If we start going down the this and that and me and you path, then we'll end up arguing that Charles-Martel saved Russia, but not really because anyhow the King of Russia near then was half-German, or maybe part-Italian, and anyways we owe it all to Kenya since we're all Africans.
You have to stop orienting your thoughts along those lines, skitalets. Imagine if Bush opponents in the USA (half the country) had no chance of being recognized as existing, just because all of the USA could be swept as being "a bunch of Bush-electing fanatics". Wouldn't that be a little sad?
If you're pissed off with Jérôme, let it remain because you disagree with his geo-political arguments in the energy sector, not because you don't like what you think he may have said to your neighbour about your sister who happened to save the life of a Portuguese sailor in the 16th century.
And I know what I'm talking about, I've been cured from overreacting to attacks on my country ever since I visited fuckfrance.com. Now, I know how to differenciate between people and government, and I leave the past in the past. I suggest you try to do the same, it will only make you feel better anyways ... countries are just administrative bits of paper ... it's cultures that are interesting, not countries. And the Russian culture is fascinating to me. To the point where I started taking Russian lessons, I read a lot of classics, watched movies such as "Another day in the life of Oblomov" ... all this having nothing to do with Putin or the Mongols.
Russia saved Russia from Mongol invasions, and with limited success (my dear Russian girlfriend/econ professor from Siberia has very distinctive, though lovely, Mongol features for one example.)
Russia saved Russia from Nazi Germany.
If Europe or anyplace else benefited in either case, it was an accident. Russia never set out to do anything more than protect Russia.
Moreover, by the time Stalin finished (died) and less psychotic minds took over the former USSR, the whole notion of "protection" coming out of Russia sent Sicilian mafia chills down the spine of a West trying to resist Nazi/Communist control. Which was worse, Nazis or Stalinist-bred Communists, is debatable primarily on the basis of video recordings and known mass graves. Be sure to consider the Ukrainian Holodomor, where Stalin intentionally starved to death seven million Ukrainians who dared resist his collective farming enterprise. Or was is six million, as in the Jewish Holocaust at the hands of Nazis? Or was it eight million?
Russia has never, ever intentionally saved Europe or anyone else. Russia has a hard time saving her own people, and as you surely know very well Russia has a long and inglorious history of destroying her own people.
If by any chance Europe is looking down its nose at Russia, I respectfully suggest that it may very well be due to some Russians audacious and self-serving claims that Russians have ever even pretended to care about anyone other than Russians -- and not doing a very good job in that latter case.
----- ----- The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. W. Churchill
