[arter]

I have never in my life felt that countries matter. That a person might be better off in one country than another. As such I cannot understand the feelings in this article even though I am Bulgarian and know the events by heart.

My parents spent 15 years of their life in Spain and hated every second of it. They hated it so much because I wasn't there with them. And they had a horrinle opinion of the culture and daily life there. While in opposite my 2 uncles that went with them and took their own kids with them, like it there and have never went back.

I with half the life span of my parents believe that personal issues and events completely eclipse any effect the political and cultural environment has. For me political and/or cultural events were just a new conversation topic in my social circles. Something to be part of because well everyone is part of it.

All my life I've been told that there is opportunity abroad, there is opportunity in the capital, in X large city. But opportunity isn't somewhere it just arises sometimes. I know for sure that opportunity doesn't come while sitting in one place you don't like.

But what I am trying to say is that: cities and countries aren't really colored in a specific way. They aren't dull, closed, eventful and such, they just are places. They have as much effect on an individual as does a single individual on them. Even so undoubtedly some places have a personal color to us - my parents will never again try to work in Spain and it would not end well if they did. I myself will never go back to the town of my high school, but others like it there.

[inglor_cz]

I am a Czech with a Bulgarian father and I understood the feelings in this article perfectly. The 90s were pretty similar all across the former Eastern Bloc, excluding Russia proper; a time of massive change and also hope for a better future.

Well, better future is here, but there is nothing more to aspire to anymore. No radical improvement to hope for. All changes are now marginal and usually translate to "more stuff in shops".

Also, I would say that countries and cities are plenty colored. There is a world apart between, say, cosmopolitan St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk. If the mentality of the former held sway in Russia, there probably would be no war.

(And yeah, I know that Putin's rise to power happened in Petersburg first, but he didn't really fit into the spirit of the city and now dwells elsewhere.)

[kubanczyk]

> a world apart between, say, cosmopolitan St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk

Please tell more? If there were/are any drastic differences, I wasn't seeing them emanating here onto Poland.

[inglor_cz]

Ofc those Russian people who are unhappy with the status quo in Putin's Reich will shut up right now. The propaganda that streams into the world is coordinated and one of the prevailing motifs is "united Holy Russia against all the enemies".

But Putin's mafia is still somewhat afraid to start mobilization in Petersburg and Moscow. Both cities are a potential mutiny threat, full of young people including students, and not easy to subdue if shit hits the fan.

Peterburg is the more global of those two, as contact with Sweden, Finland and Estonia was extensive prior to the war, while the location of the city with respect to the core of Russia is a bit peripheral. The ports of Helsinki and Tallinn used to have a thick schedule of ferries there.

Russia as a whole cannot become part of the EU, not in 30 years at least, possibly ever. But, in the improbable case of St. Petersburg seceding from the empire, we could integrate them a lot better than some Balkan states.

[thriftwy]

I live in St. Petersburg but my family and friends live in Moscow, in the South and elsewere.

The last thing I desire is having a border with passport control and customs between them and me. No amount of kissing with your Swedish and Baltic friends would compensate for that.

Russians are no longer fools, they now understand how that particular meat grinder works.

[pavel_lishin]

> I have never in my life felt that countries matter. That a person might be better off in one country than another.

I think the people walking across central America to escape violence only to risk more of the same at borders, or taking rickety boats across the sea knowing full well that many of them sink killing everyone aboard, would strongly disagree with you.

> I with half the life span of my parents believe that personal issues and events completely eclipse any effect the political and cultural environment has.

I see where this is coming from, but sometimes events beyond our control - whether it's a lahar coming down a mountain, tanks firing rounds through your house, or a revolution that means your family are suddenly pariahs - can eclipse absolutely anything else, because suddenly those people who you have personal issues with are no longer people, but just meat that's no longer breathing or thinking. And some countries tend to have significantly fewer volcanic eruptions, or violent uprisings, or transfers-of-power at the end of a gun.