Victory cannot be achieved without sacrifice, Mason. We Russians know this better than anyone.
— Viktor Reznov, Call of Duty: Black Ops
Franklin: Ah. You're a pessimist.
Ivanova: I'm a Russian, doctor. We understand these things.
"Russians love to fetishize their own suffering. They don't live, they survive."
— Mike, Geography Now
"Russian history in a nutshell: And then it got worse."
— Anonymous quote
oh also i mean there's the child abuse but come on
we're russian
we boldly explore depths of misery that other countries can only imagine
"I present to you, General Knox, the Russian soldier, to whom suffering is the second nature."
—Russian General Alexander Samsonov to English General Knox, From August 1914 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
I could not help being struck by the capacity of the Russian to adapt himself to the customs of that people among which he happens to be living. I do not know whether this trait of the mind deserves blame or praise, but it attests to his incredible flexibility and the presence of that lucid common sense that pardons evil wherever it recognizes its necessity or the impossibility of its abolishment.
— Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time (translated by Vladimir Nabokov)
This is what has always set our people apart. A thousand years of sacrifice in our veins. And every generation must know its own suffering.
—Boris Scherbina, Chernobyl
Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city's reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.
Ivanova: So, how are things back home?
Rabbi Koslov: They change, they stay the same. Russia is Russia. Your father used to say: "If regret could be harvested, Russia would be the world's fruit basket."
Rabbi Koslov: They change, they stay the same. Russia is Russia. Your father used to say: "If regret could be harvested, Russia would be the world's fruit basket."
Ilyukhina: Hello! I’m here to die for Earth! Pretty awesome, yes?!
Grace: Are all Russians crazy?
Dimitri: Yes. It is the only way to be Russian and happy at the same time.
"Suffering is our capital, our natural resource. Not oil or gas—but suffering. It is the only thing we are able to produce consistently."
— Svetlana Alexievich
