In personal conversations during my travels, what I've seen the most is people who are aware they know very little about Russia (this is mostly in the US) and are curious to learn.
Then there were obvious misconceptions that were really weird to hear: that Russia is a communist country, for instance. This one…
In personal conversations during my travels, what I've seen the most is people who are aware they know very little about Russia (this is mostly in the US) and are curious to learn.
Then there were obvious misconceptions that were really weird to hear: that Russia is a communist country, for instance. This one was surprisingly common among Americans.
And then the really common ones are pretty fundamental, but subtle things, like the general notion that "Russians support Putin" or more broadly, that Russians choose to live in the system that we have. These two are connected.
It's not exactly false to say that most Russians support Putin. But in Western countries, "support" means something like "willing to vote for in a competitive election". In Russia, there are no competitive elections—Putin has never participated in a debate, not once in the 20 years he's been in power. So it's not choosing between two (or more) prominent politicians competing for the job; it's choosing between the status quo and some vaguely defined unpredictable scenario—a peaceful revolution, or a violent revolution, or a failed attempt at a revolution followed by a reaction—or a demand for change that could lead to either one of those. It's less about supporting what is and more about fearing the alternative. (Interestingly, one argument against honest elections, sometimes used by Putin supporters, is "If you let Russians choose, they'll elect an autocratic nationalist, and Putin will seem like the good old days.")
Americans are for the most part woefully ignorant about foreign affairs. Then it is not covered much either by the media unless there is a war situation (like Syria) or a disaster of some sort. Like today, it is the volcano in New Zealand that killed many tourists. Those types of disasters are hardly political or about foreign affairs. That said, I think Russia gets a large amount of coverage in the US these days mostly because of Putin, according to the Mueller report as well as other intelligence reports the efforts of Russia to tamper with the political system in the USA via social media/internet, and the last few years the Crimea/ Ukraine/Russia issue. I have read over the decades upon occasion that the Russian character tends to like authoritarian governments. Not too surprising if that is true since it has pretty much been that way since the beginning of tribes in that part of the world. No real history of democracy to speak of. In addition, most human being in any country would pick the known over the unknown. Given the terrible experiences of the past in Russia, I can sure see why people would pick an existing known system over an unknown potential chaos or a worst “boss” should the existing boss fall.
I'll take this one by one.
1.
In personal conversations during my travels, what I've seen the most is people who are aware they know very little about Russia (this is mostly in the US) and are curious to learn.
Then there were obvious misconceptions that were really weird to hear: that Russia is a communist country, for instance. This one was surprisingly common among Americans.
And then the really common ones are pretty fundamental, but subtle things, like the general notion that "Russians support Putin" or more broadly, that Russians choose to live in the system that we have. These two are connected.
It's not exactly false to say that most Russians support Putin. But in Western countries, "support" means something like "willing to vote for in a competitive election". In Russia, there are no competitive elections—Putin has never participated in a debate, not once in the 20 years he's been in power. So it's not choosing between two (or more) prominent politicians competing for the job; it's choosing between the status quo and some vaguely defined unpredictable scenario—a peaceful revolution, or a violent revolution, or a failed attempt at a revolution followed by a reaction—or a demand for change that could lead to either one of those. It's less about supporting what is and more about fearing the alternative. (Interestingly, one argument against honest elections, sometimes used by Putin supporters, is "If you let Russians choose, they'll elect an autocratic nationalist, and Putin will seem like the good old days.")
Americans are for the most part woefully ignorant about foreign affairs. Then it is not covered much either by the media unless there is a war situation (like Syria) or a disaster of some sort. Like today, it is the volcano in New Zealand that killed many tourists. Those types of disasters are hardly political or about foreign affairs. That said, I think Russia gets a large amount of coverage in the US these days mostly because of Putin, according to the Mueller report as well as other intelligence reports the efforts of Russia to tamper with the political system in the USA via social media/internet, and the last few years the Crimea/ Ukraine/Russia issue. I have read over the decades upon occasion that the Russian character tends to like authoritarian governments. Not too surprising if that is true since it has pretty much been that way since the beginning of tribes in that part of the world. No real history of democracy to speak of. In addition, most human being in any country would pick the known over the unknown. Given the terrible experiences of the past in Russia, I can sure see why people would pick an existing known system over an unknown potential chaos or a worst “boss” should the existing boss fall.