DonM, well, this is the way how well-behaved Americans usually act ) But it shouldn't be a consolation for me. Because it's English which became the main way of international communication, not Russian. But Russia is quite large too and we have here a lot of people from Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, etc., and for them Russian is like English for me - sort of a way to communicate with people from big land.

I happened to born quite close to Moscow so I'm kinda ignorant this way - if you're close to Moscow it's hard to care about the rest or the country. Sorry, I'm too chatty today.