Moscow. The view from my window

After last summer's amazing visit to Saint Petersburg (SPB), I was excited and intrigued to see Moscow. While I was overwhelmed by Moscow largeness, I felt that the difference between these two capitals (new Moscow and old SPB) have never been more striking. The root of these differences is, of course, the history of Russia. SPG was created and built by Peter the Great in early 1700s, as a window to Europe, to force a country isolated by Orthodox Christianity to join Europe’s road to Enlightenment. Meanwhile, Moscow which is almost 900 years old was and is now one of the pillars of Christian Orthodox tradition.

That tradition was rudely interrupted by October Revolution (1917) and communist aggressive anti-religious policies. After October Revolution Moscow lost a large number of its beautiful churches and Russians lost a significant part of their cultural identity. We rented an apartment in the heart of Moscow in an old apartment building, walking distance from Red Square. As we walked around the building I noticed a recently installed plaque on the building: The apartment building was built on the site of the church which was built 1686 and destroyed in 1929

The large old apartment in the heart of Moscow had many windows, with beautiful views and stories to tell.
Looking East is a beautiful grand cathedral looking brand new

The Cathedral of Christ the Savior is the second church constructed on the site. The first one was built in the 19th century to commemorate the heroes and victory in the First Patriotic War (Napoleon’s invasion in Russia). That Church was destroyed by Stalinist regime in the 1930’s. An Olympic size swimming pool was built on the site in 1960’s. The idea to rebuild the church was one of the first post-Soviet projects and mostly was executed on charitable donation of Russian citizens and ex-pats.

Looking North-West springs an ultra modern island of skyscrapers

Moscow-city or the Moscow Business Center complex is another baby of post-Soviet era grand projects and obviously a symbol of new Moscow global ambitions, this time looking in the future. The ambitions are on-going and ignore current political bickering. The beatification and modernization of Moscow is a project of surreal proportion.

The work is on-going 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The new sidewalks are paved with thick granite tiles, replacing the old asphalt sidewalks over large areas in the city center, with dozens of people working on each site. It is difficult to imagine the cost of this project, but it definitely provides a lot of working class jobs.

And looking directly North is Moscow of my youth

The glorious 70th. These New Arbat buildings looked magnificent to me when I was 18 years old; I had never seen modern buildings looking so big and grand. It was also a clever design idea to shape these buildings like open books. Obviously, the grandeur and magnificence didn’t last as with most construction of this period. These buildings are signs of the time and they are going through renovation efforts to make the best of it. The damage is particularly depressing when you see the Old Arbat neighborhood and imagine what streets were demolished to build the highway and these modern cheap monstrosities.

Wherever I go, I always check out food markets. Maybe it is my childhood memories when food was scarce or maybe just because I love good food. The state of the Danilovsky Market was exceptional in all departments

In addition to amazing food stands, the market was surrounded by eateries with amazing looks and smells. Every cuisine was represented: Georgian, Uzbek, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese. At 11:00 am there was already a line to the Pho stand. We bought Uzbek samsa, which were still hot and Patrick finally tried real Russian kvas. This ancient, lightly fermented drink is impossible to understand when you buy it in the United States in plastic bottles. The real drink is slightly bubbly, has lovely flavor and is very refreshing.

To get to the market we took the metro to station Polyanka (meadow).
If you want to know how a perfect metro system should work, you must visit Moscow and use the metro. A weekly pass for all public transportation is less than $14. If you are in the middle of the train and exit to the platform, by the time you get to the end of station platform the next train has arrived. You are connected to free Wi-Fi at all times. It was a consistent experience throughout entire week. The only time we had to wait for about 3 min was after 11 pm. The metro first open in mid 1930’s and became a signature Moscow project. It was built to last and works like I never seen in any other metropolis. All stations have different design and older stations have imposing Soviet imagery, while modern stations looking very slick.

Nothing helps more to appreciate the country or a city than having enlightened friends which know the place well and who are generous enough to share their knowledge with you. My old friends took us to several lovely excursions, including ancient city of Vladimir. It was the taste of Russia outside Moscow - old, vast, beautiful and spiritual in traditional religious way.

