Afterword

     Any people in any historical time cannot live without myths. During the existence of the Russia, national history overgrew with various legends and myths. Myths have degenerated into stable stereotypes about Russia many centuries ago. With the myths that our entire history is a complete drunkenness, blood and bad roads, we cannot cope already the fifth century. Foreigners have a very peculiar idea of Russian life. For some of them, Russians are aborigines from a faraway land, who only drink vodka and eating caviar, and play the balalaika. For others - Mafiosi, who wear a hat with earflaps, shot from the bears, and again, drink vodka. For someone else, we are enslaved people under the tyranny of the new government of KGB and bandits. Of course, all this ideas - are stupid, far from the truth, stereotypes of foreigners who have already frozen by the thought that in the winter in Russia, temperatures can reach minus forty degrees, who still believe that the polar bears walk down the city-hero of Moscow and scare passers-by; who consider that Russians are drunks and rowdy, but who themselves would be surprised of unprecedented strength and endurance in front of the liquor of Russians, and who would sleep in salads after the first few glasses of vodka. I think we have to deal with this phenomenon and do not give a disgrace the Russian people. After all, Russia has always been famous for its rich cultural and spiritual heritage. The unique secret of the Russian soul at all times was being tried to understand and solve. Russian classical literature is one of the most widely read in the world; Russian classical music is daily played in thousands Philharmonic and concert halls in the world; Russian national cuisine is tasty even for people with the most perverted tastes. And after all of this, how can influential American and European mass media inform people about the Russian disorder, poverty, and drunkenness? Of course, everybody knows that Russia - conditional enemy of many nations of the world, but this is not a reason to diminish the moral one of the cleanest, sober, educated and peace-loving nations.