“The marine guard on duty was about to tell her the pretty, neatly dressed woman that the embassy was closed when she handed him her passport. He blanched…”
From what? Her name was Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva. “Iosifovna” is not that an uncommon patronymic because “Iosif” is not that an uncommon a name.
Couldn't a Soviet international passport contain the names of parents as well? I am sure the domestic passport had that information.
For everyone in Soviet Union near the major population centers, a domestic passport was necessary. And for instance any "enemy of the people" (as defined by section §58 of Soviet penal code) status was recorded in not only the passport of the said enemy, but also his/her children's passports.
The Soviets maintained strict control over their passports, usually confiscating them at exit points and returning them right before re-entry, so a Soviet passport would be very uncommon and alarming.
Children of high-ranking nomenclature didn't want to live in "their" country and they don't want now.
Most of Russian parliament members, high-ranking officers and oligarchs keep their families in London or Miami. Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia.
That's where theories arise that Russia is just a cryptocolony of the UK and been that for 100 years.
This is merely an observation. English is not my first language, but I assure you wasn't specifically aiming at insulting anybody.
Unless observations hurt the observer, of course.
P. S. I think I am a bit wrong: people who clearly are not in their right mind don't want to live in Russia either.
There are of course people who are content to live in Russia right now or don't have much choice, but pretty much everybody eyes the possibility of escaping, if not for themself then maybe for their children or relatives. Russia is a nation of emigrants run by emigrants, using emigration as a reward for best achivers.
P. P. S. This compares to prevailing number of people in e.g. Japan or USA, for whom emigration has literally never in their lives crossed their mind. I hope I got myself clear this time.
I have every respect for the learners of any language, but this response is evasive. That was obviously not an observation. It was a slur, and you can't do that here.
If we read "nobody in their right mind" as "they're all batshit insane", we'll suddently see slurs against: prison guards, option holders excercising shares in certain fashion, developers preferring js to typescript, just from one page of search results.
But I'm just trying to convey the prevailing line of thought in the society.
> everybody eyes the possibility of escaping, if not for themself then maybe for their children or relatives. Russia is a nation of emigrants run by emigrants, using emigration as a reward for best achivers.
For what it's worth, I found this to be a fascinating statement. It's an elegant way to convey the psyche of the citizenry from places like Russia or China.
It was xenophobic because it said something nasty (edit: and completely non-factual) about an entire country. HN has plenty of readers in Russia and they have the same right to civil discourse here that everyone else does.
What if there are things you may consider nasty that might also be true?
I've read pg's "what you can't say", I know you're supposed to entertain this idea to yourself and shut up about it so you don't get caught in wars you don't want to wage all your life. But this time I think it's important for readers to know that war is actually going on.
Your comment was off-topic and uninteresting. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not, or that it's some dude's (i.e. your) opinion. It's about as enlightening as a banana. Don't pretend this is about some minutia of phrasing, either.
I fail to see how it is off-topic, since Stalin's heirs were the first (widely known) nomenclature children to skip Russia, but far from last.
If we're not counting the White Emigration, of course, since it's obvious that Tzar's heirs and kin live in the West too. Some took the Eastern route, of course, via China, but end up in civilized world.
China has history almost as tragic as Russia does.
First their country was divided, then it was partially conquered by Japanese, then it was struck by civil war, lost some territories (Mongolia, Tyva), divided again (Taiwan), suffered under Mao and then lived in poverty and lack of human rights (one child policy) while building its economy.
I doubt anyone will argue that this was the place to go at the time.
Your justifications for your classification of what counts as civilization are irrelevant. You don't have to litigate the question in the first place. Nor did the question of what countries are worth living in need to be raised in order to discuss the fun little games of international diplomacy, or Russia in general.
No, SamReidHughes is right: you insulted China by excluding it from what you called the "civilized world" and then backtracked by pretending you said something else. This is a pattern, and it's a poisonous one on this site. Please stop.
