I was a kid. In Moscow it was not scary at all. My parents were engineers and were making an average living. But when I became older and started reading some underground literature about Stalin's gulags and revolution and the second war, that's when I became scared of the Russian people as a nation. At some point I realized that Russians murdered tens of millions of their own people in a name of Lenin, Stalin and communism. My grandfather, an analyst working for a ministry of agriculture was arrested in '37 and executed a week later. Enemy of the people. My father's family is from Ukrain, farmers. His dad had 6 kids, was fighting in two world wars, in '52 was arrested, released a few months later very sick and broken man, died a week later from internal bleeding.
All of this I found out when I was 18-20. before that I lived in the best country in the world, and was pitying poor Americans.
Siberia is amazing. I was there twice - once for a water rafting trip with my college buddies, we are still not sure how we came out alive from that wilderness, were totally unpre3pared, stupid kids.
The other time I was there for a business trip - brought some special software to a remote computer center servicing the gas exploration region. This is where I saw all the might of the Russian science. People in a very remote region ( no internet back then ) created all the software and some hardware they needed themselves.
Imagine what these people could do if they did not have to worry about being prosecuted for their political beliefs , religious beliefs, but could concentrate only on their work?!
