You definitely got fed a load.

You didn’t yet specify where.

Boris Yeltsin had to shell Parliament into submission to prevent himself from being removed.

Correct, that happened in year 1993, which is the reason for me having it as a separation point.

A year later, Russians were in Chechnya doing what Americans would repeat in Iraq ten years later.

No. First Chechen war was a failure with many human losses, newspapers and TV (including state channels) and associations of soldiers’ mothers and such were howling both at the operation itself and at the losses, and it ended with Khasavyurt accord signed by general Lebed on Russia’s behalf (he was quite popular, BTW, and held pacifist enough views, being himself a participant of the war in Afghanistan ; later became a politician and died in a helicopter crash).

If anything, First Chechen war showed that Russian society does still have some spine.

And the Second Chechen war happened after a few people (one can say politicians) visible since late 80s were killed, and power balance changed.

That doesn’t change the fact that censorship existed in the USSR, freedom of movement inside the country was limited, and political parties other than the CPSU didn’t exist. While roughly between 1989 and 2012 Russian society had freedom of thought at least.

Like, what on earth do you think Interior Ministry Order 870 was in response to?

It’s year 2002, when Putin still hasn’t destroyed his (oligarchic, and honestly now those people don’t seem much nicer) opposition, and federal troops in the Northern Caucasus were in some regards similar to an occupying force. I think it was in response to that, but also, as you might have noticed, these people don’t need formalities to get something done.

I don’t know what you’re trying to say. If you are somehow imagining USSR before breakup as something like the USA of today, just communist, I’m afraid it was not. It was a country almost entirely living in “safe poverty”, where you wouldn’t generally starve, but other than that it was pretty depressive. I mean, you should watch some Soviet movie classics, even the more cheerful kind will educate you on that.

The 90s were a failure of trying to fix that thing when it stopped working. Yes, it was a catastrophe, but the USSR before it wasn’t some heaven on earth or even a good place to live. Take Chikatilo (the serial murderer) - one suspect before him was tortured for admission of guilt and executed.

Because it’s factually untrue and largely a product of American criticism of Societ Era politics.

I must have imagined everything I know of the 90s in Russia, including all read, heard and seen.

Western propaganda in a nutshell. You’re so invested in your hatred of a foreign country that you attribute any rebuttal to mental illness.

There was no rebuttal, I live in Russia and you are arguing like a typical American. You don’t know how hard it was to keep a more specific description in.

That’s some grade A propaganda. The mid-90s Russia was a brutal Mafia state that preluded a number of ugly conflicts, most notably in Chechnya.

How is that propaganda and why are you answering it with things orthogonal to what I said? You have a disability, perhaps, making you incapable of understanding texts taken in full?

The only thing resembling “freedom” to talk was the rash of ethno-nationalism and reactionary social conservatism which would become the hallmarks of United Russia.

Those were present in the public perception, thus those were present in politics. No, ER is not partial to any specific ideology. They are the ruling party and do whatever they want. That’s their only ideology.

Russia was being converted into a Western client state, on par with Mexico or Indonesia. Yeltsin opened the doors to a US based looting of the former USSR.

Yeltsin thought differently. When he realized that, he also realized he has no plan. Thus the weird moves after 1996 and ultimately passing power to Putin.

Putin came into power on a wave of nationalist sentiment that closed the door and internalized the wealth of Russia again (to Putin’s cartel of guys).

He didn’t close any doors. Just slowly accumulated power, as a side effect pressing out other interests.

The idea that this was some kind of liberalization of Russian politics requires you to ignore everything but the superficial token liberalist parties that never had a popular base of support.

What you wrote doesn’t have any connection to what I wrote.

But since that’s wrong as well - no, roughly in 1989-1993 Russian politics existed for real. And in 1993-1999 there was growing understanding that things went the wrong way in 1993. And the 1996 election was competitive among the populace, even if CPRF the party clearly intended to lose politically.

In any case what I wrote was about the society and culture, not about politics, you just can’t perceive anything outside of your partisan bullshit, can you?

It’s bleak, man. Real “you’re a Russian landing your first job in 1989 Moscow” bleak.

In 1989 there was literally US food aid being unloaded in Moscow, so it was already bad and the future wasn’t so bleak, many people were hopeful. I was born in 1996, so can’t speak for the 90s, but it appears it wasn’t such a bad time in the sense that people became free to talk and dream and be honest to each other. It was something dark, but pure. It was a bad time for people who were hungry. Unfortunately, while the majority was trying to somehow survive and exploring that newly gained ability to look at the world in its true colors, the minority was preparing what there is now.

But ok, I got your meaning.

The purpose of the bubble, I think (for those who are intentionally helping it), is an intentional drying of the environment for that re-industrialization they want, which requires a change in labor market. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if it worked, but that is also true for Russia’s shock therapy in the 90s, which didn’t.

(BTW, the difference of both Yeltsin’s and Putin’s regimes from most of the “anti-western” world is that they were not really that, they just weren’t accepted, which made them look for alternatives ; perhaps both make it seem like personal ego of the leader, but honestly what USA did in Yeltsin’s time was indeed adversarial - basically they used Yeltsin’s willingness to make all the leaps of faith to become a NATO member or at least an ally to snatch what’s possible and humiliate Russia as possible, and then took a “we didn’t sign anything” pose.)

The US education system is increasingly diploma mills and sinecures for friends of public officials.

TIL that sinecure is a Latin word. In Russian it sounds a lot like “a place where you smoke something blue, or emitting blue smoke, or making you blue”.

On the subject - the US still designs some of the most advanced things on this planet, so some people do get educated.

The only way I’ve ever learned anything is by having a real-world problem that I can solve.

Same thing here except I’m still not a developer. Just from time to time can do something if it’s less boring than going another way.

I’ve even played through the “Turing Complete” game once, because I can’t force myself to repeat it. And it was very interesting, absolutely cool, except that gun has fired. It appears the game changed enough though, maybe it’s a sufficiently different gun to fire again. It’s a game for entertainment, not even talking about real life.

And when there’s a direct incentive, nothing is hard, for real. The hardship is in eyes tiring, time passing, time to render (in case of POV-Ray), migraines. But the task itself just takes it all as a payment, not as an effort.

And I sincerely don’t get why my diagnoses are ASD and BAD despite describing this many times, that is, that happens with ASD too, but honestly ADHD seems the most intuitive abbreviation here.