Resolved questions
What do you think about Russia and about Russian people?

From my experience, Russians, though more direct in manner than my culture perhaps, care a lot for people and are very hard-working.
From my knowledge of Russia, it is undergoing a lot of change and urban-crowding as so many people migrate to Moscow for work. Concepts of space are similar to Canada as it is also sooo vast.

I have several students from many russian speaking countries (Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Moldavia, Belarus) and I find them serious, very focussed, very determined and hard working. They want much more lesson per week than the american/canadian/chinese/japanese student I have. To beging with, I had more problem teaching them too because I felt they were too demanding on me, a bit cagy about their personal life and I was really thinking about giving up on them until I met lovely sunny Natalia. After that, Elena hleped me realised the worst russian students I had were just insecure people. As I got better at teaching, I got more confidence and they got easier to work with and now they are my very favorite people to teach to. They feel "genuine", if you know what I mean.

I have noticed that Russians who have come to the United States do very well, for they are extremely intelligent and hardworking.

That is why I do NOT understand why the country of Russia seems to have so many economic, political, and cultural problems.