Back when I lived in Canada and had some exposure to some of local Russian communities, it was bloody obvious that there was a concentrated Russian government effort to manipulate and control their opinion.

All online spots - forums, bbses, etc. - had at least one troll reposting from the offical news. More places than one had these as mods or admins. Agitating and stirring the pot was a daily occurence, which was quite effecient given that migrant communities tends to comprise people that aren't exactly well off and generally happy with life. To give an example - people discussing faking a divorce to double their unemployment benefits, that sort of thing. So given them an outlet to vent was working well. Conversely, those who were better established steered clear of these and formed smaller clusters of their own.

So what the GP is experiencing is likely related to them being (originally) a part of one of these poorer bubbles and the effect just lingers on.

> had at least one troll reposting from the offical news Look no further -- /u/5ESS have been "directing the narrative" here by posting the same youtube link 5 times already.

Russians living in cyprus are not poor

People migrate for economic reasons, not because they want to replace their own brain with the brain of the destination country people.

The US was was relatively good at integrating migrants into a certain idea of america, but that's not the norm around the world, and I don't think that vision of america exists anymore. Maybe in the upper-middle class, but certainly gone in the lower classes.

To Cyprus, Russian migrate to hide their money here and live a normal life in a normal country. They are not poor by any measure.

There's rich economic reasons and poor economic reasons, they are still economic reasons, none of them are migrating to be integrated, just to be more wealthy.

Sure, but as to Cyprus specifically, that's probably not where the poor ones go. It's a kind of l down-scale Switzerland in the economic and immigration senses.

All the flag-raising and anthem-singing in US schools surely serves a purpose. We tried to avoid replicating that in Germany, for very good reasons, but now we have "third generation immigrants".

As an anectode, I spoke with a Turk who found Turks living in Germny much more conservative than people in Turkey.

Not to mention Brits who moved to Spain because there were "too many bloody immigrants" at home.

It would be worthy of investigation if these people behaved in any way different from Russians in Russia. But they don't. My conclusion is that it has nothing to do with propaganda - to which those living abroad are naturally exposed less - but just because of what these people are.

Yes, after Soviet Union fell, we Russians found out that all we've been taught about capitalism was true: unemployment, dog-eat-dog competition, class divide and all that stuff. It's not at all a paradise we have imagined. It's time for you to see that all you've been told about Communism was true, too: McCarthy was an idiot, but he was right. There are no "good Russians" waiting to be liberated from "evil Putin". There are "evil Commies" who Putin wholly represents.

Stop trying to "fix" Russia. It is impossible. It has to be contained, made as weak and irrelevant as possible to present less danger.

I'm a Russian in Germany. I've fled Russia after Crimea/Donbass events because of Putin's politics. No Russian I know in Germany or any other country abroad supports Putin.