I love the "pretends to be a businessman". Aside from being a partner in a boutique venture capital firm, my version of work-life balance is to not work and play basketball 3-4x/week, with a bit of disinformation demolition between games.
"imperialist Russia"--In 1991 the parade of sovereignties that broke up the USSR gave us a brief honeymoon from history. I hope you liked it. But the Russian empire Terminator said in 2007's Munich Security Conference, "I'll be back!", and returned with a vengeance in 2008 in Georgia and in 2014 in Ukraine. But he never really left if you're Moldovan (Transnistria since 1993), Georgia's Abkhazia (1994), Estonian (2007 May 9 monument riots) and cyberwarfare. This is only a partial list.
Continue the parade of sovereignties to include Tatarstan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Komy, Kalmykia, Bashkortostan, Karelia, etc. and all of Russia's neighbors who bolted for NATO membership during our honeymoon from history while the window was briefly open, would be deliriously happy. They know that the USSR's breakup in December 1991 came when and how it did to PREVENT the parade of sovereignties from extending into oil-rich Tatarstan, within the USSR's Russian Republic.
Historically Russia has no allies or friends, only subjugated vassals. Having taken imperial viagra, it knows only hard, not soft power.
Communism: it died in 1991 except in Cuba and North Korea. Where have you been? China is a capitalist country run by a kleptocratic communist mafia cross-dressing as a political party. BTW, Foxconn is a Taiwanese company. And Apple is diversifying its supply chain out of China as fast as it can after seeing how Xi Jin Ping treated Jack Ma/Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, Baidu and trashed the online ed-tech firms. Every Chinese stock that looked cheap a year ago got a lot cheaper.
"if communism is bad or not"--Visit Riga to see all the real estate that's falling apart even a generation after communism ended. Absolutely NOTHING was maintained. If the CIA had taken a closer look at how the USSR managed its real estate, we would have saved billions in military spending.
I went to Yugoslavia in 1980 and 1986 and to Hungary in 1980 and 1988 and the eastern part of Berlin in 1994. Communism needed no American help to fail. Just drive a Trabi after a Mercedes.
And if you like communism, I invite you to move out of your nice suburban split level into a Soviet era communal apartment--the Soviet version of the sharing economy. Capitalism is a horrible system--except for all the others that have been tried.
"Russia is a capitalist country"--Sorry, no. It's a fossil-fueled institutional cross-dressing neo-feudal mafia with a flag kleptocracy. Even the oligarchs are Putin's enserfed boyars, with no more property rights than Tsar Peter gave his. Russia is, and always has been, Muscovy's Potemkin Village empire, geopolitical trojan horse prison of nations:
https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/jailbreak-unlocking-russias-prison-of-nations-b506fa75e301
"make an have nice things"-- They don't. Russia is a deindustrialized Chjinese resource colony, a gas station dressed up as a country. Not even decent pasta can be found there. Watch Inside Russia/ Konstantin's videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEnrsz48j8w
"peace just by setting a good example"--Soft power without hard power doesn't create security by itself. This is why Europeans are convinced they need the American security umbrella, especially the former Warsaw Pact states.
The problem with mafia with a flag kleptocracies is that to survive they must export their business model. Just look at a map of Russian-owned real estate bought with laundered money. https://www.hudson.org/events/1363-the-kleptocracy-curse102016
Is what happens when the soft, corrupt underbelly of western capitalism imports Russian cancer. The parasite is deadly for the host. Your "good example" strategy can't survive indifference to the malignant cancer that is Putin's Russia.
