when I hear all those babushkas on YouTube, explaining to me how great Putin is, I have my doubts.
That's foolish. Those babushkas are drones - I know, my babushka was the same.
I cannot explain my babushka's psychology in one post on PF, but the most important thing you have to understand about her is that she was a child of the war generation. She grew up in poverty, sexual abuse, hunger, and constant PTSD. She told me she cried when Stalin died, even though he killed 90%+ of her family. Up until she died, she would tell me that one day they will come back. When I asked her who the "they" are, she could never quite accurately articulate.
Fear is the operative word, when you talk about these babushkas. I wouldn't believe even 1% of what they say, because they are not equipped to even understand the question. They think in categories of: Yeltsin - bad, Putin - good. Pension was low, now it's high. Hospital was under-equipped, now it has a Siemens MRI machine. And so on, and so forth. It's not worth explaining to people like my babushka that another talented Russian man might do as good a job at taking care of her, and that she does not have to sell her soul to United Russia for these benefits.
Now tell me, this is different in any other country in Eastern Europe?