Suffer? Do you know any Russians? Have you ever been there? They don't seem to suffer more than US people or Europeans to me. Well they have a ton of stupid laws, lead wars, etc., but again that's also true for the US and many other countries.

Like in most countries (again, including the US) it depends a lot on your political views, gender, exact position (Texas vs north), etc.

Of course it's not Scandinavia, but I feel like which politician you consider evil tends to mostly depends on whose propaganda you get.

I get that certain things are worse and that Russia is poorer and stuff, so that sucks and that they don't care for a lot of rights, but then you look at Afghan and Iraq war, look at Guantanamo, random police violence or the state of lethal punishments and things are put into perspective, seeing that they just have different problems, but not really more.

Also historically Eastern countries tend have been worse at hiding relations between private and political interests, how media is manipulated or how it's always the same kind of politics, regardless of votes. That's true. In Russia censorship is direct, while in the US you have DMCA take downs, national security letters, secret law interpretations, etc.

About democracy/parties: All bigger countries (China, Russia, US, ...) appear to have basically one major party with the same opinion and different branches of opinions in this party. Since they are actually mentioned in media, while opposition is not there is no serious chance for any opposition. This leads political stagnation in all of them. The US has two branches, not agreeing on exact spendings, but both pro-war, pro-capital-punishment, pro-capitalism, pro-neo-liberalism, privatized prisons and against human rights in the sense of international courts, welfare system (basic infrastructure, free/cheap water/education) ... They are very nationalist. Something also unique to super powers.

That may sound like something bad, but it seems to be a necessity to keep big societies at least somewhat stable. History has shown that.

I might be missing something though, so please tell me how Russians suffer more than people in another (non-scandinavian) country.

I agree on the oil part. Gas too. But again compare that with other countries, the US goes on war for oil and gas, pressuring Europe via imports. I agree, Europe being more independent from such things would be a good thing.

It seems that a lot of the bad stuff in countries depends a lot on their age and actual size. China is the oldest and population wise biggest country, requiring the most control for stability, having the most troubles, followed by India with slightly less population, but big age, less control, but therefor way bigger problems, followed by Russia and the US, where the US has a bigger population, but is also way younger than Russia.

Russia is a lot like the US with a big tea party. I guess that's their main problem, but then even with Putin it was just as much of an up and down as with Bush and Obama.

I just really don't think that things will change so quickly, neither in the US, nor in Russia. However, I think they are doing an equally good/bad job in regard to their current circumstances, making the US a better place to live, but maybe not too much. A liberal movement in Russia, pushing Putin into one direction and a stronger tea party with a republican president in the US could change that.

Even though both countries are rivals they don't seem to be that dissimilar, just US having a couple of benefits (world language, winning various wars in the past century, ...). China could take that lead in the next decades, especially when Russia and the US keep fighting like that.