Indeed, “Весь нынешний мир устроен таким образом, чтобы человек как можно быстрее сошёл с ума.”

Read it here, pages 70-71:

http://www.litru.ru/index.html?book=10405&page=70

As I wrote before, in my experience Russians are much more brand conscious than Americans: they pay more attention to brand names–whether a particular article of clothing or some gadget is of an “in” or “cool” brand. I’m talking in generalities, of course. There are plenty of Americans who pay attention to such silly things, but I was always struck that, paradoxically, Soviets/Russians were more prone to it. Perhaps some of the Russians who are rightfully disgusted by this mistakenly think that this sort of behavior epitomizes the West or that in the West such behavior is even more pronounced that what they see in, say, Moscow.

When I graduated from school, I joined a group practicing martial arts. It’s been rumoured that its leader was gay, but I thought it were mere rumours. Soon after I started to practice karatee with that group, I missed a couple of classes and the leader of the group suggested me to practice the part I missed with him at his home.

I was ready to do that, but luckily when I shared my plans with my friends they explained me, a naive boy that time, what was the actual risk of that for me. And so I refused of any further contacts with that group and its leader.

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I do not have anything against gays, as long as they don’t have any plans regarding me.