated by him: I grew up among many ethnic Germans and Chechens and such). It's one of the main reasons for what's been happening since the beginning of 2022, IMHO.
Unless you were among millions who simply died in the 'democratic' 90s [0].
"Mortality increased substantially after the economic crisis in 1998, with life expectancy falling to 58.9 years among men and 71.8 years among women by 2001. Most of these fluctuations were due to changes in mortality from vascular disease and violent deaths (mainly suicides, homicides, unintentional poisoning, and traffic incidents) among young and middle aged adults. Trends were similar in all parts of Russia. An extra 2.5-3 million Russian adults died in middle age in the period 1992-2001 than would have been expected based on 1991 mortality."
And what was depressing was seeing the magnitude of Western lies and the disillusionment that followed.