Hey dang. Sorry for wading in, but it is a public conversation thread after all...
Personally, I don't find that to be a xenophobic slur. If someone said "nobody in their right mind wants to live in Switzerland" or said that about the UK (the country I grew up in and the country where I live), I would not feel offended, but ask why they say that and take that merely as a strong expression of opinion. Then I would discuss the opinion rather than the statement.
Now, that being said, I don't feel any particularly strong attachment to the institution of countries, any more than I do to religions, various *-isms, or even programming languages! It's a big varied world out there and each of those things have their pros and cons. I do feel strongly attached to the ability for people to debate things and discuss disagreements in a civil manner, particularly when they disagree strongly. I do wonder if we should defend the right of people to be protected from having their nationalistic, religious or other types of beliefs challenged, albeit in a very mildly offensive way...
I think the OP statement could have been phrased better but I personally don't see it as a xenophobic insult. To me that would be more something along the lines of "those damn Russians, they bring organised crime wherever they emigrate!"
"Russia is not a nice place to live" (an equivalent statement to the OP's) is just a statement of opinion about a place...
It is entirely your choice what you do as you are the one with the responsibility as moderator of HN, and I don't know everything that you know, but I thought I'd put my opinion out there, hopefully not in an offensive manner. Please feel free to use or ignore it as you please. Thanks for reading!
I agree. It's a very different thing to criticize the people compared to criticizing the country.
For example, I've lived in China, I have very good Chinese friends but because of the political situation and the past history, I fully understand why a lot of rich Chinese immigrate outside of China when they can or put themselves in situations that would allow them to have an escape route.
I believe that Russia's situation is a bit similar, it's not an indictment against the people but it's an indictment against the government and the way the country is run currently.
As we can all see by this thread, the human biases/incentives that go into being a moderator of a forum can be quite suspect… and automated attempts that aren't transparent in totality from people which such biases (i.e. all of the weights things have on hn and the branching logic that determines who/what gets [dead], despite the likelihood of people gamifying them to some degree) will be equally suspect…
An alternative interpretation is that some people have previously engaged in nationalistic flame-baiting, and mods want to prevent that as much as possible.
Well now that we're all a bit off topic, it also seems like some people have lived in Russia for some time and form opinions about a country that some people have felt the need to respond with their opinion.
I can see why HN might not want to show such to public viewers to be protective of their image if people have never came across the brand before and spent enough time to get a feel for what goes on here…
I'd also love to see the corpus on how HN classifies things as "nationalistic flame-baiting", but I as of now, I suspect it's usually ad-hoc indirect self-referencing ("I saw this user said something like $__non_exact_quote_of_what_some_user_has_said_ [which mostly reflects my personal bias/interpretation that may or may not be consistent over time, that may or may not be shared by others, but to the degree of which, I cannot say because I have no stats to show you]") to other instances where a mod has stepped in and labeled something as such.
I think that would be a much powerful citation… but yeah, not my forum, not my rules, HN/YC and their agents/mods are free to be transparent (and to the degree of which is defined as being transparent) as they like.
You're missing the context, which is that this user has posted things like "Russia is the stupidest country" in the past. If it had been an isolated statement it would be different, but it was anything but. And HN is obviously not the place for this.
I don't envy your position! It's hard to balance those things fairly. Good luck! And thanks for taking on the hard job of keeping the HN discussions civil... :-)
At first I agreed with swombat, but on reflection (and after digging up the thread you're referring to) I think you have a point.
I think you need to spell it out in more detail, though. I would put it this way to someone like guard-of-terra: It's fine to say that you don't want to live in Russia, and it's fine to explain why. The politics, the institutions, the culture are all fair game. It's also fine to express as an opinion your opinion that a lot of Russians would rather live somewhere else. But attacks on people, even Russians in general, are not okay. So for example, "No one in their right mind would want to live there" says that anyone who likes it there is not in their right mind. That's a personal attack.
