[August]

The only Russians I've ever met face to face were a family of immigrants who were friends of my parents back in the 1960's. We've since lost touch and I don't know all the details of their story but they lived in fear that the Soviet government would find out where they were and did everything they could to hide their heritage, including changing their surname and moving regularly which is probably why we eventually lost touch with them.

Beyond that simply put the Soviets were the enemy of my youth. I am a child of the cold war who has taken part in air raid drills in preparation of a Russian nuclear attack. As a young man I patrolled along the Iron Curtain and have seen the wreaths the Germans would place along the border to mark where people had died trying to escape the so called "workers paradise".

All that is supposedly changed now that the Soviets are out of power but it worries me that critics of the Russian government have a nasty habit of winding up dead. I think I would have a difficult time ever trusting one.