But Eastern European nationalists still have not figured that out. They would be much better off if they all came back to matushka Rossiya.
--- I am reminded of this because I had a conversation on the breakup of the USSR the other day with a woman I'm dating from Vladivostok.* Anyway, apropos Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and the other non-Russian former Soviet Repubs, she basically said, "serves those fuckers right. You want independence? OK, enjoy your independence -- we enjoy not funding you anymore! In Soviet days you lived better than Russians, and now your impoverished migrant workers are clogging our cities. Well, how about that." (The tone was less nasty than it sounds, more of an "irony of history" thing.)
* BTW FWIW she says Vlad is just full of cheap Chinese immigrant labor. (Average PPP-adjusted yearly wage in Russia = $9900, average in China = $5500.) (Makes one wonder about this "Soviet collapse/Chinese miracle" thing.)
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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