re: What is Russia like today?

I have several good Russian friends I met while living overseas. They are back in Russia now. According to them, wages are pretty shitty, thats why they were living overseas. They live in St Petersburg and Moscow so they make better money than provincial towns and they're living seem pretty normal. My friend had a cancer scare and only had to pay a pretty big chunk of her income to get it taken care of. The USSR is long gone and services now cost a good bit. They personally don't care for Putin, but I think hes too busy looting the state coffers with his oligarch buddies to really do anything that really effects regular people. There does seem to be a lot of nostalgia for the USSR though.