I was born in the USSR,
my birth cert has the hammer and sickle,
so please don't lecture me on "the Russian way of thinking"
What has risen in the last ~15 years is a much more cynical, evil, ugly and nastier version of what USSR was.
Hell my parents still watch Russian channels and it doesn't take long to realise that there is some sort of mass psychosis taking place in the old country, fuelled by state controlled media.
I actually feel very much sorry for those brave souls that do speak out, seeing as to what happened to all those journalists that did so, you are right ending up in a Siberian gulag aint the worst outcome.