The Invisible Russians and the Hermitage

In addition to their other failings, which are numerous and grievous  beyond all understanding and are only equaled in number and in the amount of lasting damage inflicted on the body public by the American criminal justice system, the American news media adds greatly to the general American ignorance by seldom if ever passing on information about anyone in Russia except for its bumptious leader, Vladimir Putin, and for an occasional hacker.

I thought that Russia contains tens of millions of tough women and hard-drinking men with evil intentions and with every last one of them needing never to get behind the wheel of a car.

Inform us.   Are Putin and those hackers the only people still alive and kicking in today’s Russia?

If so, why doesn’t someone outfit an expedition with good flashlights to go in there to take a look?

I know of a museum strewn throughout an old palace in one of its towns that has acres of paintings set in frames so monstrous that at times they almost dwarf the images set within that were brushed onto canvas not in Russia but elsewhere, a while ago.   Those at least could be salvaged and brought back to their countries of origin, though actually the 18th century wasn’t the best time for collecting the “post-modern” art of that era, except for the work that was done slightly earlier by the Dutch, and there that museum in Leningrad, St. Petersburg, or whatever it is called these days is sorely lacking, if the haunting and remarkable film “Russian Ark” is a good indicator.