This is sort of an unorthodox dedication to 9th of May and my country in general.

Whils being patriotic, I'm not at all hurray-patriotic. I love Russia not for the golden filligree of her culture and shit. No. I love my country for all the things the western - and eastern - cultures deem us the epitome of evil.

Knowing english and using internet allows one to gather a big massive of opinions, and I do know how the western media and history portrays my country and my people. It's funny in a sense that we russians are unlucky to be lilly-white.
Hating on non-whites for their culture or life-style is deemed bad and racist. Hating on yourself is absurd. So Russia had become this salvating island where the tabooes doesn't work. We're white, and therefore guilty of all that the other whites try to wash off.
Occupation, repression, genocide.

This major misunderstanind in the midst of the western civilization, at least it's modern variant, possibly lies in the fact - and this is what I depicted - that we're a warrior nation. Our history is a string of wars, fight for survival, betrayals and not very successful attempts at building a peaceful, if opportunistic society in the veing of western european ones. That's why we were usually late to the happy tiems - when western europeans had their civilized inner conflicts and regulated war, we were dying and fighting - with and by the hands of enemies outer and inner.
Perhaps it's the reason why we suck at helping ourselves at times of peace but unite when war is about.

That's the paradox of the national character.

Who ever comes here - dies here. It's a burial ground, in the end.

So I illustrated that. If we're deemed the ultimate evil on Earth - we might well be it. No matter how much time Russia would be declared broken apart, it's population dying out, it's defenses shut down - we'll rise again. It happened many, many times.
Not like a phoenix, none of that romantical crap. Rise like a fucking zombie to lay waste to whoever thinks that they've won and overcome us.

Only we had created the Dead Hand, the automatized system of nuclear revenge strike, that would obliterate the enemy even if the whole country becomes a lifeless wasteland. If there's no one alive here - the dead will fight and ensure that we'll be avenged.

That's what I salute to - to our russian inability to be merciful both to our foes and to ourselves.

That's the driving spirit. I'm proud of my country's history and I'm proud to live in what is considered to be a corrupted hellhole. Because in the end, it's a challenge.
And challenges make worthy people.