I visited Russia twice. The first time when it was still the USSR and ten years later, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. From an early age on I had decided I would not like Russia or the Russian people. I didn’t need the COLD WAR or politics to tell me what to feel and what to believe. I had heard enough stories from German, Italian and Austrian soldiers when I grew up. So many had been prisoners of war in Russia during WWII, including my own father. The fact that all of them made a difference between Russia as a country, the Russian people, and their government was ignored by me on purpose. Isn’t it all the same?
