If I make an attempt to make some generalization on
Russians' attitude to the other countries, it will be like that:
(please, remember, it's not my own opinion, it's (a little bit subjective) nation-wide generalization which is not meant to be absolutely accurate. I agree on some points here and I really disagree on the others. Read at your own risk. )Love:
If there's any country on Earth which is almost universally loved in Russia, then it's
Serbia. Serbians are considered "our Slavic brothers", many remember that Serbia suffered from NATO (and NATO is not very much loved here obvsly), maybe, some draw parallels like "Serbia in Yugoslavia = Russia in the Soviet Union" (though Russian role in the Soviet Union was really complicated and much more dramatic than sometimes generalised "Russia conquered 15 states, made them accept Communism and benefitted a lot from that")
Also many here do love
Belarus, especially those nostalgic of flagussr Soviet Union, as Belarus is sometimes seen as the stronghold of Soviet traditions in the modern world with nearly European order and organisation.
For some weird reason a lot of people love
Finland. I don't know why to be honest
maybe, these are just my acquaintancies.
Dislike:
The former Soviet -stans (like
with the possible exception of
Kazakhstan) and some Caucasus nations (from my observations -
Azerbaijan - to the greater extent,
Armenia and
Georgia - to the lesser extent, also some Russian Caucasus regions receive a bit of this pie of hatred) - a lot of migrants with well-developped diasporas, who refuse to study Russian language (at least properly) and often resort to their mother tongues and are not really good at abiding law; they're also thought to lack the sense of order completely. The fact that they occupy a lot of jobs doesn't contribute to warm feelings towards them as well.
Mixed attitude:
Europe and
USA. The Russians' attitude to the West is quite schizophrenic, in my opinion. On the one hand, there's still heritage of flagussr the Soviet Union when Europe and USA were seen as rivals and many people still believe that this race is still going on. This is doubled by all the recent sanctions exchange and MASSIVE propaganda on the state television. On the other hand... most people here understand that Europeans live ways better than we do, so the things like "european quality", "european-like order" and "european standards" are still highly evaluated by many.
The funniest thing is when there´s a news block on TV, and first we are told about how Europe is wrong about all these sanctions and how their economy is going to suffer, and just next there may be a report on some unpopular law or government decision which is justified as "already working in Europe and making a lot of benefit" - like wtf guys, you were just hating on Europe like madmen?
If we take individual countries, I'd say
Estonia and
Latvia are mostly disliked (due to the reports on violations of Russian-speaking minorities; I don't know whether they are true or not, I'm just giving the facts), Nordic countries are beloved as Russians believe that Nordic people are perfect at organizing life (almost the same goes about
Germany) and
France,
Italy,
Spain and
Portugal are adored for their culture. So if we don't speak about politics, I'd rather even say that we think of Europe much better, than Europe thinks of us
China also receives somehow mixed attitude here... on the one hand, many people see them as a possible ally against the Western influence (
), on the other hand - others are afraid that they're going to conquer scarcely populated Siberia... so, strange political stereotypes are in full swing here.