I don't even think the media are trying to make it look terrible, or I just read different stuff. But anyways, it's pretty clear Russia has some issues with things we consider normal in the west. And you don't need to try to protest against these things in public because Putin doesn't really like that either. But other than that Russia seems a fine country at least for the people who make a decent living. Though I don't want to imagine what it's like to live in some small village in the middle of nowhere with -30 degrees celcius
My parents are going to St. Petersburg in three weeks. I hope things will have calmed down a bit by then. It's quite a mess with the whole Ukraine situation.