Isn't it sad...

Isn't it sad when someone is afraid being from their own country?

My Russian friend and I were walking today near the Kremlin. We were speaking a mixture of Russian and English. As we went to go through a gate way, my friend turned to me to say something, and it was in English. I then saw a police officer step out and pull us aside. It wasn't until he heard my friend speak in English that he turned to pull us aside. He then requested to see our passports, which we, of course, gave to him. He then started questioning my friend on her documents, where she was living, why she lived in a flat rather than in the dorm, etc. While doing this, he opened my passport, looked at it, then promptly handed it back. He didnt care about me. I was a foreigner, and my papers were in order, so it was not a problem, not to mention that I would have probably requested to go to the Embassy rather than be taken to the police station (although he didnt know that). Anyway, he continued to pepper my friend with questions, and she was becoming visibly upset by the whole process. At some point, he told her that he was going to have to take her to the station to make sure her papers were real, since apparently there were a lot of fake papers circulating. At this point she began to cry, partly because she was in shock at being interrogated on the street in her own country, but also because she was incredibly offended that this could happen. We were eventually let go. We talked about it later over lunch, and she made a comment that went something like this. "In Russia, if you're foreign, thats ok, but its not okay to be Russian in Russia." Granted, she was still upset by this event, but it really got me thinking. I have been thinking about Stalinism and the Russian system that always seems to revert to authoritarianism. There are still visual cues that Stalism is still around, but not as strong and not as obvious. This, to me, was one of them. During the Stalinist (Communist) period, it was typical for the police to stop Russian citizens and question them. It was also typical for the people to be afraid of the state, because they could seemingly do whatever they wanted, and the more I study modern Russia, the more I think that as things change, the more they stay the same. I am not necessarily saying that it is a bad thing, as a strong Russia is good for everyone. What I am saying is that while a lot has changed here, there is a lot in the back ground that has been overshadowed by other events. While, yes, they have a market economy now, the leaders from Yeltsin on have been reconsolidating power into a one man, or few men, show. Thats exactly what Stalin did in the 20's and 30's. I can't make any solid conclusions right now, but it is something that I am going to be thinking about a lot in the next month and a half.