The Enigma Unveiled: How The Russian Mindset Works

The book was titled "Russia: Faces of a Torn Country". Published soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was a description of a society in fierce turmoil. Russians found themselves thrown into one ordeal into another.

Grandmothers stood in the wind and rain for hours at the tolkuchkas, flea markets, trying to sell their wedding china alongside students advertising their lovingly assembled stamp collections. Meanwhile, war raged at the periphery of the realm. Back in 1991, everyday Russians couldn't explain what Russia represented, where it was heading politically and how all its conflicts could be resolved. We journalists, of course, couldn't either.

The book was written by Christian Neef, arguably the most veteran correspondents who served in Moscow, writing for Der Spiegel since 1991. Now, in an article for the magazine, he revisits the Russia and its present face, digging into the everlasting enigma: the Russian mindset.

He finds a country on the rise under Putin, with standards of life incomparably better than the times his book was published — but with a strange mix of pride and submission to sheer power.

(Russians) passivity and their indifference unpleasantly combine with fatalism and a fear of responsibility and make it impossible for most of them to get to to the core of historical truths. Many are indifferent about the fact that new monuments are being built to Stalin. One Moscow journalist described it as being tantamount to Jews setting up monuments to Hitler.

And a razor-sharp observation:

Putin is making Russia a dissident from the world order and the people are thrilled by it like it's a fairground attraction, even though for many Russians, Europe and America remain the primary reference point for their own lives. Putin didn't invent any of this. He only learned how to masterfully exploit it and to serve this Russian mentality with demagogy, half-truths and lies. That, for me, is the most important realization 25 years after Russia's rebirth.