The amazing tour of Moscow hidden treasures with old churches with fascinating history of survival communist regime, the streets of Old Arbat with many beautiful mansions left from the pre-revolutionary times when the area was populated by wealthy merchants and old nobility, the historical mansion, which was described in War and Peace as Rostov’s family home

The cloister setup by Elizaveta Fedorovna, member of Tzar’s family with tragic personal story of sacrifice and devotion. The church of remarkable beauty designed and built according to her vision behind the gate of the cloister.

There is more to Moscow than Kremlin!

Soviet imagery is very important and imposing theme in Moscow.

These days in SPB you can hardly notice remains of the Soviet regime. Most of the signs are gone and because the city is a complete architectural ensemble, there are no sign of Soviet architecture in the center of SPB. In Moscow, Soviet past plays a strange trick on you. Most of the Soviet imaginary has nostalgic appeal and sometimes kitschy expression. The explanations which were given to me by Russians, emphasized that keeping this imaginary – is preserving history. By design or subconsciously it felt more like whitewashing than preserving a history. Without the menace and depravity which associated with these images it didn’t feel like history, but more like a cute nostalgic movie about the past. If Russians decisionmakers really cared about history there should be a history museum where these artifacts are accompanied by appropriated context. Some of the imaginary was an all-out lie: the plaque installed on the Kremlin wall in 2015 to commemorate WWII depicts imaginary battle for Kremlin

There was also a different character to public events. In SPB, as part of annual White Nights festival, the live classical music was performed in city parks and it was in perfect harmony with classical city architecture. Moscow too was filled with music, but of another kind. On the Red Square nightly fireworks marked a week-long parade of military orchestras.
While Moscow Central park (Park Gor’kogo) was immaculately taken care off, when we visited, the loudspeaker projected live bad performance of the worst sample of Soviet pop-music. That was obnoxious and disturbing.

Obviously not everything could or should be moved to museum. The most impressive site of Soviet period is VDNH (pronounce ve-de-en-ha) stands for Exhibition of achievements of industry and agriculture. The site has plenty of Soviet imaginary and is the home of the most stunning sculpture of Soviet period created by Vera Muchina - Worker and Kolkhoz Woman

How to sum it up? What about the food, museums, theater, restaurants, pelmeni?

It is impossible to tell it all. The experience leaves the visitor overwhelmed with the feeling that to know Moscow will take many more visits and loving Moscow may take a lifetime. Just ten days visit cannot cover the largeness, history, the speed of changes and layers of complexity and culture. As Russians will say -- Moscow is a city of contrasts.
On the last day, after few days of miserable cold rain and grey skies, the weather suddenly turned sunny and warm. I told the driver who was taking us to airport how sad I was to leave the city on such a beautiful day. He said: “don’t worry, it’s not going to last.” So long Moscow!

Real Fake Media

Our President is truly inspirational. Turbulent times inspire artists, writers, journalists and simple bloggers. This little essay was inspired by the President’s blustery relationship with mainstream media (MSM). The President’s hostility to the MSM has created an atmosphere of strong distrust for the Fourth Estate. His crude tweets and rants about fake media have had a stunning effect. The President, who himself has no relationship with truth, has managed to discredit the MSM to such degree that public trusts the MSM only slightly more than the President. The goal of these attacks is very clear and part of the typical approach to build an authoritarian rule. A dictator to be destroys the independent press to become the authoritative news source. That WILL convert news to propaganda, just like it was in the Soviet Union.

Propaganda is basically any information which comes from the people in power. Any White House press conference including presidents we love and respect is supposed to promote/defend the current occupant of the White House. The Soviets were not good in feeding population or creating a real economy, but they knew propaganda. They knew it from the time of October revolution when Lenin immediately understood necessity of taking over the means of communication and controlling the media.

