“I can't stand the word "mentality," which I think is a completely artificial concept, but it is plainly true that some kind of Russian national character exists, and this bravado about enduring privation, which could so easily be avoided, is a significant aspect of it. We suffer appalling conditions, criticize and gripe about the authorities, yet simultaneously manage to take pride in being able to survive in these horrid conditions, and consider it a great competitive advantage in a hypothetical confrontation between nations. Well, yes, we say, the Japanese do make good cars, but just let them try to assemble a functioning car form the spare parts of three others and some rusty scrap metal the way our neighbor Vasily managed to. I notice the same thing in myself when I go abroad and compare the activities of opposition politicians in Russia and Europe. I can find myself on the verge of saying, "I wonder how you would get on as a politician if, after every meeting in an electoral campaign, you were placed under arrest for a month." It is as if I were priding myself on living in an environment so grim, and where politics is so very real, that I absolutely have to go to prison.

You don't need to be a great psychologist to recognize what is a the root of this: Russians yearn for a normal life, fully aware that we have invented all our existing problems for our ourselves. We can't admit to being fools, though, so we look for something to boast about, where in fact there is nothing to be proud of.

There were political discussions in our home regularly, and the overall attitude toward the authorities was critical. That seemed to be true of other families I knew, which might appear strange, because all military officers were obliged to be members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and propaganda in the army and control of its ideological loyalty were top state priorities. These directives had exactly the opposite effect of what was intended. The title of "political worker" (an officer responsible for ideological work) was always tinged with irony. They were laughed at behind their backs, because everybody knew their sole professional duty was to tell lies. The mind-boggling discrepancy between what political workers said and the reality of life was obvious, even to a child when these geezers turned up at school to tell us about the wonders of the Soviet system. One who had served in Cuba described the wiles of the Americans and how marvelous life had become in the "Island of Freedom" after the victory of the revolution, but all the children wanted to know was whether it was true you could just walk into a shop there and buy Coca-Cola and how their parents could best draw the lucky straw and get to work anywhere as long as it was abroad.”