After communism fell, Russia’s rulers, the siloviki (strongmen, like President Vladimir Putin and his cronies) experienced a period of uncertainty. Eventually, Russia came back under their control. They said, you can’t really run a Western democracy in a post-Soviet country, it just results in chaos. But then Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia pulled it off! Well, that is a false hope, they said. Those Balts are basically Germans - culturally Lutheran or Catholic. You can’t have a real Western de