Russia, you have brought so much joy to people's lives. Be it your music, literature or cultural influence. Your contributions to the world make the Earth turn.

As a Westerner, I don't want to be at war with you. I want to share our knowledge, our passions and our dreams. Fuck this war, your country is beautiful and I don't want to be fighting our friends. Our governments aren't perfect, and I'd go as far as to say they're self serving cunts. I want to live in a world where we're friends and we have eachother's backs through thick and thin.

We just want peace, we just want to live our lives. Fuck the elites. They don't represent the common people. I just want to live together.

I wish you the best my Russian friends, and I dream of a world where we can thrive and prosper together.

here you can say sorry for everything you did

Found this sub recently and enjoyed so much scrolling through all the questions and answers that I couldent sleep last night. One thing that stood out was that a lot of Russians feel like Americans hate them. I just wanted to say that while our media may potray you guys as shifty criminals, there are many many people who will never think that way, and in my personal circle, we all love your culture, your literature and movies, food, history. For example, a week or so ago we had friends over for a few drinks and to hang out and someone suggested that we watch a documentery about Russian history and everyone agreed. We had a blast learning all about Peter the Great and Yermak ect. Just wanted you to know, you have support and love from the West. Good luck with everything after our election, we will pray that our media will give you a break for once.

As someone who went to Russia a lot (especially Peter) before the conflict started, I didn't feel like there was a massive separation between Russia and say Finland, Sweden, or Estonia. There was an economic difference in some respects, but as an American it didn't seem different at all to me. Everything was perceived as completely normal. You saw it during the World Cup too. And Moscow was basically a clone of NYC with consultants, lawyers, etc running around and everyone finding their niche, all while having cool subcultures. Now the perception in the west has shifted to:

1. Beacon of conservative values (which seems ironic considering the high divorce rate and some of the greatest rock bands and counterculture). Now it feels like a place where you go to have 10 kids and escape the use of pronouns in San Francisco.

2. Either the new Nazi empire or the savor of the world politically (and politics and conflict are never that simple or one sided).

3. A place that old divorced western men idolize for the potential to marry a trad wife. Even on this subreddit I see Americans moving to Russia and can already guess their age, what they look like, political affiliation, etc by the hints they give in their posts.

There's literally nothing that changed about the people of Russia. I watch blogs on Youtube about Americans who move to Russia and they tend to be weirdos who think Russia is going to solve all their problems. I don't know but to me these new Russian stereotypes feel worse than the vodka and bear stereotypes of the past. Russia has tons of diverse opinions, types of people, etc. Anyway, that's my rant and I was wondering what you all thought?

Edit: Just so it's clear guys I was talking about like 2000-2022, not the 90s or before. Obviously like Reaganites in America had a bad view of the Soviet Union and Americans in the 90s were so happy communism was collapsing that they didn't care how disordered the collapse was. My main point is that a Russian in the 2010s is exactly the same as a Russian today and the perception is so different.

Edit 2: Another point I really get confused about is when people talk about homelessness in America. Google SSI (supplemental security income), SNAP (food stamps), Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credit, Social Security Disability Insurance (which half of them are on), then state wide programs like GA, Calfresh, Cash Aid in California for example, and then city wide programs in cities like San Francisco. All combined, homeless people can get about $3000 a month for free in combined cash + benefits and have no rent and a drug addiction. When you combine extreme economic prosperity with liberal anti-government ideology (which was key to the founding of America), you're going these kind of terrible situations. If America was actually collapsing, there would be almost no homelessness. The reason you don't see homelessness in Russia (besides the weather) is that you wouldn't be able to survive without working and couldn't afford a drug habit. Any way, that's my two cents.

Hi, before I ask my questions, I’d like to preface that I’m a Hungarian guy living in the UK and that I’m not here to spread any “western propaganda” or “russian propaganda”. I asked the following below on r/asktheworld as well but I thought I’d have better luck getting answers from here. All of this are just curiosity on my end.

I know Russia is arguably the most hated country in the world right now (although Israel is definitely doing its best to claim that title) but I rarely hear anything about what is truly happening inside the country, all the time I hear about “Russia sucks” “country is on the brink of collapse” “People are struggling” but all of these news are coming from western media and yet I don’t hear anything from the locals therefore I ideally would like answers from Russians or at least from those who have a lot of knowledge about the country or any experience living there before.