When I was young in 70-80s, the Soviet media was a laughing stock because of the glaring gap between our everyday life and what we were reading or seeing in the news. But since we were not allowed to travel abroad, we knew nothing about life outside of the Soviet borders. The media coverage of the Western world, while not exactly trusted, was our only glance at the life outside of the iron curtain. The lies were not that obvious, since we could not see it for ourselves. One story about the US had a very strong impression on me. It turns out it was a very important story which had an enormous impact on many lives in Soviet Union and in the West.

For the younger readers and not Soviet immigrant, a little bit of context. The Literaturnaya [Literary] Gazeta targeted the most educated part of the Soviet population. It was also an outlet for the most sophisticated propaganda. The Gazeta was a weekly and was thicker than regular daily newspaper. Think about Sunday New York Times. It covered foreign news and had analytical articles about world events and culture and it was the most respected news outlet for Soviet educated elite.

In the Literaturnaya Gazeta of 30 October 1985, I read for the first time the story about AIDS. It was a full-page article covering the origin and current state of epidemic and potential impact on Soviet life. The roots of the epidemics were traced to a secret US military biological weapon program which was supposed to reduce population of prostitutes, drug addicts, blacks and homosexuals. I think it was a first article in Soviet press which acknowledged the existence of gay people, at least in the rotten capitalist West. It described the disease in all gruesome details and explained that it was transmitted mostly by needles used for drug injections. The second part of the article was trying to calm down scared readers, by explaining that disease like this is completely impossible in the USSR. Because of our perfect social conditions, women are not reduced to become prostitutes, we have no racial problems, drug addicts, and of course no gays.

Many other publications followed suite and described the situation the same way. Meanwhile deadly disease was killing Russians all over the country. The statistic of this epidemic in USSR are not available, because there was no data collection, since there was no recognition of the problem. After perestroika was on the way, it turns out that AIDS had a very significant epidemic in Russia (the estimate 10,000 cases reported in 1996). Nobody really knows the real number of victims.

Meanwhile in the US, media coverage of AIDS epidemics did not start out very well. The coverage was scattered and controversial based on ideological and political biases. While there was clear admission of the problem the ideological biases had a strong impact. The science community understood that epidemic came from Africa and how it was transmitted in the population. But among religious conservative the prevailing view was that the epidemic is plague and God’s punishment for the sins of sodomy. Therefore, no government intervention (tax $$$) in God’s act was needed. The religious conservatives were a major constituency for Ronald Reagan and he had no political incentives to put money into research or cures. But eventually the pressure from citizens, especially the well-organized gay community and their support in Hollywood turned the media coverage around. The film “Philadelphia” with Tom Hanks, Tony Kushner amazing play “Angels in America” lead to reporting of devastating personal stories in major newspapers. As a result, it created a public pressure to invest in research to help and cure the disease. The ridiculous and cruel story about God’s punishment died of natural causes.

This strange tale of two countries coverage of one deadly epidemic has many important lessons for our time. We [Soviet immigrants] should never underestimate the importance of independent media. Presidential tweets, White House press conferences, or the media outlets directly supportive of government are not the news. They are official propaganda. Just like Pravda or Literaturnaya Gazeta. Only fact checkers, investigations and analysis of serious media will keep the powerful in line with reality. Yes, the MSM makes mistakes, it has biases and bends under pressure of the powerful. But eventually, under scrutiny of critical and active citizens, the media does its job and truth comes out. While Fourth Estate checks the power, the citizens check the Fourth Estate. If fake news takes over the media, it is because we didn’t do our job, and it will be us who will bear the consequences of living in the alternative reality created by propaganda and fake news.

A Guide to the Breitbart Guide to alt-right

Alt-right official image

In my infinite reading and browsing, I finally ran into an article published on Breitbart by Allum Bokhari and now infamous Milo Yiannopoulos which provided to regular people -- who these two call the Establishment -- a guide to the alt-right:
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/an-establishment-conservatives-guide-to-the-alt-right/
While I already had an idea what the movement was about from various commentaries, for the sake of being open minded I carefully read the entire opus.

That was quite a 'feat'. I will start with couple major points first and then will switch to particular quotes and examples. I will use different font color when quoting from the guide directly.

