--- Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
> That's a huge change from 5 years ago, no? You used
> to say often that G was
> reviled in Russia and only respected by Westerners.
> Is he again a respected
> figure inside Russia today? Do people now associate
> him with Putin's
> restoration rather than thinking of him as Yeltsin's
> Wegbereiter?
>
> Michael
The recent opinion polls say that the majority of the pop now believes that Perestroika was necessary. In Yeltsin days there was a wide belief that the country was going to keep sliding down and down, and now it's seen 6 years of growth. And people like the consumer goods and cars and the ability to travel abroad that perestroika has given them 2 decades on. People get paid on time (unlike under Yeltsin) and a lot more. (There is a huge amount of Russian tourism to Turkey, Egypt, and the UAE that would have been unthinkable before -- supposedly the staff at the main destinations there all speak Russian.)
There's probably also the factor that the most disadvantaged group in Russia -- pensioners -- doesn't have much in the way of Internet access. ;)
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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