To be fair, the guy Tim wrote about was talking about his experiences in the Middle East and South America. But, yes, I doubt that at this point a large proportion of Western Europeans would want to immigrate to the US even if given the chance.

PS. these purported 95% of people who don’t like the US but would immigrate if given the chance are not the ones from Western Europe!

Not part of your point, but let’s remember that most of those who immigrate to the US (whether legally or illegally) do not speak English.

Incidentally, Israel has had net emigration to Russia for the last several years. (Israel has also had a lot of emigration to Germany, as Israelis of German Jewish descent use the German Right of Return laws to get citizenship.) Make of this what you will.

Actually the CIS countries with net immigration are Russia and (I think) Belarus.

Well, most don’t speak English.

My point (which I didn’t actually express) was really different — it was that many of the countries usually considered anti-Russian (and I don’t know to what extent they actually are) exist in a Russian-dominated economic space, are economically dependent on Russia, and also exist in a Russian-dominated cultural space, in which they watch Russian television programs and Russian and Soviet cinema and listen to Russian pop music.

I mean, Ukrainian pop groups have a tendency to sing in the Russian language. Zdob Si Zdub, from Moldova, sing half their songs in Russian and (I think) live in Moscow. Reciprocally, I don’t know the sales statistics but I would imagine that Vopli Vidopliassova and Okean Elzy (both of which sing in Ukrainian) sell more discs in Russia than in Ukraine, given the difference in population size.

“For a place which everybody hates, an incredible number of foreigners seem to want to go to live there.”

And Chris replied:

“One could say the same thing wih respect to Russia and its huge amount of residents from Ukraine, Georgia, and other countries usually thought of as anti-Russian.”

But if those people had the choice to live/work in the US rather than in Russia, which country would most of them choose?

For fairness sake, I had a leftist Venezuelan friend, a brilliant fellow, who was offered to do postgraduate work in both the US and the USSR (it was in the early 80s). Although he has never been outside of Venezuela, he chose the USSR without any hesitation. Later he became very disillusioned about the USSR, but being a true believer, he moved to Cuba for a while. I lost track of him around then. I wonder what he thinks now. He was highly intelligent and idealistic. We were good friends, but he thought that although I was a good fellow I was in the wrong side of history.

One could say the same thing wih respect to Russia and its huge amount of residents from Ukraine, Georgia, and other countries usually thought of as anti-Russian.

Heh! I liked that.

For a place which everybody hates, an incredible number of foreigners seem to want to go to live there.