The main incongruity of the movement is a stated goal of preserving western civilization by way of destroying its principles of Enlightening. This includes democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression, and eradication of religious authority. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it looks like authors are completely unaware of the contradiction and do not recognize that implementation of alt-right ideas would destroy western civilization.

The reason for such obvious contradiction is not the lack of knowledge, but rather obnoxious pride in their intellectual superiority which disables the author’s critical thinking. To demonstrate their education, they start their opus paraphrasing Marx's Communist manifesto and move on by dropping names H. Mencken, Samuel Fransis and others conservative intellectuals. By no means do these educated and thoughtful authors have anything in common with regular skinheads and street hooligans. They present themselves as connoisseurs of western civilization which they are so eager to save.

Moving on to particulars. The authors present us with major species which represent alt-right movement.

The first and most important alt-right constituencies are Intellectuals. This group of alt-right intellectuals puts under microscope liberalism, democracy and egalitarianism and found them wanting. Liberal democracy, they argued, had no better a historical track record than monarchy, while egalitarianism flew in the face of every piece of research on hereditary intelligence. Asking people to see each other as human beings rather than members of a demographic in-group, meanwhile, ignored every piece of research on tribal psychology.

The authors of the opus didn't bother to provide any proof of such statement and failed to point out that the longest period of peace and improvement in human condition happened in western civilization by building in Europe and North America entire community of countries which are guided particularly by principles of liberalism, democracy and egalitarianism.

Moreover, the western civilization bloomed when people transition from seeing themselves as member of the group to see themselves as individuals and started to recognize certain universal moral principles which all these different groups have in common. That is the actual intrinsic philosophy behind all Abrahamic religions. Our so-called intellectuals didn't catch this.

Next group is called Natural Conservatives. For natural conservatives, culture, not economic efficiency, is the paramount value. More specifically, they value the greatest cultural expressions of their tribe. Their perfect society does not necessarily produce a soaring GDP, but it does produce symphonies, basilicas and Old Masters. The natural conservative tendency within the alt-right points to these apotheosis of western European culture and declares them valuable and worth preserving and protecting.

This group’s main concern is diversity. They think that massive immigration will not appreciate and even destroy these apotheoses. In their opinion, the Establishment doesn't care about preservation of this rich cultural heritage, our alt-right guides bring us to a stunning conclusion: Donald Trump, perhaps the first truly cultural candidate for President since Buchanan, suggests grassroots appetite for more robust protection of the western European and American way of life. I considered stopping reading right at this high point, but my curiosity made me to continue.

There is a real concern that some part of "regressive" left does have an inclination to diminish what they call a culture of "dead white males". But authors ignore that the critics of these inclinations are coming not just from conservatives but from a significant left constituency as well.

An addition, the natural conservatives completely ignore that culture is not a static entity enshrined in old cathedrals, but a living organism, and diversity, exchange and fusion of ideas make it much richer and brings layer of complexity and excitement. In fact, the cathedrals while amazing and beautiful are only small part of what western civilization has to offer. The more diversity was introduced, more sophisticated design styles emerged. For example, the amazing art-deco movement was heavily influenced by Asian esthetics. I could go on and on this, but it will take this essay in different direction. Again our preservationist failed to mention such details. In their view western civilization peaked at building cathedrals.

The USA would not exist and not achieve the cultural status it currently has in the world without massive immigration waves. The natural conservatives only see one side of immigration as destruction of the local culture. Yes, immigration partially destroys the local culture, and there is very little kumbaya in absorption and integration of each immigration wave. But the new culture comes out as a fusion of local and immigrant culture. Yes, the process could be painful, but I would be bored to death being surrounded by just cathedrals.

