The former Sovjetunion on Russian grounds won the race to be the First in Space against USA ambition currently being the only Nation with its own Space Station in Outer Orbit. Having invaded Afghanistan to end the war of the Taliban against their own people, helping Bashir Assad in Syria to fight the liberation movement on the other side of the USA spectrum, having taken Crimer from Ukraine are ways of Power Struggle for Russia to be meaningful in this ever faster changing world.
Russia in its History was a small Nation until the Eighteen Century surviving on Agriculture in a political structure with Royal Families and small economic Elite keeping Farmers with no human rights as their own legal Procession. Farm Workers Owner had the right to sell their Farms and Workers to anybody willing to pay the price while it was not common for Owners to move around the country or engage in other business areas. Trade was very vibrant to Germany and UK, besides in smaller volumes with Finland and Norway, which can be seen today in the fact that Chocolate is imported into Russia via Germany or UK in which countries the new rich Oligarch Elite has invested immensely in Real Estate in prime locations.
Russia’s Spirit is very much dominated by the Orthodox Church for everyone to read in the Books of the famous Russian Novelists Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. During the Communist Times the Orthodox Church was the safe haven for the true Russian Soul that has survived up to today in all aspects of modern Russian Life. Knowing and understanding this Russian Spirit helps someone to understand Russia at present and being able to predict the future for Russia in World History of the Future.
The two most famous Russian Novelist mentioned had close ties to Germany and spent many months in Baden-Baden. It was common for the Romanovs, the Russian Zar Families, to visit their Relatives in Germany on a regular basis. On one of these occasions Zar Peter I fell in love with a Royal Beauty, married her, someone History knows here as Katharina The Great. She ordered the arrest of her Husband and subsequent killing done by the hand of her Lover. Her hunger for Power developed over time a forceful instinct and her German upbringing formed a powerful combination to the effect that she implemented the Law Book and a modern form of Court Proceedings while at the same time expanded the size of the country to its current extend. Many people died in the course of her expansion hunger and smaller Countries had to pay the prize being mere facts in History Books.
At the turn of the Century before World War I Farming was the dominating income for Russia. It was a Joke of History that Communism, an ideology addressing the needs of impoverished Factory Workers, saw the light of the day in Russia. Karl Marx was a German who had moved to London to study many Books at London University to come up with his “Capital”, the Bibel of his Ideology.
The vast natural resources of Russia, than Sovjetunion and again Russia was never exploited until after World War II. Even of this fact, Russia is the eight largest Economy in the World four places behind Germany, three behind UK and two behind the much smaller country of Holland that is a country with no natural resources only surviving with Human Intelligence its high ranking position.
Russia’s Prez. Vladimir Putin, a former KGB Agent in Dresden/East-Germany GDR, speaks very well German while Angela Merkel is perfect in Russian. The ousted Royal Families in the former East Block are all related to Royal Families in Western Countries significant to the “ordinary” Man on the Streets of Russia and the other independent Countries in Europe’s East as uncertainty leads to holding on to familiar old values and traditions as an emotional and intellectual guidance.
Oligarchs exploit, like the Zar and former Royal Families did, the country of its natural resources and human capital to ensure the power of the Zar/President (Russian Presidents always behave like Zars) in the vast country is not undermined, but sustained and increased. Civil Unrest in not, unlike in France, the foremost idea of a Russian as he tends to find comfort in the Orthodox Church, their Priests and the long History of Russia as a Nation.
Russian Presidents of modern times can sleep well knowing of their known or unknown natural resources and dwell in them in the struggle to stay afloat as a Superpower alongside USA, China, India and the changing role of Germany (including EU) and Japan in times to come.
Russian have never produced a great numbers of Intellectuals like France, Germany, Greece, Spain and Holland to drive Mankind and Humanity forward ever more needed in today’s Global World on the road to find appropriate answers to Climate Change, Overpopulation, fight for the last natural resources, Work places, Healthy Life-Styles, Cultural and Spiritual Development of various Nations in its diversity to find answers to their specific way of life and to promote them to a next higher level in their development which ensuring certain universal standards that have to apply to all Countries in our fast moving world.
A country like Russia based in its Spirit entirely on the concept of Power will lose its position even before the Soil of Russia one day will have been exhausted from its natural resources as Humans do not live from Bread alone, but more so need a guiding line in the Spirit out of which practical solutions emerge suitable for various Nations in their own rights and status of development. Russia was never sending out Missionaries to Africa or Explorers, only Europeans did that as this is not part of the Russian Spirit.
An Empire is based on two Pillars: Economic Strength and Moral Leadership. Is one Pillar missing or weak, the whole Empire will collapse in itself by implosion.
Time is demonstrating for the one that can see, USA and Russia are on their way down, while African will rise up again (China and India never had Moral Leadership Ambition!).