The thing with Russia in particular is that people seem to overlook the fact that it's decades behind its western neighbors in terms of societal and political development, which has been the case for centuries.

Having spoken to multitudes of people outside and within Russia, I do believe that the gap has shrunk rather significantly in the last 40 years or so. Despite the attempts of rapidly aging and increasingly more delusional people that currently comprise the Russian government, this gap seems to be shrinking further still - to some degree, thanks to the same people fueling the country's desire for change.

So I don't think you're being too optimistic or naive. I think you're being very observant and keen-eyed. In fact, I'd go as far as to say you're being a bit too pessimistic thinking that we're going to face another decade like 90s, for two reasons:

• they were considerably less brutal and terrible than the current Russian government made us all believe;
• there will be no cultural shock to throw the entire country into the same state of turbulence this time, as people have been living this new, once-alien capitalist lifestyle for several decades and have, in fact figured many things out. We're looking at a much brighter and rapidly democratising period once the old people in govnermnt start dropping dead.