The whole world recognizes Russia's cultural achievements. It is impossible to imagine the world culture without Russian culture, without our music and literature.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The great drama of Russian history has been between its state and society. Put simply, Russia has always had too much state and not enough society.
The Russian people have their own cultural code, their own tradition.
We just kind saw the images and knew the cliches, so to have the opportunity to go there and learn something about Russian music and about Russian people and to see things apart from being a tourist.
In American films, Russians are often portrayed like cartoon villains without clear motivations.
I don't have any opinions about Russians. There are celebrity persons in each country. Different people do different things.
We see a new generation of Russian authors who are not divided from their Western contemporaries either culturally or philosophically.
Knowing what I knew about Russia, as much as I loved the music and was fascinated by the songs and the whole idea of it, I knew it would be a very lengthy and frustrating process.
Russia itself is an extremely complex country, and sometimes I feel like all of that comes back to haunt me. I can see why so many Russian writers were so tortured.
Much that we read of Russia is imagination and desire only.
I'm not talking about Russia in my music. I've never been to Russia. I'm not talking about Africa, Switzerland, China. I'm talking about me being American and growing up in a crazy world and helping to reflect all different sides of life.