So you agree that it's sometimes considered an insult? Isn't that bad enough?
I like your candor, guard-of-terra, and I think you bring a valuable perspective. I don't want to see you banned. Please try to hear what I'm saying about the way you express yourself.
That doesn't address the point at all, because the meaning is in the thought you expressed, not a fixed phrase. Consider the difference between "no one in their right mind would want a four-hour commute" vs. "no one in their right mind would marry you". The first is not a slur. The second very much is.
>> Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia.
>Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN.
yes, man, have you been to Russia? While i disagree with the GP on many issues, he is a Russian like me and he knows what he is talking about. And before throwing a heavy term around, i'd recommend you check the definition of the term:
xenophobia - intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.
The term wouldn't be applicable here even if GP wasn't from Russia.
His comment isn't PC-style of course, so man up and clearly state that as a reason for your ban threat instead of hiding behind "xenophobia" label.
It has nothing to do with a comment being PC and everything to do with nationalistic flamewars that have popped up in the past, e.g. the one that involved Germany and Greece. The purpose of moderation isn't to police opinions or thought (I think this is obvious by inspection) but to keep this a civil place where people have something interesting to read instead of some shitheap like comp.lang.lisp or #startups on Freenode.
I knew someone would bring this up, and even originally added that autoxenophobia is still xenophobia. But that distinction is irrelevant here. No doubt it is psychologically more complex, but for an internet forum that wants to avoid flamewars, it's just as bad—or arguably worse, since it sounds more legitimate and gives garden-variety xenophobia something to point to.
I'm not attached to the word, though; call it what you like. The point is you can't bash countries on HN. There was no factual content in the statements I objected to.
(And speaking of things someone is going to bring up, yes, my comments have made the flamewar worse and yes that is ironic.)
>Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia
They just enjoy richer countries with more niceties for them (and/or better weather) because they have the money. That's the same not just in Russia, but in most countries in the world.
Rich people go (and send their kids for school) to places like Paris, London, Zurich, New York etc.
People who are not rich don't want to live in Russia (forever, together with all their family) either.
Some might say they do, but don't believe them just yet, watch them a bit when some opportunity will present itself.
And I also doubt that "most other countries" do that on Russian scale. British and Swiss schools have just so many places, and those are already occupied by ruskies.
Surely there are some. Kims study in Switzerland I've read.
>Some might say they do, but don't believe them just yet, watch them a bit when some opportunity will present itself.
If there's an "opportunity" then it doesn't really count in the same way. Would a Walmart worker living in some US state go elsewhere if "an opportunity presented itself" (e.g. new job, make more money there etc)? I'd say a lot, or most, would.
That's not because Russia is some unique hell, but because of shared characteristics in lots of other places, unemployment, poverty, etc. People might see Russia strangely as some "superpower" (owing to Cold War BS mythologies), but in fact they are a developing country first and foremost.
>And I also doubt that "most other countries" do that on Russian scale. British and Swiss schools have just so many places, and those are already occupied by ruskies.
Indian and Eastern Asian (Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, etc) elites have for ages sent their kids abroad. British and Swiss schools are choke full of them. Same for rich upper class kids from Eastern Europe and places like Portugal, Greece, etc.
People who are not affected by unemployment and poverty are leaving. If you're successful, leaving is a logical choice that you have to consider. Russian emigration is white collar contrary to most of other "developing countries'" emigration.
Russia is not a developing country. Russia is a crumbling country with a long history of failures and no clear future prospects.
While it is true that people leave e.g. India, there's more people in India who get richer and happier staying in India, and there's still a lot of people who come to stay in India because weather is nice, food is tasty, accomodation is cheap and culture is interesting.
Neither of that is much true for Russia.
Only people who come is uncontrolled muslim work migrants from Central Asia, and even those are now leaving.
>So something about India is attractive in itself.