The next in line is MEME Team. They are rebels; the young people who rebel against self-censorship. These young rebels, a subset of the alt-right, aren’t drawn to it because of an intellectual awakening, or because they’re instinctively conservative. Ironically, they’re drawn to the alt-right for the same reason that young Baby Boomers were drawn to the New Left in the 1960s: because it promises fun, transgression, and a challenge to social norms they just don’t understand

As always, there is a form and there is content. The authors of this guide consistently miss the point. The young generation of 60s and 70s while was rebellious, it was not just for fun and transgression, but had a particular cause – social justice, civil rights, gay rights, abortion rights. While young people expressed this struggle in hippie movement, the content of the MEME team is to rebel against the culture which admitted the guilt and condemned racism, sexism and homophobia. This is not the same as Father Christmas as the authors proceed to explain: As with Father Christmas, Millennials have trouble believing it’s [Holocaust or racism] actually real. They’ve never actually seen it for themselves — and they don’t believe that the memes they post on /pol/ are actually racist. In fact, they know they’re not — they do it because it gets a reaction. Barely a month passes without a long feature in a new media outlet about the rampant sexism, racism or homophobia of online image boards. For regular posters at these boards, that’s mission accomplished.

The MEME team is young rebels against Establishment culture. But this is where the similarity with hippies ends. Their goal is not love and peace, but to hurt and scare people. They are ignorant, racist internet hooligans. More similar to the characters in the Kubrick's “Clockwork Orange“, than to the hippie's flower children.

The next group is 1488s. These are just simple Neo-Nazies. 88 stands for 8th letter of alphabet HH for Heil Hitler. Even super generous to alt-right folks authors of the guide had to admit that the group is not very edifying and initially compared them to Islamic terrorists which is somewhat appropriate. It would be OK, if they would stop right there. But they needed to pull in comparison to liberals and brought BLM as similar movement. Here we return again to the form and the content issue. While there are some questionable forms of the rebellion in the BLM movement, the content is a legitimate protest against police violence. Yes, just like in civil rights struggle, some protests turned criminal and violent and extreme wing of BLM could be compared to Black Panthers, but not to Nazis.

The Establishment's Frankenstein group is very much concerned about what’s acceptable and unacceptable to discuss in polite society. The authors put liberal identity politics on campuses against the plight of white working class male. While there are real problems with identity politics on campuses and the plight of white males is real, both of them are confronted and discussed plenty in Establishment media. As very active media consumer, I'm well aware of these problems. But, even when the established media does write about the plight of white men it is presented as a health and economic crisis. The words which are used are from medical and economic vocabulary -- opium epidemics and the disappearance of well-paid working class jobs. When similar processes affected the black population in former industrial cities like Chicago, it was all about crime and crack cocain addiction.

Alt-right anti PC group blames establishment for ignoring the plight of white males. And while taking a pride in being politically incorrect, they will not discuss why women are doing better than men. All they do are complaining about violent feminism. It never came to their minds that maybe women, when given equal rights, are better adjusted to the modern workplace. Maybe they are doing better because their biological function as children caregivers made them more social, responsible and flexible which are exactly the qualities which are desirable in post industrial economy. And white men just need to pull themselves by their boot's straps and say no to drugs. Just as native conservatives once told to poor minority population. Instead, they playing victim card, just like liberal identity politics aficionados they like to complain about.

In the conclusion of the guide, the authors are saying that natural conservative is the group which needs to be pursued by Establishment, otherwise is that the 1488ers start persuading people that their solution to natural conservatives’ problems is the only viable one. The bulk of their demands, after all, are not so audacious: they want their own communities, populated by their own people, and governed by their own values.

What authors don't mention that natural conservatives are just mild form of 1488ers. The only difference is that they don’t mind that other groups have their own way at least for now. They also don't mention that natural conservative idyllic society is impossible in multicultural immigrant country such as USA and the only choice for us is 1488ers or multiculturalism and diversity.

I do agree that natural conservatives are not going away and liberals need to work with the group. They need to learn how to peel away as many people from the group as possible. Hopefully, this could be done through better education and history lessons by explaining that their demands will not result in idyllic communities with traditional values -- these communities never have been idyllic. It will result in strict regimes similar to what we see now in Iran and other theocratic countries. These communities will fight with each other over territories which they considered traditionally belong to them, over minor religious differences like Sunnis and Shia, while internally will be torn apart by matters which we consider ridiculous, like the right of a Catholic to marry a Jew.

