They actually think this is an own. They think everyone else is as xenophobic as they are

ive been to russia before, its pretty cheap to visit. i visited one of my queer friends in st petersburg and did some train trips to moscow. everything rural is dogshit and very similar to america (re: small town with 4 way stop and annoying car infrastructure), and moscow and st petersburg are the only areas really worth visiting imo. maybe vladivostok would be cool to visit but its obviously really out of the way. moscow and st petersburg have some pretty severe infrastructure issues that many other european cities have already addressed (oh boy i have to cross an 8 lane high speed highway to go to the market! or to get to a major train station!), prague is kinda a paradise in comparison. the soviet union would have handled all of this better, the infrastructure is all running on fumes from the soviet era

out of the two i preferred st petersburg far more, mostly cause the queer scene seemed a lot better. this was all before the war and covid so im sure some things have changed.

heres a pic of one of the streets in question lol

st peterburg imo is nicer because they have a lot of nice little rivers and canals going through the city that are nice to walk or ride along, moscow has a ring forest that is very nice but idk i preferred the canals. just in general russia feels very america-coded and european-lite to me not the greatest visit. i do think the medium sized cities not rural towns are likely better than the usa, but i only stretched my legs at one during my train to moscow. the long train ride was kinda fun tho i talked to a lot of people, very communal atmosphere

I'm sure even my mental depiction of russia is tinted by such propaganda tbh