Just that they are accustomed to that culture (on an everyday-life basis). It's pretty unique and far less western that Russia's culture (which is mostly shared with European and Eastern European culture) is, so those traditionally inclined feel a better cultural fit there than in the West.
Beyond that, India is way worse of than Russia in quality of life for hundrends of millions of its population.
As you can see there's no place for Russia:
People who can live in Russia culturally also can live in Europe/USA, and it's just better. Thus only thing preventing Russia from becoming hollow place is laziness.
Quality of life is tricky. Russia combines African life expectancy with Japanese birth rate. If you are aged 5 and onwards (skipped child mortality) you perhaps have longer life expectancy in India than in Russia, and that's been true for decades. Quality of life should get a heavy discount for surviving Russian winter.
Yes, compared to hundred million of Indians, you sometimes lay your hands on some money. Which also fuels emigration.
Don't know where you got those ideas about Russia, but asking people that immigrated out of the country or who don't like it, is not exactly representative.
A common mistake of people in the West is to only talk to think-alike westernized versions of themselves from other countries (found in tech, social media etc), creating an echo chamber that's as representative of the other country as talking to some Williamsburg hipster is for somebody in Kentucky or Idaho.
Also, I have to say, sending kids to school abroad is one thing. But relocating your whole family to another country with no plans for them to ever return is quite another thing.
They have plan to earn (or steal) just enough money for them and their offspring to continue living in "normal country" when the time comes.
Nobody with the means to do otherwise wants to live in Russia. And, even if they have extra-ordinarily high means and comfortable life-style (a side-effect of having lots of power in most societies) their children probably want to leave/don't fit in.
Why? There are atleast 2 reasons:
1) Russia might not have the sort of opportunities(life/career/amenities) they are looking for. For the really rich, most of them are probably grew up in Switzerland/US more than Russia.
2) Being seduced by mainstream media which is very west-centric.
You comment sounds harsh because very few people on HN have the same perspective as some of us. Namely, the outlook people who grew up in a "broken" country have.
People who don't have means to do otherwise, don't want to live in Russia too, they just haven't got much choice.
It doesn't take much means, btw. People leave all the time, ordinary people like me and you (don't know about you, but assuming). Not just software developers.
As far as I know Russians integrate OK in civilized countries.
Many people are just passive. Doesn't mean they want what they have.
There are more reasons:
3) Nobody knows where country is going.
4) No rule of law. No respect for human rights. No democracy.
5) Pretty much everybody is irritated and hates everybody else.
6) Country doesn't produce much of anything other than oil, gas, raw minerals and weapons. Plus some inferior things for internal consumption that are not going to sell on open market. Downturn in raw mineral sales? We starve and freeze.
7) Climate is awful most of the year and also costly to live in. Unlike scandinavians, did not figure out how to live happily in it.
Specifically, she isn't Stalin's daughter. She wrote a book about Stalin's daughter Svetlana, called "Stalin’s Daughter," not "I'm Stalin's Daughter," the article title is certainly confusing.
"With access to FBI, CIA, and Soviet government archives, as well as the close cooperation of Svetlana’s daughter, Rosemary Sullivan pieces together Svetlana’s incredible life in a masterful account of unprecedented intimacy."
Not that it has a direct relationship with the article, but I'm watching The Americans (the TV show), it's made by an ex CIA officer, and I have to tell, the intelligence world is pretty scary. I can't comprehend how those couples could live such lives. I can't see any other work that is so mind sucking.
Although I have no idea how really accurate that show is, and I really have to look for clues about it.
There where Soviet Illegals who hid in plain sight in both the USA and UK.
Any history of the cold war will cover them and the is of course the more recent case Ana Chapman and the Illegal ring that got busted not that long ago.
It is common in history for a royal court to raise the princes and marry the daughters of their enemies. The Persians (Story of Esther), Egyptians (Moshe), Greeks (Helen), Romans (Herold), Mongols, Ottomans did this to name a few. Integration, hostages, aslyum politics are a few reasons.
