![]() He says, “All were Russian haters who poisoned the minds of students and of government policy-makers during their decades at the top.” Being proficient in the language was their doorway to spreading false ideas about Russia. As examples he offers Adam Ulam, Richard Pipes, and Zbigniew Brzezinski. ![]() They were drawn from among those who had immigrated to America from Eastern Europe.ĭoctorow counters that first generation immigrants tend to be the most anti-Russian group. He states that one of the reasons given for the requirements for language proficiency being lowered was because some contended that there were enough individuals in America who are native Russian speakers. Anyone daring to express any other view was immediately labeled a “Putin stooge.”ĭoctorow is widely known for being quite proficient in the Russian language and was very dismayed that the language requirements had been lowered significantly at Columbia. He was quite surprised at the anti-Russian consensus. He recalls going back to Columbia University in 2010 and discovered things had changed drastically since he was a grad student there. On Februhe published one entitled, “Do America’s Russian studies programs have any value whatsoever for foreign policy planners?” ( ). The title was, Does Russia have a Future? Since then I’ve purchased a couple more of his books and read his articles regularly. Just before we moved from America she presented me with a book by Doctorow which was a collection of articles. I was introduced to his works by my late wife. He is now retired and living in Brussels. He then came here to what was then the USSR and built a career as a marketing manager and eventually as a country manager serving major international concerns. with honors in Russian studies in 1975 from Columbia University. I have mentioned the name Gilbert Doctorow several times in my blogs. Things had gotten more serious.īACKGROUND. I rethought the purpose and content of my blog entries. A lot of Americans came to believe things about Russia that were simply not true. We now know false information was deliberately given. As is commonly known, the election of Donald Trump as President in November of that year changed the situation drastically when it came to spreading information about Russia. I really thought my readers would be just a few people from church along with some family and friends. ![]() After getting the blog started, I enjoyed writing and getting their responses. ![]() They thought it would be great to hear from someone actually living there and believed there were others who also would be interested. Generally speaking Orthodox Christians in America tended to have a more positive view of Russia than the average American–at least that was my experience then. They wanted to know what life was really like in Russia. As I have said before, I started this blog at the suggestion of a few guys in our church in America. This blog will bring together a lot of things I have been saying for some time now. It is based on French journalist Florence Aubenas's bestselling non-fiction work Le Quai de Ouistreham, investigating rising precarity in French society through her experiences in the northern port city of Caen.I am approaching the 7th anniversary of our move to Russia.
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