Somewhere I've read such phrase: "Americans are strange, because they don't know who will be their next president." Of course, this phrase belongs to Russian author. There are a lot of differences between these two countries.
Politics: the USA is democratic country, and there is no real democracy in Russia. No freedom of the press, no freedom of the TV. The "Law about rallies", "Black list of sites, which contain illegal content" and others strong circumscribe freedom of people, freedom of speech. And everybody knew before the elections that Vladimir Putin would be the next president. The next thing is corruption. There is a little corruption in the USA and a lot of corruption in Russia. The USA is 22nd in the Corruption Perceptions Index and Russia is only 154th(from 178). Markets in the USA are more liberal than in Russia. It's hard to start your own business in Russia because of different barriers and corruption. The sector of underground economy in Russia is much bigger than in the USA. If we compare GDP of Russia and the USA, GDP of the USA is about 15,2 trillion dollars and Russia's GDP is between 2,2-2,4 trillion dollars. Another difference is that the capital of the USA is Washington, the financial center is New York, the scientific center is Los-Angeles. Education, in Russia Moscow is both political, scientific and financial center. Despite the fact that American system of education is the best in the world and Russian is worse than American and European, high education in the USA is paid and in Russia everyone has a chance to have one free high education. Traditions. Of course, traditions in Russia are completely different with traditions in USA. For example, Christmas is more important than New Year in the USA but New Year is more important than Christmas.
I considered only a number of differences between Russia and the USA. Of course, there are a lot of differences but I concentrated only on several things that are most noticeable, in my opinion.
You point out some interesting differences! By focusing on facts rather than opinions, I think that your comparison-contrast is probably more accurate than the ones I've read comparing Americans' and Russians' attitudes or behavior. However, I would still say that it would be a mistake to say that there is no corruption in the U.S. or that there are no limits to the freedom of press or speech there. I also think that the free higher education is a big advantage here. The astronomical cost of college in the U.S. is a real problem!
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