Masha Gessen Quotes About Country
-
For Russians in the '90s, there was that sense of not knowing what the future held at all. And coming off a long period of when people actually were robbed of the ability to plan their future - that's very much a part of totalitarian control - that exacerbated it. In this country, we are not coming off a long period like that. But I think that for a lot of Americans, as a result of globalization, as a result of the housing crisis, the future is just too uncertain. And their place in the world is too uncertain.
→ -
Conceit of the anti-gay law in Russia is to protect children, then the people who have the most to fear are LGBT parents. And sure enough, in conjunction with the homosexual propaganda law, they instituted a ban on adoptions by same-sex couples, or single people from countries where same-sex marriage is legal. That has very scary potential for any LGBT person with adopted kids, because Russian courts practice this particular legal concept called "annulment of adoption." So an adopted child is never exactly the same as a biological child, even if he or she was adopted ten years ago.
→ -
There's not a whole lot of similarity between the two societies, Russian and American. There are similarities behind psychological forces. One thing we can learn is that things can change pretty fast. And this idea that we know who we are and that things can only get so bad in this country - that's wrong.
→ -
I think some people have blind faith in American institutions without knowing a whole lot about them and think they will stand up to Donald Trump and are indestructible. I actually think democracy is not a definable and achievable state. Any country is either becoming more democratic or less democratic. I think the United States hasn't tended to its journey toward democracy in a long time. It's been becoming less democratic, and right now it's in danger of becoming drastically less democratic.
→ -
When I was touring with my Vladimir Putin biography, which was published all over the world, people would ask me, How come you're still there, why haven't you left? I would say, I'm staying, it's my home. He can leave! It felt very good to say that. But now - he wins. It's not natural for people in the opposition to leave. It's always a personal catastrophe. And yet he's gotten people out of the country. That's the most terrifying thing about the current situation, and for the future of the country.
→ -
Were there open gays and lesbians before the West started influencing Russia? No, there weren't. In fact, the most out person in the country, until recently, was me. I turned gay in America. I was a nice Soviet fourteen-year-old when I left, and I came back a lesbian.
→
Related Authors
-
Barack Obama 44th U.S. President -
Joseph Stalin Former Premier of the Soviet Union -
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Artist -
Angela Merkel Chancellor of Germany -
Vladimir Lenin Revolutionary -
Francois Hollande President of France -
Keith Gessen Novelist -
Vladimir Putin President of Russia -
Alexander Lukashenko President of Belarus -
Alexei Navalny Lawyer -
Grigori Perelman Mathematician -
Mikhail Gorbachev Former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -
Anna Politkovskaya Journalist -
Dmitry Medvedev Prime Minister of Russia -
Mikhail Khodorkovsky Businessman -
Vladimir Zhirinovsky Russian Politician -
Alexander Litvinenko Author -
Boris Nemtsov Russian statesman -
Boris Yeltsin Former Russian President -
Yekaterina Samutsevich Political activist