Stalins daughter is recent example in long tradition.
73 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadFrom what? Her name was Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva. “Iosifovna” is not that an uncommon patronymic because “Iosif” is not that an uncommon a name.
For everyone in Soviet Union near the major population centers, a domestic passport was necessary. And for instance any "enemy of the people" (as defined by section §58 of Soviet penal code) status was recorded in not only the passport of the said enemy, but also his/her children's passports.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport_system_in_the_Soviet_...
[1]: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/11/portlan...
Most of Russian parliament members, high-ranking officers and oligarchs keep their families in London or Miami. Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia.
That's where theories arise that Russia is just a cryptocolony of the UK and been that for 100 years.
Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN. You know this, since I've had to tell you before. If you do it again we will ban your account.
Unless observations hurt the observer, of course.
P. S. I think I am a bit wrong: people who clearly are not in their right mind don't want to live in Russia either.
There are of course people who are content to live in Russia right now or don't have much choice, but pretty much everybody eyes the possibility of escaping, if not for themself then maybe for their children or relatives. Russia is a nation of emigrants run by emigrants, using emigration as a reward for best achivers.
P. P. S. This compares to prevailing number of people in e.g. Japan or USA, for whom emigration has literally never in their lives crossed their mind. I hope I got myself clear this time.
If we read "nobody in their right mind" as "they're all batshit insane", we'll suddently see slurs against: prison guards, option holders excercising shares in certain fashion, developers preferring js to typescript, just from one page of search results.
But I'm just trying to convey the prevailing line of thought in the society.
For what it's worth, I found this to be a fascinating statement. It's an elegant way to convey the psyche of the citizenry from places like Russia or China.
http://krocodl.livejournal.com/1235708.html "How I left to work in Luxembourg"
"Скажем так, "уехать" никогда не было моей мечтой, но тем вариантом развития событий, который я никогда не выпускал из виду."
==
"Let's say, leaving abroad was never my dream, but it was an option that I always kept in mind"
Sums up my ramblings nicely.
We call this effect "правда глаза колет".
This sentence was neither xenophobic nor an insult.
> If you do it again we will ban your account.
Stop threatening people for innocuous statements.
I've read pg's "what you can't say", I know you're supposed to entertain this idea to yourself and shut up about it so you don't get caught in wars you don't want to wage all your life. But this time I think it's important for readers to know that war is actually going on.
If we're not counting the White Emigration, of course, since it's obvious that Tzar's heirs and kin live in the West too. Some took the Eastern route, of course, via China, but end up in civilized world.
First their country was divided, then it was partially conquered by Japanese, then it was struck by civil war, lost some territories (Mongolia, Tyva), divided again (Taiwan), suffered under Mao and then lived in poverty and lack of human rights (one child policy) while building its economy.
I doubt anyone will argue that this was the place to go at the time.
Personally, I don't find that to be a xenophobic slur. If someone said "nobody in their right mind wants to live in Switzerland" or said that about the UK (the country I grew up in and the country where I live), I would not feel offended, but ask why they say that and take that merely as a strong expression of opinion. Then I would discuss the opinion rather than the statement.
Now, that being said, I don't feel any particularly strong attachment to the institution of countries, any more than I do to religions, various *-isms, or even programming languages! It's a big varied world out there and each of those things have their pros and cons. I do feel strongly attached to the ability for people to debate things and discuss disagreements in a civil manner, particularly when they disagree strongly. I do wonder if we should defend the right of people to be protected from having their nationalistic, religious or other types of beliefs challenged, albeit in a very mildly offensive way...
I think the OP statement could have been phrased better but I personally don't see it as a xenophobic insult. To me that would be more something along the lines of "those damn Russians, they bring organised crime wherever they emigrate!"
"Russia is not a nice place to live" (an equivalent statement to the OP's) is just a statement of opinion about a place...