Overall, while the guide is an eye opener, introducing various groups which represent the alt-right coalition, it is real goal is to obfuscate the deplorable values at the core of each group. At the same time the liberals, the former Establishment needs to develop a strategy how to deal with alt-right in a way which could alter their popularity and take down a romantic aura of the revolutionary movement.

I would suggest making the guide a required reading in liberal colleges as a sample for critical reading and writing exercise. You cannot win the fight without understanding the enemy and without ability to prove a danger of their disingenuous ideas. In this fight liberals could learn where their ideas are failing and adjust their platform. It will make them stronger and give the ammunition to win the hearts and minds.

The art of painting mental pictures

How to make a mental picture of a real world?  Do we even know for sure what reality is?  All I know is that it is complex and multifaceted even for things which we consider small and simple.  So how to deal with the whole world? I want to present a few thoughts, using Russia as an example and painting as a metaphor.  Russia is the primary focus because it is country I came from, I know the language, and I’m well familiar with its history and culture. It is also a big chunk of the world which continues to surprise me at every turn.

Many contradictory things are true and real in Russia at the same time.  So how do you create an image of such complex entity?  As with any major painting, you should start with a sketch.  You begin a sketch with general outline and as you learn more about the subject it becomes more precise and multi-dimensional.  The resulting picture may not look at all like initial sketch.  The more dimensions, colors and rich context you add, the better artist you are and -- assuming that there is a reality -- the better it will match.  It is important to add a timeline to the mental picture to understand trends and history and a geography to understand context.  In some exceptional cases the image could have more truth than the slice of reality you are trying to depict.  This is true for all great paintings.

The logical place to start is to read about the subject.  But the problem starts immediately; if the material you read provides limited colors and a one dimensional picture you are starting your sketch not from a Rembrandt masterpiece but from some immature dork. It is an initial and very important task to recognize the quality of source material.  More often than not, it is very difficult to find a good source.

I have learned to be very skeptical of what I read.  It started back in the USSR when the Soviet news media kept reporting on record harvest and milk production, but the empty shelves in the grocery stores told a different story.  You can immediately toss your sketch out if you started with material similar to the Soviet media.  That is a simple case, because it is easy to compare something which you experience in reality with the obvious lies pushed on you in TV and newspapers.

Unfortunately, it is not always so obvious, especially when you are reading about places which are far away and an immediate reality check is not an option.   It is very important to emphasize how difficult it is to filter source material.  For example, what you are reading may not be a direct lie, but something which presents selected facts and expresses an opinion which is the same or similar to yours.  In this situation, selected facts can suddenly look to you like a complete picture, because our minds tend to trick us and we easily believe something we are very ready to hear.

How to avoid this trap? This is a lesson which I very recently learned.  First of all, always check the facts.  Not simply check them, but check them in context.  For example, if a fact is presented as some index or indicator, you can check other related indicators and the trend in the index.  All of this seems obvious in theory, but it is very difficult to practice consistently.

For example: I recently read a somewhat contemptuous and indulgent opinion article about Russia in a Russian blog post.  The opinion stated that while Russians and Russia really didn't achieve much after the fall of the USSR, they never the less were extremely proud of Russia and thought very highly of themselves.  The support for the low achievement was factual and based on the Global Innovation Index (GII).  The Russian Federation was, in 2016, in 43rd place in the world which is quite pathetic for a large country with very strong tradition in education.  There was no support for the proud sentiment in the blog, it just reflected the feeling of the author.

So you can draw the following sketch from this opinion article:
⦁ Russian state doesn't have an environment where innovation could blossom and provide results
⦁ Russian people are stupid and don't really understand how low their place in the modern world

I just visited Russia a couple of months ago and the sketch which this article presented didn't look right to me.  So I went online and I found out that GII is a new indicator which started in 2013.  According to GII, Russia was in 63rd place in 2013 and now on 43rd in 2016.  So now it looks a little different: that while there is room for improvement, the trend is moving in the right direction. There is also an important modern history context to these poor results. Russia experienced a huge brain drain from 1986 to around 2005 when the most talented people were leaving Russia for better opportunities abroad. In fact, the IT boom in Israel and partially in the US was fueled by scientists and engineers educated in the former Soviet Union.  But talented people have more or less stopped leaving Russia and now able to find opportunities at home.   Therefore GII is improving.  When you take into account these contexts, the causes listed above don't seem so relevant anymore.

