Fascinating Russian Facts

In my quest to learn Russian quickly - I have harvested dozens of bookmarks to grammar, vocab, and other internet russian learning tools.

By far one of the most amazing resources I have found is http://russianmentor.net/tools2.htm Now, for those of you who don't have an inkling to learn russian - that's fine there is also an incredible English portion of the site on Russian Culture. http://russianmentor.net/dtcl/index.htm

As an American approaching Russia - we come at it thinking that everything there is wrong, or second rate. (Well, actually we come at most countries of the world that way - but Russia especially has nothing good to be said about it. Putin, chechnya, Stalin, and Communism - but how many positive words can you name?)

I must admit, I had never been interested in Russia. Though I loved russian fairytales, had heard Russian literature to be the great standard of writing (though I wasn't impressed with Anna Karenia - I thought her cousin deserved the title role - stupid people shouldn't have books written about them unless they are comedies - or such was my attitude as an 8th grader - I'm beginning to think I should re-read the book). However, living in Ukraine, my interest in Russia has necessarily changed - not least because like it or not the history and culture of Ukraine is wrapped up in Russia and Russian thought.

There is a joke a friend told me once several years ago - How long is a Russian Meter? It doesn't matter, its just longer than yours. We might say the same thing about a Texan - that stubborn pride that pervades everything. But that's why i was even more intrigues as i read through this history and culture page (http://russianmentor.net/dtcl/index.htm ) and saw in all the ways that Russian had the short end of the publicity stick.
The tallest mountian in Europe is not in the Alps, but Rather in Russia. The Longest River in Europe is not the Danube, but rather the Russian Volga.

I was most intrigued by the following "Russians have always existed on the edge of starvation. Indeed, in the course of their history they have lost more people to famines than to wars. As a result many important economic, social and political decisions have been based on the success or failure of harvests. Ironically, during the Soviet era successful harvests tended to lead to repression, failed harvests to relaxed policies. For example, poor harvests in the early 1920s led to NEP, the New Economic Policy (Новая экономическая политика - НЭП), a period of loosening of state control in agriculture designed to encourage peasants to be more productive, and poor harvests in the 1970s to a marked increase in trade including grain purchases from the West, particularly the U.S. "

Why the starvation? - Well it turns out that though the soil is fine - the growing period is awful. It explains why the theme of the land amoung Russian literature - to have to put so much work into something and yield almost nothing. Also amazing to see how governments react to differnt crisis and what the long term consequences are.