It is entirely your choice what you do as you are the one with the responsibility as moderator of HN, and I don't know everything that you know, but I thought I'd put my opinion out there, hopefully not in an offensive manner. Please feel free to use or ignore it as you please. Thanks for reading!
For example, I've lived in China, I have very good Chinese friends but because of the political situation and the past history, I fully understand why a lot of rich Chinese immigrate outside of China when they can or put themselves in situations that would allow them to have an escape route.
I believe that Russia's situation is a bit similar, it's not an indictment against the people but it's an indictment against the government and the way the country is run currently.
I can see why HN might not want to show such to public viewers to be protective of their image if people have never came across the brand before and spent enough time to get a feel for what goes on here…
I'd also love to see the corpus on how HN classifies things as "nationalistic flame-baiting", but I as of now, I suspect it's usually ad-hoc indirect self-referencing ("I saw this user said something like $__non_exact_quote_of_what_some_user_has_said_ [which mostly reflects my personal bias/interpretation that may or may not be consistent over time, that may or may not be shared by others, but to the degree of which, I cannot say because I have no stats to show you]") to other instances where a mod has stepped in and labeled something as such.
I think that would be a much powerful citation… but yeah, not my forum, not my rules, HN/YC and their agents/mods are free to be transparent (and to the degree of which is defined as being transparent) as they like.
(On a silly note, your example of Switzerland is amusing because that's the country comedians use to make bigotry sound absurd, such as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2XTuc6i1Uo, or Orson Welles' legendary cuckoo clock rant in the Third Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT6TYisX9oA&t=11s).
I think you need to spell it out in more detail, though. I would put it this way to someone like guard-of-terra: It's fine to say that you don't want to live in Russia, and it's fine to explain why. The politics, the institutions, the culture are all fair game. It's also fine to express as an opinion your opinion that a lot of Russians would rather live somewhere else. But attacks on people, even Russians in general, are not okay. So for example, "No one in their right mind would want to live there" says that anyone who likes it there is not in their right mind. That's a personal attack.
I like your candor, guard-of-terra, and I think you bring a valuable perspective. I don't want to see you banned. Please try to hear what I'm saying about the way you express yourself.
>Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN.
yes, man, have you been to Russia? While i disagree with the GP on many issues, he is a Russian like me and he knows what he is talking about. And before throwing a heavy term around, i'd recommend you check the definition of the term:
xenophobia - intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.
The term wouldn't be applicable here even if GP wasn't from Russia.
His comment isn't PC-style of course, so man up and clearly state that as a reason for your ban threat instead of hiding behind "xenophobia" label.
I'm not attached to the word, though; call it what you like. The point is you can't bash countries on HN. There was no factual content in the statements I objected to.
(And speaking of things someone is going to bring up, yes, my comments have made the flamewar worse and yes that is ironic.)
There Red Scare is alive and well on the internet, where Russia and China can do no right.
They just enjoy richer countries with more niceties for them (and/or better weather) because they have the money. That's the same not just in Russia, but in most countries in the world.
Rich people go (and send their kids for school) to places like Paris, London, Zurich, New York etc.
Some might say they do, but don't believe them just yet, watch them a bit when some opportunity will present itself.
And I also doubt that "most other countries" do that on Russian scale. British and Swiss schools have just so many places, and those are already occupied by ruskies.
Surely there are some. Kims study in Switzerland I've read.
If there's an "opportunity" then it doesn't really count in the same way. Would a Walmart worker living in some US state go elsewhere if "an opportunity presented itself" (e.g. new job, make more money there etc)? I'd say a lot, or most, would.
That's not because Russia is some unique hell, but because of shared characteristics in lots of other places, unemployment, poverty, etc. People might see Russia strangely as some "superpower" (owing to Cold War BS mythologies), but in fact they are a developing country first and foremost.
>And I also doubt that "most other countries" do that on Russian scale. British and Swiss schools have just so many places, and those are already occupied by ruskies.
