Was Russia always destined to be hostile and 'different' to most of the West?

[KirillMazur]

Yes.

But stop talking as if the West was something united, we are not. I prefer a Russian than an English.

Homogeneous, lol.
Dreams that the US will stand for the entire West are wet dreams.

First they will launch lackeys in front of them - first Ukros, then, when Ukros runs out, Poles and Bulgarians, then Germans with Frenchmen. All gopniks do this, sending their younger ones ahead.
And by the time the Ukrainians and Poles and Germans run out, there will also be little left of our army.

Even then the Americans may not enter the battlefield, or they may.
But in any case, from a more advantageous position.

The same with the economy - at a crucial moment (resource shortage for ex.) they will suck everything out of you, trying to save themselves.
Friendship cannot work in a rigidly hierarchical society. Only its temporary visibility in conditions of abundant forage base.

[rothaer]

Different? Actually yes. You have the literally endless land which I think influences it's inhabitants' mentality (evolutionary and long term). Additionally you have some far eastern influence that lacks in other parts of Europe.

Hostile? No. In contrast, Russia has been subject to a lot of interventions by other Europeans etc. (Varingians, later Swedes, Poles, Tatars, Napoleon, Germans, interventions after the revolution). Compared to this at any time Russians rarely intervened towards Central and Western Europe and the poltictical extension after WWII was an exception that was geographically simply caused by defeating Germany that had attacked Russia.

In a long term view, historically and politically Russia has essentially zero influence in Central and Western Europe. Not even communist theoreticists like Marx and Engels are from Russia. Actually, you could even view the transport of Lenin from Switzerland to Russia by Germans as a hostile towards Russia act. It was and it yielded the intended effect in WWI.

Left beside all this, Russia is an important partner for trade and various possible cooperations.

[Mortimer]

A) Russia is different then the west, yes
B) Is Russia or was always hostile to the west? I do not think so, I think it was the other away around, but maybe mutual at some time periods, it started when the teutonic knights were defeated by Alexander Nevsky. The teutonic knights attacked the russians, not the other away around. Napoleon, Hitler, Biden attacked the Russians not the other away around. But maybe Russians attacked sometimes, like they took parts of poland for example. Etc. But that they are destined to be hostile to the west, is not true, the west and russia dont need to be enemies, they can co-exist, and partner, and also that russia is one sidedly hostile while the west is peaceful is also not true.

[Mortimer]

Different? Actually yes. You have the literally endless land which I think influences it's inhabitants' mentality (evolutionary and long term). Additionally you have some far eastern influence that lacks in other parts of Europe.

Hostile? No. In contrast, Russia has been subject to a lot of interventions by other Europeans etc. (Varingians, later Swedes, Poles, Tatars, Napoleon, Germans, interventions after the revolution). Compared to this at any time Russians rarely intervened towards Central and Western Europe and the poltictical extension after WWII was an exception that was geographically simply caused by defeating Germany that had attacked Russia.

In a long term view, historically and politically Russia has essentially zero influence in Central and Western Europe. Not even communist theoreticists like Marx and Engels are from Russia. Actually, you could even view the transport of Lenin from Switzerland to Russia by Germans as a hostile towards Russia act. It was and it yielded the intended effect in WWI.

Left beside all this, Russia is an important partner for trade and various possible cooperations.

Hey we said similar stuff, without me reading your post before i posted mine.

[Mortimer]

Actually, you could even view the transport of Lenin from Switzerland to Russia by Germans as a hostile towards Russia act. It was and it yielded the intended effect in WWI.

Right, but more recent, you could also view the participation of important western politicians in russia at gay pride parades as hostile too right?

[Russki]

In a long term view, historically and politically Russia has essentially zero influence in Central and Western Europe.

Russia has fundamental influence in what was formerly known as "Central Germany" (Ossi and Wessi, immigrants, the political affiliations, including your own).

The weakness of tsarist Russia has been greatly overcompensated in the following century. Anyone living in Germany today feels the long term consequences of this.

[Nausevar]

Yes because they were influenced by a different civilisationsal source: Byzantium, with its anti-pluralistic, anti-rational, authoritarian mindset.
Russia is interesting because it is an Orthodox Christian nation independent from foreign rule; muslim mongol hordes only requested some taxes, they didn't directly rule over them and were defeated after 2 centuries anyway.
In the west the church became the single most important social institution after the western half of the roman empire divided in multiple independent states. That seems to have been a blessing because that forced the rulers to respect to a certain degree the private property of aristocracy and citizens and the freer development of autonomous cities. Ideas and their exchange became crucial element of western civilization, with theological and philosophical debates dividing the intellectuals. Nothing that could be compared to that happened in the east, especially in Russia.
In Russia, like in other eastern cultures it is considered intrinsically immoral to disagree with the majority and that's why it is so easy for rulers to impose totalitarian rule. It's in their veins, it is an ancient attitude that has nothing to do with communism. Communist dictatorship instead was facilitated by that attitude.

It's not like in the west such things never happened (authoritarian rulers, propaganda) but there were always strong opponents to that kind of behaviour so that it wasn't that overwhelming. Russians didn't develop private institutions that could put a brake to the ruler's ambitions.

[Rumata]

What hostile Right now the gobernment of RF lets western companies to make insane! money on Russian soil. Also it lets western investors to extract insane! profit from Russian economy.
That said RF provides the West with natural resources it wants.
That said RF allows a big scale western cultural intervention.

A small but telling example. My city isn't really touristic. Yet here they provide new local trams with addresses written in English (interchanged with Russian) and it's in a city where almost 100% of passengers don't need it:

[Tooting Carmen]

A small but telling example. My city isn't really touristic. Yet here they provide new local trams with addresses written in English (interchanged with Russian) and it's in a city where almost 100% of passengers don't need it:

That's part of the global phenomenon called "English-language privilege", which I discuss here: https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...privilege-quot

[Incal]

Yes. Russia didn't keep up with the times.