Wiz, I used to work at a car wash, and a priest would come by regularly to have his car washed. The car was quite nice, but the main thing was that we had to wash it at our own expense. So, I'm not slandering or making things up. I saw it all myself. I'm not saying that most priests are like that, but it's these kinds of priests that create the image of all of them. The Bolshevik party in 1917 was the smallest of all the parties; they were losing to the Kadets, the Socialist Revolutionaries, and even the Mensheviks. And why did they win in the end? Don't talk about Lenin's special malice and cunning. The Bolsheviks were actually supported by the majority of the people. And they won the civil war precisely because of this. Moreover, they didn't even hide their views on religion before coming to power, and yet they were supported. This only shows that Orthodoxy had lost its support among the people. I assert this as a historian who specializes in the role of Orthodoxy. Stalin himself was a seminary student and had respect for the church, fighting it not because of religious issues, but because of the church's support for anti-government protests. And don't say that the Bolsheviks destroyed more priests than the Russian tsars did of the Old Believers. The Old Believers still haven't forgotten that. And in general, if you're going to argue, do it based on facts, not emotions. You can't be a prisoner of your own myths; you have to be objective. Russia will fall apart even without the help of Siberians. This is a natural process. But the problem is that it is trying to drag those who could survive down with it into the grave. Why not support the Siberians now, create conditions for them to live, raise salaries so that there is no need for Chinese labor? That would be expensive; it's better to let Siberia go to the Chinese.