Indian and Eastern Asian (Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, etc) elites have for ages sent their kids abroad. British and Swiss schools are choke full of them. Same for rich upper class kids from Eastern Europe and places like Portugal, Greece, etc.
People who are not affected by unemployment and poverty are leaving. If you're successful, leaving is a logical choice that you have to consider. Russian emigration is white collar contrary to most of other "developing countries'" emigration.
Russia is not a developing country. Russia is a crumbling country with a long history of failures and no clear future prospects.
While it is true that people leave e.g. India, there's more people in India who get richer and happier staying in India, and there's still a lot of people who come to stay in India because weather is nice, food is tasty, accomodation is cheap and culture is interesting. Neither of that is much true for Russia. Only people who come is uncontrolled muslim work migrants from Central Asia, and even those are now leaving.
Russia has an epidemic of suicide-by-misadventure, which is a strong indicator of hopelessness among the young.
Just that they are accustomed to that culture (on an everyday-life basis). It's pretty unique and far less western that Russia's culture (which is mostly shared with European and Eastern European culture) is, so those traditionally inclined feel a better cultural fit there than in the West.
Beyond that, India is way worse of than Russia in quality of life for hundrends of millions of its population.
Quality of life is tricky. Russia combines African life expectancy with Japanese birth rate. If you are aged 5 and onwards (skipped child mortality) you perhaps have longer life expectancy in India than in Russia, and that's been true for decades. Quality of life should get a heavy discount for surviving Russian winter.
Yes, compared to hundred million of Indians, you sometimes lay your hands on some money. Which also fuels emigration.
A common mistake of people in the West is to only talk to think-alike westernized versions of themselves from other countries (found in tech, social media etc), creating an echo chamber that's as representative of the other country as talking to some Williamsburg hipster is for somebody in Kentucky or Idaho.
They have plan to earn (or steal) just enough money for them and their offspring to continue living in "normal country" when the time comes.
Nobody with the means to do otherwise wants to live in Russia. And, even if they have extra-ordinarily high means and comfortable life-style (a side-effect of having lots of power in most societies) their children probably want to leave/don't fit in.
Why? There are atleast 2 reasons:
1) Russia might not have the sort of opportunities(life/career/amenities) they are looking for. For the really rich, most of them are probably grew up in Switzerland/US more than Russia.
2) Being seduced by mainstream media which is very west-centric.
You comment sounds harsh because very few people on HN have the same perspective as some of us. Namely, the outlook people who grew up in a "broken" country have.
It doesn't take much means, btw. People leave all the time, ordinary people like me and you (don't know about you, but assuming). Not just software developers.
As far as I know Russians integrate OK in civilized countries.
Many people are just passive. Doesn't mean they want what they have.
There are more reasons:
3) Nobody knows where country is going.
4) No rule of law. No respect for human rights. No democracy.
5) Pretty much everybody is irritated and hates everybody else.
6) Country doesn't produce much of anything other than oil, gas, raw minerals and weapons. Plus some inferior things for internal consumption that are not going to sell on open market. Downturn in raw mineral sales? We starve and freeze.
7) Climate is awful most of the year and also costly to live in. Unlike scandinavians, did not figure out how to live happily in it.
8) Ethnic violence is kind of expected too.
I could name ten more if you wish.
Definitely worth repeating. Probably causes at least #5 and #8.
http://rosemarysullivan.com/books/
Specifically, she isn't Stalin's daughter. She wrote a book about Stalin's daughter Svetlana, called "Stalin’s Daughter," not "I'm Stalin's Daughter," the article title is certainly confusing.
"With access to FBI, CIA, and Soviet government archives, as well as the close cooperation of Svetlana’s daughter, Rosemary Sullivan pieces together Svetlana’s incredible life in a masterful account of unprecedented intimacy."
And it looks interesting.
Although I have no idea how really accurate that show is, and I really have to look for clues about it.
Any history of the cold war will cover them and the is of course the more recent case Ana Chapman and the Illegal ring that got busted not that long ago.