Putting Russia On The Couch

Ioffe psychoanalyzes the country:

There’s something deeply adolescent about modern Russia. Her behavior smacks of the kid with identity issues, who takes out her growing pains on those around her; who withers and bristles in the face of the slightest criticism; who feels superior precisely because she is misunderstood (Russians often quote the famous poem, “The mind cannot comprehend Russia“); who wants desperately to be liked yet cannot keep her advances steady enough before the violent, vocal resentment and fear of rejection come bursting through, killing her chances of acceptance; who angrily, hopelessly yearns for acceptance from those she perceives as the cool kids and resents those who would accept her because if they could accept her, how cool could they really be?

Michael Idov’s take:

For all its protestations of self-sufficiency, Russia is utterly obsessed with how it’s seen in the West. In fact, these two notions are linked in a charmingly adolescent way: The louder the exceptionalist talk about the country’s “special path,” the stronger the curiosity to check how it’s being received. Since the mid-aughts, the Kremlin has been quietly wasting millions on PR firms like Ketchum in order to improve its image abroad; a government-funded news portal exists solely to translate foreign articles about Russia into Russian; and any modicum of success a Russian actor, artist, or writer enjoys in the West is immediately blown out of proportion back home.