But there’s still a reason why you’re having these particular kinds of dreams, and not different ones.

I dunno, if we are going to that level, then I see plenty people not from Russia in the interwebs having this. In case of MENA people - much stronger.

It's a problem, but not such a deep one. Even among ex-military people from older generation.

Do you think it’s even constitutional for Putin to deputise people with presidential powers? That any court would challenge him? Law in Russia was, and is, subordinate to the powers that be.

No, Putin has been logically fully described in the "Dolls" show. He just wants to torture and kill people better than him, and the law he's interested in only as long as he can call whoever he wants destroyed "state criminals".

I'm saying that the Russian empire was different, and even the USSR was different.

That’s the attitude of those considered strong, yes. You either become them or you break and end up with a tattoo saying “slave” on your forehead or something.

Yup, I'm saying it's not the only idea of morality in the whole of Russian society and not even the dominant one.

It definitely is the one emanating from the state.

Part of the same ethos, with maybe slightly different dances, clothing, and they can continue pronouncing things with h instead of g as long as they admit they’re Russians, that they accept, as you put it above, the father’s authority

In this case no, it's not the father. It's the same master. Slaves replace their own dignity with their master's importance.

So those really thinking Ukraine shouldn't be independent are the people terribly irritated by Ukrainians not willing to have a master. If Ukrainians wanted to have a master, that master would have a lower status than their master, in their opinion, so it would all be fine - Ukraine is a separate country, but Ukrainians are in the same general status. It's envy - why can they have this and we can't. A typical village thing by the way.

Like that anecdote about hell and a Jewish cauldron, guarded by three imps to throw those escaping back in and prevent them from helping others, a Ukrainian cauldron guarded by one imp to just throw those escaping back in, and a Russian cauldron unguarded.

It’s not. It destroys social cohesion, it breeds neurosis.

Yep, in this regard we agree. It also breeds idiocy and cowardice with all participants certain they are being wise and brave and sacrificing.

The reason is simple: Without the people neurotic, distrustful, and accustomed to bowing to authority, the central authority would fall, because people would actually be able to organise bottom-up. The central authority knows that, and thus does nothing to combat it, the people, well, it’s Russia’s only way to greatness, isn’t it? Any alternatives?

That's where you are wrong.

As you might have guessed, one can't punish FSB for entrapment, they are the ones doing the punishing. So that's what they were doing since Soviet times. Everyone trying to "organize bottom-up" will just be detected by FSB before being visible for anyone else.

They are proactive. They have their agents of various kinds in youth groups, in hobby groups, everywhere. They even provoke such "organizing".

They literally lure teens into "political" groups. Just for everyone with potential to be under control.

It would be problematic, say, in the US, if FBI tried to put someone in jail for being a member of a group the leader and half other members of which are state agents, and which approached that someone first. In Russia it's not. They are always fishing for people willing to do something.

I've literally heard of more cases where a (say, anarchist) group had such agents, but it all became known because of some other crime (a murder in that case), than in "extremist" sense. Meaning this happens very silently.

So, about distrust. It's well-substantiated. Russians can't organize in Russia and can't, frankly, trust a Russian in such things.

Similar to Armenians TBH, it sometimes seems there are more agents of various intelligence services and oligarchs in Armenia and diaspora than people really interested in changing something.

Which brings me to Navalny’s balls of steel, returning to Russia: Yes, that’s impressive. That’s strong, “virtuous suffering”. But it’s also accepting the status quo. You can’t be a revolutionary against a system by holding onto the ethos that fuels it.

Absolutely! That's exactly what his action communicated.

I think he was trying to send a signal to that layer of deeply skeptical people that he's one of them and not of those like Sobchak and Nemtsov and similar. And he was successful, he's seen very differently from them.

Except see my previous part about special services' work. The real problem is not in nobody willing to organize. Without it, whether Navalny would do his sacrifice or not, Russia's government would have changed around 2012.