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Comment by sologoub | Hacker News Reader

Russian superiority views are a relic of the empirical past. Every empire-forming nation has that same trait - us versus barbarians.

UK has this trait also and it is well illustrated in "Great Britain".

Russia might have been a great place to live, if it weren't for rampant corruption. It's sad, but on a personal level, I just can't take the risk of raising a family there or trying to do business. In US, entrepreneurship carriers financial and psychological risks, but in Russia it carriers very real physical harm risks, in addition to vastly greater financial risks.

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It isn't relic. Just like coffeemug I was born and raised in the Soviet Union.

It's not openly taught in schools but most ethnic Russians consider themselves higher race and everyone else is intellectually inferior.

This is even taught by Russian Orthodox Church. I graduated from high school after Soviet Union collapsed. We had this course called Christian Morality. In the class room I learned curious thing. It turned out that Jews drank blood of innocent Christian infants during their religious rituals. I am not kidding you.

Russian exceptionalism is outright nationalism and borderline nazism. My own father is openly hostile Ukrainians and Pols (other Slavic people). Why? Well, because they are Ukrainians and Pols and are not Russian. Therefore, it makes them half-human.

Soviet and Russian empires are long gone. But Putin and many Russians still dream to restore it.

"Christian morality" in shools is something introduced very recently which means whatever you actually got before that is unsolicited and random. No need to project that on the whole society. Same regarding your father - you can find people like that everywhere.

"most ethnic Russians consider themselves higher race and everyone else is intellectually inferior" Do you have any proof for that except for what your father thinks? Like sociologic studies or something?

> UK has this trait also and it is well illustrated in "Great Britain".

This is a common misconception. The "Great" part it not meant in the sense of it being important or excellent. Rather, it refers to the size of the island.

The name "Great Britain" has been around since the UK was a wet and rainy corner of the Roman Empire - in a sense, it is a relic of an empirical past... just not the British Empire.

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