One more thing. Happy Orthodox Christmas, by the way.
> You would have to be a
> lunatic to want your country to become something like Armenia, let alone
> Chechnya.
I know it and you know it. Now tell it to the Chechens, the Armenians, the Moldovans, the the Palestinians, the Tamils, etc. ---
The first time I came to Russia, I, as a Western lefty, was a Gorbyphile. I was talking to a guy about Gorbachev and he said, "You don't know what you are talking about. I am from Armenia. Go to Armenia. See how we live. Look at what Gorbachev and Yeltsin have done. We used to have everything. I hate Gorbachev with all my heart. The only people left in Armenia are children and old people, all the rest are working in Russia."
That's the general consensus among the Armenians and Georgians I've met. To be an anti-Russian Armenian or Georgian nationalist you have to be a complete idiot. When Russia tightened its visa regime for Georgia in response to actions taken by the Georgian government, you had mass anti-government protests in Tbilisi. Access to Russia is the only thing that keeps the Caucausus and Central Asia alive. Caucasians and Central Asians think of Russia as the Promised Land of milk, honey and freedom. Moscow, which is a Western city in terms of living standards, is the Emerald City of Oz.