Stop the hate

What is happening right now in Russia is beyond awful, however - the actions of the government don't necessarily reflect the people. It makes me sad to read the hateful comments that I've come across online about my host country, where I've lived for nearly 6 months now. I don't know what the answer is, and how this will end, but I do know that writing hateful comments about a country and people that you know nothing, or very little, about is not going to solve anything.

One such comment was simply 'Russians are weird'. Well yes, obviously some Russians are weird, the same way as some British people are weird, or some Americans are weird. And that's the point - every country in the world is going to have some 'weird' people. However, you can't possibly generalise and say that everyone in a country is weird. Yes I have met some 'weird' Russians, but I have also met some very lovely Russians, including the lady who booked me a taxi home, and waited with me at 3am for it, and the incredibly helpful lady who not only helped me find my new apartment, but also helped carry my heavy suitcases up 4 flights of stairs. And that's not even including my Russian lecturers at uni, my online tutor, my two previous host families, teachers at Liden & Denz, people in the In Your Pocket office, and everyone in Orion.

Another comment was that 'Russia is a cultural wasteland'. I'm sorry, what? I don't think you could get a more cultural country! Here you have a great mix of the more European St Petersburg, compared to the more Asian cities. There are countless landmarks, from the Hermitage, which has recently been named the greatest museum in the whole world, to Kizhi Island, an open-air museum consisting of beautiful, ancient wooden churches. There is so much interesting geography, from Lake Baikal, the oldest lake in the world, to the volcanoes in the Kamchatka region. This is the largest country in the world, by far. I can't understand how anyone could write it off as a 'wasteland', unless they've never been here.

Which brings me to my final point: I don't believe that you can criticise something unless you have experienced it for yourself. I try not to, at least. For example, I don't think that I can criticise a book unless I've actually read it. Therefore, I think it is wrong for people to say these hateful things about a country if they have never visited. Yes, what the government is doing is wrong, but you can't write off a whole country because of that.