[ivan_gammel]

I’ve been reading a lot of books in Russian, watched lots of movies and attended a lot of contemporary art exhibitions in Moscow and St.Petersburg. I’m struggling to find any traces of such contribution of emigrant communities in the last 30 years (well, maybe Akunin or Sorokin?). There are a few names from Soviet times, but they represent a fraction of what’s been happening and emigrants usually reflect on the past.

[yostrovs]

It is true that in the last 30 Russia has been absorbing American, particularly African American culture as far as music, movies, and dress are concerned. Russian culture in Russia is in decline generally.

[ivan_gammel]

As Russia opened more to the world, it indeed started absorbing elements of many other cultures (I do not know, why you focus on African American culture here and call its influence a decline - it sounds racist). However it does not mean it lost its unique identity and did not develop over the time. Probably, as an emigrant you just missed it and now so disconnected from the motherland that you have no idea what's actually going on there. It's much bigger than what you can find in TV news (who watches TV nowadays?!) or on a few YouTube blogs. How many contemporary Russian artists or writers do you know? What do you know about the modern internet culture of Russians, which is bigger than everything else? Do you know what modern Russians eat and where they go for a date? Are you familiar with TV ads that were so popular that they found their way into the language? Do you know what's going on on the roads and what part of life of modern Russian is dedicated to driving a car and everything around it? What do you know about national theatrical awards and have you ever seen any winning performance?

[thriftwy]

Russian culture is whatever Russians are up to. It cannot be in decline while accepting and digesting new stuff at the same time.