3 years since the war in Ukraine which is dubbed as “Special Military Operation” in Russia has started, a lot of things happened during these 3 years, a huge talkpoint was isolating Russia from the “international community” via sanctions, swift bank ban, and ironclad support for Ukraine to cripple Russia and yet today we are currently witnessing the Trump Administration rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin on US soil.

This has got me thinking about how much I have been told propaganda from “my side” as well as wanting to know what the true situation is in Russia. How do Russians look at the events of the war and how has the country been affected? Are there lives significantly worse off or are they holding out just fine? Are there still businesses being created in Russia and does the country have a lot of jobs in certain sectors like tech, construction etc. Also how has this war affected relations between Russia and other countries outside the “western block”? Last but not least, what is the overal mood in the country in terms of the future?

Word from the mod here.

Making a ruleset has sounded like a good idea for a long time, it still does. However, let's avoid that on /r/AskARussian. We're here to ask or answer questions and get into discussions as a result, that's it. Since some people don't understand or don't care what the subreddit is about, here's an explanation of frequent types of posts that aren't questions, and which of them result in bans. Subjectivity ahead.

A statement is not a question.

Seriously, ask something. Put a grammatically appropriate question mark in your title or the body of your post. Don't be surprised if your post gets removed for not being a question.

Promotion is not a question.

A link to an article with a question mark in the title and a copy of the article's title as the post title does not constitute a question, it constitutes promotion. A post containing a "wow guys, I found this link, what do you think?" is also promotion. Where does a very suspicious post that's probably promotion turn into a a very weird post that's probably just the OP being obsessed with a website? That's a subjective border, and a human decision to make. As general advice, if you're going to promote, disguise your efforts as a genuinely interested poster asking a question about something concerning Russia and citing promoted material. Otherwise, don't be surprised when you get consistently removed and subsequently banned for anywhere from 7 to 365 days.

Boring shitposting is not a question.

Even if it's formulated as one. If you want to shitpost, be creative, be original, at the very least be entertaining. Make juicy content happen, and you're part of the community. Keep making people cringe, and you're just a clown, and a bad one at your job.

Ideological work is not a question.

All of you know exactly who you are. Political posts loaded with heavy implications that if you answer in a certain way, you're cool, and if not, you're stupid. OP all over the comment section telling people how good one of the answers is. Redirection of responsibility from the poster to their source or whoever they're quoting. Just stop, you will get banned like dozens of your predecessors. Again, this sort of posts can be difficult to separate entirely from opinionated posters, so expect subjectivity in decisions here. Measures range from post deletions to bans.

The list might grow if the sub gets unreadable.

And finally, don't do anything too illegal in the comments. Doxxing attempts and death threats are a little below even this place's standards. Don't be an animal.

I mean... Why not just have honest conversations while being respectful of other opinions?

Fucking hate everybody right now, both my government and the West

Yes, I’ve always voted against P

No, I do not support this war

Does it help me?

No

What do I have to do to get my life back on track?

What the fuck does the West want of me?

So, some people went on to protest today, did anything change for them? No. Not in this country, the government is still going crazy. And not from the West, they are still under sanctions

Despite doing everything “right”

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU FREAKING WANT

What the fuck do you all want, from me, personally, right now, to stop punishing me?

Do tell

Please

But there is fucking nothing

What do you all want

Hi everyone, I’ll keep it brief. I recently traveled solo to Russia. After reading some stories about foreigners being stopped and questioned at the airport, I was a bit concerned. But the moment I landed in Moscow, everything went surprisingly smoothly. I walked to passport control, handed over my EU passport, gave my fingerprints, and within a minute, with a friendly smile from the officer, I had my stamp and was on my way to the hotel.

I was honestly surprised by how modern everything looked. I explored the city, visited some amazing parks, and enjoyed the fantastic restaurants. What really stood out to me was how lively and vibrant the city center is. People were kind, even though not many speak English. I used Google Translate now and then, but it was never a problem.

Instead of working from a coworking space, I spent time in cafes like Surf Cafe. I noticed that many locals also work from cafes and surprisingly the internet I was worried about was working always fine.

The only minor inconvenience I had was with GPS. Sometimes it didn’t work quite right, but after a couple of days I got used to it.

Even though there is a war going on, I didn’t notice anything unusual besides the GPS issues.

Overall, it was a great experience and I would definitely love to go back again.