It is important to notice that the main reason I decided to analyze this blog is because I had recently travelled to Russia.  If this trip hadn't happen, the opinion of the author of the blog would have fit well in the current US media coverage of Russia.  My mental picture of Russia, based on reading the US press, would have been reinforced by this Russian blog.  But the reality I saw in Russia was totally different.  This demonstrates the critical importance of travelling and seeing places for yourself before completing your mental pictures.

For example: Let say you want to paint a teapot. You have never seen a teapot before and looking for a model. This is what you found:

It is a photograph, it was found in a trustful publication and everyone would pretty much agree that this is a teapot. You paint your art piece and think you completed your work.  Then, for whatever reason, you go to a teapot country and see that most teapots really looking something like this:

That doesn't mean that your first teapot is not a teapot, but for sure it is not a typical teapot.  It is also possible that at a certain period of time the typical teapot looked like your first teapot.  But when you visit a teapot country this is no longer the case.  Now have in mind that while pictures of teapots have no political context and are absolutely benign, imagine how much the situation could be impacted if there were strong political/ideological/financial incentives to present teapots in certain way and how far they can differ from the real ones.

That is exactly what happened with my mental picture of Russia when I went there this summer. While US and western press was presenting Russia as a poor country where people are living under cruel dictatorship usually referred as Putin's regime, who drove Russia to the verge of economic collapse, I encountered a well to do place with happy, good looking people, an amazing art scene, a delicious local cuisine and press with variety of opinions.  Moreover, knowing history of this country and having visited it eight years earlier, I realized that Russians, in their long history, had never lived better.  Coming back home, the whole experience made me to re-evaluate my entire relationship with US and western media.

It was also very entertaining to see how the US press was trying to explain the recent Russian election results.  The election was observed by international organizations and they had to admit that there were no major violations. The ruling party won a large majority in the parliament.  The liberal pro-western party lost seats. The press presented different theories justifying the results, including that not many people participated, that people in provinces were not well informed, et cetera.  But no one offered the simple explanation that Russians were overall OK with the way Putin and his party manage the country.  This simple reason explains the low participation rates and the good results for the ruling party.  Apathy to political discourse is often a sign that things are running smoothly.

So what about mental pictures?  How to create a realistic picture of the world?  I still don't know, but I have learned a few useful skills.   Always check your facts, look for context and trends, travel to see places on your own and read the press not as a source of realistic images, but as something that is presented to you through multiple filters and influenced by politics, money, ideology and personnel agenda (yes even in a free press).   All our mental images should be a work in progress not complete works of art. 

A Post Card from Saint Petersburg

So why Saint Petersburg?  I had been there many times while growing up in the former USSR.    What could we expect to see in the northern capital of Russia, a country which the US press presents as an almost third world country, with oppressed people living under a militaristic autocratic dictator?
I was in St Petersburg 8 years ago, and although the city had changed since the Soviets left there were still too many signs of the city’s socialist past.  For readers who didn’t live through those times, the signs included a severe lack of basic civility, clean public toilets and a blind adoration of everything western interwoven with Russian chauvinism.  Not a pleasant experience, but something very familiar to people of my generation who were born and grew up in the former USSR.  I had heard from more than a few friends who visit Russia frequently that things were different now, but the scale of the changes is only appreciable when you see and feel it on your own.
Saint Petersburg is not just better; it’s almost a different country altogether, one which I didn’t know before.  It’s still familiar because of the language, history and culture, of course.  It was recognizable not because I remembered it like this, but because I read about it in Russian novels. It was the Saint Petersburg that existed before "developed socialism" was imposed by the Soviets.  (The term "developed socialism" is not mine, it was taught to us in school.)
The ruthless authoritarian dictator is nowhere to be seen; and that too was very different from my childhood, i.e. growing up with pictures of our fearless leaders everywhere: Lenin and Brezhnev at the time of my youth.  The service in most places is very professional and friendly and in many cases better than you commonly find in US.   The streets and public facilities are clean, people and cars follow traffic signs with a German-like obsession. What's more amazing that people are friendly, open, well dressed and very ready to help. They are often relax and happy.

