“First of all, I don’t understand where this hate against Russia comes from, but I would like to take a guess. Americans.”

Nearly every film that comes from The States that has a villain character, there’s a very big chance that they’re Russian. What’s worse is that the actors are hardly ever Russian, and just have terrible stereotypical Russian accents. These villains are also always portrayed as glamorous, sexy, and filthy rich, however this is not the reality. The majority of Russian’s have a worse quality of life than many brits. Actually… maybe not worse, but much more traditional with less luxuries. More basic.

For many years I was embarrassed to tell people that I’m Russian, however more and more, recently I’ve been feeling patriotic. I’ve been realising what a great country Russia is and  just how terribly it is perceived across the world.

This is the view outside the flat that I’m staying in in Russia currently, and as you can tell all the stereotypes you have of Russia are very much true. Mr. Vladimir Putin is indeed riding on a grizzly bear. Unfortunately the snow melted today, but believe it or not, it is -25°C outside…

Jokes over, but before I move onto the topic of this post, I want to get another rant off my chest. RUSSIA IS NOT COLD 24/7! Here is a map of the world (the mercator version of the world map is slightly warped, which is why Africa seems a lot smaller, but regardless Russia is still massive):

 As you can see, Russia is by far the biggest country on this map. It spans nine different time zones… NINE!! There were previously 11, but Mr. Putin decided to abolish two of them. It also has an area of over 17 million square kilometres and covers two continents,  the UK is just under 245,000 square kilometres. Basically… Russia is hella big. As you can see on the map, the highest point of Russia is about the same latitude as Greenland, Alaska, Iceland etc, whilst the lowest point is around the same latitude as Spain, Italy, Turkey etc. This means that Russia experiences both extremes, -60°C to 45°C… believe it or not! I have experienced 45°C heat as well as -25°C colds in Russia… now please stop stereotyping!

I’ve been to Ukraine many times. My granddad lives there at the moment and many of my close family members — including my mother — have lived there previously and never have we received hate or dislike from from Ukrainians. I remember I used to play with the other local kids that lived in our block of flats every afternoon and there was never ever any discrimination or hate so I don’t know why things have changed now. What I can say though is that Ukraine is poor, infrastructure isn’t great and roads are terrible. I was speaking to my grandma a few weeks ago, and she was telling me how several decades ago, Ukraine was rich compared to Russia, especially the countryside. As they’d drive by, they would see big lavish houses, with plenty of cows and chickens, flowers, fruit and vegetables patches in the garden whilst Russia had none of this. Another point I’d like to make is that to someone from Europe/England, the health and safety standards are close to non-existent. Even going to the market, stall sellers would not wear gloves when handling raw foods (including meat and fish), they would not wash their hands either, but they will gladly take your money and give you the appropriate change with the same hands that they just used to pick up raw meat that’s been out in the heat all day… imagine that.

I’m not sure what the turning point was for all this violence in Ukraine, but I’m sure Crimea had something to do with it. Russia gave Crimea away to Ukraine around 60 years ago, thus the people that lived there were and are Russian, so to me it is no surprise that after the referendum, the Russians living in Ukraine decided to become part of Russia once again, what’s wrong with that? It’s the same as Scotland wanting independence, and after this years general election, I hope Scotland do gain independence, so at least some of the population is saved from the torture that’s yet to come from the Tories. Territorial borders are changed all the time, but there’s no need to start wars or kill people because of it.

My reasons for blaming America in this situation is as follows; America is training Ukrainian men to become soldiers, America is also providing weaponry and money for the anarchy that’s going on. America is funding the war in Iraq and now it’s doing the same with Ukraine, for no reason what so ever! America has enough problems of its own to solve, let alone cause more elsewhere. How about solving their economic inequality? Their terrible healthcare system? Their awful energy use and fracking overload? America participated in World Wars that had nothing to do with them… it seems to me that Americans like war… hmm… interesting. On another note, when Obama was asked where Ukraine is in the world, his response was “that’s a good question”. Weather this is a joke or a true story, I don’t know but it does put things in perspective and it wouldn’t surprise me if it were true.

The situation in Ukraine is currently getting worse, some areas are worse than others, but one thing is for sure; nothing is getting better.  I can provide you with firsthand evidence of what’s going on, away from the propaganda you see in the media, away from the one-sided global hate towards Russia. Actual evidence. My auntie visits her father in Ukraine every few months, she went last autumn and again this April. When she went last year, things were fine, she felt safe etc however this time she said she didn’t want to leave the flat if she didn’t have to, she felt like she couldn’t wear normal/nice clothes out and wore her father’s shirts etc when she went out, she didn’t want to leave the flat with her phone, she said that there are stray dogs, beggars and poor people everywhere. Basically its not a pleasant place to be. Many people are moving out of Ukraine to Russia to seek refuge, good doctors are moving out and few good doctors remain. If patients need treatment they are flown/driven to Russia to get aid. If Russia was causing chaos in Ukraine, it would not be accepting all of these refugees… think about it.

Ukraine has gone from being fairly well off to poor in quite a short space of time, and any problem that they have they blame on the Russians. Ukraine no longer shows Russian TV channels, and hasn’t for probably about a year now, so all they see is this propaganda and anti-Russia messages on TV, to the point that they have been brainwashed to believe in it. They have nothing else to believe. My granddad has family living in Russia and even he believes Russians are causing problems… his own daughters live in Russia and he still believes this propaganda. Ukrainians are killing innocent people, their own people, children, families… it’s very sad. Every Russian person I’ve spoken to is outraged at the lies that are being told about us, it’s simply not true but somehow Ukraine and the rest of the world believe them. My mum and aunties have many friends that they know from school, university etc out in Ukraine,  but many of them have recently decided to stop talking to us. All it takes is a bit of research to understand the situation. I haven’t done any research myself but what I do have is first hand evidence that hasn’t been twisted by the media.

This situation is extremely sad. This violence is only causing deaths, hatred and sorrow. Absolutely no benefits and absolutely no motive behind it. This story goes to show just how much power the media has in brainwashing the GLOBAL population, not just one country’s population, but in many all over the world. Once again this goes to show that the whole of the media network is owned by only a handful of people and you shouldn’t believe everything you see in the paper. Please stop the hate, we’re good people that are very proud of our country and are proud of how far we’ve come.

If YA DONT KNOW, ya do now ;)