Basically in democracy politicians need to please the people, because they dont get elected if they dont.
But you dont have to be democratic to be a good ruler, there are some exceptions, like Singapore, where autocratic regime actually pleases its people.
Americans are rich people, I think its the richest nation in the world, at least among the bigger ones.
Russia? See below.
strap in, because life in poor, remote Russia is **a whole different level of grim**.
This ain't the Moscow you see on tourist brochures — it's **bare survival mode** for a lot of people.
---
### 1. **Poverty That Smells Like Rust and Rot**
In places like:
- rural **Siberia**,
- abandoned mining towns in the **Far East**,
- poor villages in **Dagestan** or **Buryatia**,
**life is brutal**.
People often live in **half-collapsed Soviet-era buildings**, with:
- broken windows patched with plastic,
- no proper heating (only old coal stoves if they’re lucky),
- muddy roads that turn into **lakes of shit** when it rains.
Most houses have no proper plumbing. Some areas don’t even have constant electricity — **blackouts are just part of life**.
**Example:**
Go to some parts of the Kemerovo Oblast (Siberian coal region) — you'll find villages where **kids walk 5 kilometers through snow** just to get to a half-functional school that hasn't seen renovation since Brezhnev was alive.
---
### 2. **Healthcare is a Fucking Joke**
- Hospitals are falling apart.
- There’s often **no ambulance** service (or it’s a 2-hour wait... if the car even has fuel).
- Medicine shortages are normal.
- If you need surgery or treatment for serious diseases?
Good luck, bro. You either travel to a big city (which you probably can’t afford) or **you die at home**.
**Example:**
In many remote towns, they’ve straight-up **shut down maternity wards**.
Pregnant women have to **drive hundreds of kilometers** to give birth — and sometimes they don’t make it in time.
---
### 3. **Alcohol, Drugs, and Suicide**
When every day feels the same and there's **no future in sight**, people turn to:
- **homemade booze** (samogon),
- **cheap vodka** (sometimes fake, poisonous shit),
- **hard drugs** like krokodil (yes, the one that **rots your flesh**).
Suicide rates, especially among men, are **shockingly high** in these areas.
**Example:**
In certain regions like Chukotka or the Komi Republic, male life expectancy drops to **early 50s**.
That’s the same range as some of the poorest African countries, just colder and drunker.
---
### 4. **Jobs? What Jobs?**
Most industries collapsed after the Soviet Union fell.
What’s left:
- scrap metal scavenging,
- illegal logging,
- coal mining (for pennies and at huge health risks),
- government handouts that barely cover **cheap instant noodles**.
Young people **flee to Moscow or St. Petersburg** if they can — anyone left behind is usually:
- too old,
- too poor,
- or too tied down by family.
**Example:**
In some towns in the Arkhangelsk region, **the only "business" is the local post office and one tiny grocery store**. Everyone else is on welfare, hunting, fishing, or just scraping by.
---
### 5. **Police and Authorities?**
**Corrupt as fuck.**
- Cops don't protect — they **extort bribes**.
- Local officials pocket the money meant for infrastructure or welfare.
- Ordinary people have **zero trust** in the system.
If your house burns down because of faulty wiring?
**Tough shit.** Authorities will send "thoughts and prayers" — no real help.
---
### TL;DR:
Ordinary life in poor remote Russia is:
> **"You wake up cold, you eat what you can afford, you work yourself into an early grave, you drink to forget, and you pray nothing worse happens."**
People survive out of stubbornness, not because the system helps them.
There's a lot in your post, but based on your usual takes, it seems to boil down to: Russia bad, USA good. No doubt, life in parts of Russia is incredibly harsh. But if we’re playing that game, the US has plenty of its own dysfunction — a full-blown culture war, a broken healthcare system, rising crime, mass homelessness, and growing political extremism. And it’s not like Poland is immune to problems either. Millions have left over the decades because there were no prospects — many of them now live here in Ireland. So poverty and hardship aren’t unique to Russia. But all of this sidesteps the real issue. We’re not debating who has the worst infrastructure — we’re protesting against the stupidity of the US in crossing Russia's red line, in seeking to use Ukraine as a foil to destroy Russia and in ever seeking to escalate this war, such that before Trump was in office we had Russia seriously considering nuking Ukraine.
so by all means, continue to cheer lead for more war but then you have to also accept the consequences.
This post was edited by ferdia on Apr 20 2025 01:59am