Why Russians hate America. Again.

But there was a darker side. Society had grown more defensive, and self-conscious, like a teenager constantly looking at herself in the mirror. Oligarchs had always had exit ramps — a house in London and a second passport — but now my own friends were looking for escape routes.

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Intellectuals pointed me to books on Berlin in the 1920s and the concept of “ressentiment,’’ a philosophical term that describes a simmering resentment and sense of victimization arising out of envy of a perceived enemy. It often has its roots in a culture’s feeling of impotence. In Berlin in the early 20th century, it helped explain the rise of German fascism. In Russia in August, it seemed to have many targets: Ukraine, gay people, European dairy products and above all the United States.

“America stuffs its democracy in our face,” bellowed a cabdriver named Kostya in the city of Nizhny Novgorod. (His main beef was with the “propaganda of pederasts,” using a derogatory word used to describe homosexuals, a few weeks after the Supreme Court’s approval of gay marriage.) “If you’re saying yes, yes, yes, all the time and nodding your head, well sometimes you have to say no,” he said, explaining that Russia had finally stood up to the United States.

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