Searching for Russia

The Vineyard of the Saker



Whether one likes Russia or not, I think that everybody would agree that this country is really different, different in a profound and unique way. And there is some truth to that. One famous Russian author even wrote that “Russia cannot be understood rationally” (he used the expression “cannot be comprehended by the intellect”). Add to this already some rather eccentric politicians like Vladimir Zhirinovskii who is known to mix very rational and well-informed analyses with utter nonsense and you get the famous “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. Frankly, this is just some witty hyperbole, Russia is not that mysterious. She is, however, rather dramatically different from the west, central and east European countries and even though a big chunk of Russia lies inside the European continent west of the Urals, in civilizational terms she is far removed from the so-called “West”, especially the modern West.



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