Russia: most depressing place on Earth?

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I've always wanted to check out Russia. Their culture is rather unique when compared to other Western European, Asian, and Middle Eastern countries. I don't really want to visit any of the other Eastern European countries. Also alot of my good friends and roommates are Russian immigrants... good people.
 
North Korea is the worst place on earth imo, but yea it seems Russia has a lot of problems too. Can anyone who lives there shed light on this? Maybe someone already did about to read the other pages now.
 
I know a girl who went on a huge trip around Asia and Russia along with a couple of friends. They entered Russia far to the east in Siberia, and went by train all the way west to St. Petersburg, stopping lots of places in between. They thought it was beautiful, and had a great time. Met lots of cool people and had fun. Listening to her, Russia definitely doesn't sound scary or bleak at all. But she's the kind of positive person who gets along with everybody, so I'm sure that helped.
 
Angry Fork said:
North Korea is the worst place on earth imo, but yea it seems Russia has a lot of problems too. Can anyone who lives there shed light on this? Maybe someone already did about to read the other pages now.
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Well, people llive pretty good in Moscow and Petersburg. I mean, they can afford to buy Iphone for 1000$. So, if you dont care about politics, very corrupted government and police, then you are ok. Once you go into opposition politics - you start to have some problems.
Im taking part in anti-Putin protests since last year. One of my friends got 2 months of jail for being memmber of banned party, then one more was arrested for 10 days during December rally. Except for that, FSB(EX-KGB) always trying to make our lives harder.
 
Wickwire said:
I dont know about Russia but the most depressing place I have been to was the czech republic. Anywhere outside of prague was miserable.
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Same, but I haven't been around much. The Czech Republic between Prague and the German border was grey, grey, grey, smoky, and every little town we drove through had their whores displayed in little booths along the main road.
 
pretty much every country east side of the border can be depressing as hell.
sometimes it's like traveling 15years back in time. the iron curtain left massive wounds in all of the eastern countries

I loved when I took my slovakish (ex-)GF in one of our huge supermarkets the first time. She was amazed by the quality and freshness of fruit'n veggies. Also she told me some horror stories about slovakish markets.
now to think that slovakia is almost west-europe standard(sadly not in all aspects....yet), i don't want to imagine how it's like in i.e. ukraine or even belarius


edit: just a reminder: I've been in poland, czech, slovakia, romania, bosnia, etc several times in my life and almost everything outside of tourist cities is all sorts of screwed up and in a ruined/worn status
 
realalbedo said:
Well, people llive pretty good in Moscow and Petersburg. I mean, they can afford to buy Iphone for 1000$. So, if you dont care about politics, very corrupted government and police, then you are ok. Once you go into opposition politics - you start to have some problems.
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I heard life outside Moscow and Petersburg is completely different though.

edit: just a reminder: I've been in poland, czech, slovakia, romania, bosnia, etc several times in my life and almost everything outside of tourist cities is all sorts of screwed up and in a ruined/worn status
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Eh, honestly eastern Germany seems a lot more depressing to me than most of those countries.
 
I was pretty shocked to learn that Russia is ranked #112 in the world in life expectancy, which is very low considering that it's a scientifically advanced country and one of the strongest and most rich in resources in the world.

Also interesting is the fact that the average life expectancy in Russia is 64.3 years for men and 76.4 years for women... Crazy gap for a country that isn't in war.

Edit: I think life expectancy in general is a pretty good estimate of how "hellish" a certain place is, perhaps more so than GDP per capita.
 
Wazzim said:
Not to be rude but what's so special about that video? I thought the live stream of last saturday's protest was much more fascinating with the enormous march of communists.
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well, this was very beginning of rising protests, and around 700 people were arrested during 3 says. Recent demonstrations were allowed by government, so it was ok.
 
On the internet maybe. I lived in Moscow a full year to finish my studies. Amazing city, depressing ppl. Same as any big city I visited. You wouldn't catch me outside of Moscow and St-Petersburg tough. Also Ukraine has the hottest girls in the world, not Russia.
 
MDSLKTR said:
On the internet maybe. I lived in Moscow a full year to finish my studies. Amazing city, depressing ppl. Same as any big city I visited. You wouldn't catch me outside of Moscow and St-Petersburg tough. Also Ukraine has the hottest girls in the world, not Russia.
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Moscow isn't exaclty representative of the rest of Russia.
 
No, it's not.

za_chestnye_vybory.jpg
 
Cromat said:
I was pretty shocked to learn that Russia is ranked #112 in the world in life expectancy, which is very low considering that it's a scientifically advanced country and one of the strongest and most rich in resources in the world.

Also interesting is the fact that the average life expectancy in Russia is 64.3 years for men and 76.4 years for women... Crazy gap for a country that isn't in war.

Edit: I think life expectancy in general is a pretty good estimate of how "hellish" a certain place is, perhaps more so than GDP per capita.
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Alcohol and drug abuse probably plays a big role in that life expectancy
 
For what I heard, Moscow and specially St.Petersbourg are great places to live in if you like ginormous cities. However, Russia is far more than these two cities, and life on the countryside (or outside said cities) can be extremely harsh due to lack of infrastructure, hostile weather and overall rural underdevelopment.
 
Russia is pretty depressing I always think of Russia as being like that block map on cod 4... Endless miles of grey tower blocks.. That said I always shoot the shit with Russians I meet in clubs. The accent they have is just to awesome and hearing a Russian accent is enough to put hairs on your Chest.
 
Most depressing place on Earth?
Detroit makes Chernobyl look like Disneyland
United-Artists-Theater-in-006.jpg

Detroit.jpg


...and I still would rather live there than in a state like Montana where the cows outnumber the human population living there.
 
See You Next Wednesday said:
Most depressing place on Earth?
Detroit makes Chernobyl look like Disneyland

...and I still would rather live there than in a state like Montana where the cows outnumber the human population living there.
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Detroit is amazing. I would love to see the older crumbling parts of the city get completely restored.

With the right technology a person could live near anywhere on the earth and have a pretty good standard of living.
 
I've read too much about Russia's poor & hateful treatment of black people, so yeah, I won't be going there.
 
iamaustrian said:
woah wait a minute
Montana is absolutly beautiful. comparing it to hellhole detroit is just plain wrong
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I guess some people like urban areas.

I prefer villages, suburbs and little cities (<500 000) where everybody knows each other. But some people HATE this. So I think that is why people here are so down on Ohio, Missouri and so on. Well, unless there are economics issues I don't know about.

I wonder if visiting Detroit is that unsafe. People are allowed to carry guns... definitely unsafe.

abuC said:
I've read too much about Russia's poor & hateful treatment of black people, so yeah, I won't be going there.
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mostly hyperbole
 
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