I Like Russians

I grew up living next to a Russian Orthodox church, so there were a lot of Russian Americans in my neighborhood. My dad was best friends with the Russian monk who ran the church. That was an unlikely friendship as we were not members of the faith. My dad loved to fish but could only eat a small portion of his catch. The monk loved to eat freshwater fish so dad started dropping off the excess. Over the years they became close.

Dad even visited the monk when he transferred to California. Later, when my dad retired to Florida, the monk happened to take over a church just up the road from my dad. After dad passed away I had the monk do the memorial service instead of clergy from dad’s official religion.

In my travels I’ve met a lot of Russians. They were always warm and open to me. Absolutely some of the best people to party with.

In my interactions with Russians I also met Ukrainians. In the United States those communities are often intermingled. They are brother Slavs.

The war in Ukraine is absolutely horrible and I 100% support the Ukrainian struggle. They are suffering for the dreams of a terrible Russian leader. The Russian people have no choice in the matter. The Russian government has information about the war locked down pretty tight so the citizens don’t know how bad it is. I can hardly imagine the courage needed to be a war protester in Russia, but there’s a lot of them.

The best thing that could happen would be the war to end and the Russian military leave Ukraine. Even if they did that today there will still be deep animosity towards Russians, especially among Ukrainians. Nothing like losing everything due to indiscriminate bombing to generate burning feelings for revenge.

The sanctions are definitely taking there toll on Russia’s ability to pursue the war. As is usual in these things, the average citizen is suffering the worse. That appears to be a necessary evil to ending the war. Russian conscripts appear frightened and confused.

Of course, Wagner mercenaries and certain elite Russian units are all in. Screw those guys. Live by the sword and die by the sword.

There’s already a trend in the news media to make Russians in general the bad guys. Don’t fall for it. Most of you probably have more in common with the average Russian than you do with your own leaders.

I expect some people decided to hate this blog post from the title alone. That’s the propaganda machine for you. Certain people, news commentators and politicians, are pushing an agenda of hate to further their careers. Don’t fall for it.

We are all humans on this dirt ball in space. The sooner we learn to get along together, the better.

-Sixbears