When Gorbachev came to power, we ran around mad with glee. We lived in our dreams, our illusions. Baring our souls to one another in our kitchens. We wanted a new Russia…Twenty years down the line, it finally dawned on us: Where was this new Russia supposed to have come from? It never existed, and it still doesn’t today. Someone put it very accurately: In five years, everything can change in Russia, but in two hundred—nothing. Boundless open spaces and yet, a slave mentality…