The other amazing thing how many pre-revolutionary palaces which were abandoned and dilapidated under the Soviets have been strikingly restored to their original glory and opened up as museums:

The Sheremetev family house on Fontanka is now Museum of Music with amazing collection of theater artifacts and musical instruments. It also hosting free classical music concerts in Sheremetev private concert hall. 

In the attached Fountain house is lovingly preserved and curated Anna Akhmatova house-museum. This is a flat where she lived the major part of her tragic live. The museum is very well documented with a lot of personal artifacts and very informative and emotional tour guide. All windows of the flat are overlooking charming Sheremetev garden. After the visit you feel that her spirit still lives there.

Stroganov Palace restored just couple years ago to its late baroque glory

Faberge Museum in an elegant neo-classical Shuvalov Palace is a treasure filled jewel box which includes a fabulous collection of Faberge eggs recently purchased from Forbes

All new palaces-museums are well curated with wonderful tours and guides in many languages. The staff who work in these museums are clearly well informed and very proud of cultural heritage which has been restored for future generations to learn and enjoy.

The food experience was very similar. The food was familiar not because I had ever eaten like this in Russian restaurants or even homes, but because I read about this in Russian literature. The realization that Russia has rich and unique food culture which came back to life, was another unexpected revelation. In the restaurant "Gogol" not only the food but the service and décor were carefully reproduced including menus and dinner bell

After a few days we ventured beyond the traditional Russian foods to restaurants which serve new European cuisine. The food was amazing at the fraction of the cost you pay anywhere in US or Europe. Here is ceviche in Grand Cru on Fontanka

I was so impressed I even wrote a review of the place: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g298507-d2697534-Reviews-Grand_Cru_Wine_Bar-St_Petersburg_Northwestern_District.html

It is also noticeable that sanctions, which are, of course, hurting the Russian economy, have had a positive side effect on Russian food and agriculture industry. They very rapidly re-learned to raise and produce their own delicious food.

The theater life is better than ever was in Soviet times. The city has three major Opera and Ballet houses and countless drama theaters. There are free events going on in museums and parks. The first weekend we were there - was the last weekend of annual White Nights festival. Free classical music concerts were performed in public spaces and parks with high quality performances and grateful audiences of all ages

The theaters are attended by all generations and families with young kids. The marvelous performance of Romeo and Juliet in Mariinsky theater exceeded even my very high expectations

Most 18th and 19th centuries buildings are lovingly restored and Peter the Great would be proud how much the old city is preserved. The few modern buildings are not obnoxious and don't break architectural unity, which too often can be seen in other old European cities. The prevalence of yellow buildings with white columns and trims was ubiquitous and became on-going joke with my traveling companions

The color scheme sometimes even spilled on crosswalks

And ultimate yellow and white building - The General Staff Building, now part of Hermitage 

Walking along canals

And along Neva river at night:

Churches large and small and all beautiful each in its own way (some are converted back from the Soviet atheism museums)

Michailovsky castle with portrait museum and concert hall

Some completely unexpected finds like a lovingly restored art-deco masterpiece Au Pont Rouge a home of luxury department store

And of course the Hermitage, the unique collection of art and decorative objects in superbly preserved palace setting (unlike Louvre and many other museums which are just museums now)

And breathtaking grand palace rooms:

Brand new Russian contemporary art museum Erarta on Basil island with spectacular collection of brave new Russian art

In our surrealistic times when the world is falling apart and everything seems to be going to hell, it was delightful to see this old beautiful city revived to its former glory, a state worthy of it’s founder.