Originally Posted by Peskarik

I was born in Russia, finished secondary school there, but I haven't lived there for a very long time. I've been raised and educated in Europe (now I live in Switzerland, where I moved on scholarship many years ago). I've been working since I was 16 (in fact, I was working when I was 14, back in Russia, as a postman), I cleaned toilets in an amuzement park, I worked at a gas station on weekends to get my own money, sometimes two shifts in a row, from 6am to 12pm, jobs like this.
My parents are working stiffs, my father is a professor in biology with his own institute now, but I was not born into money (would I clean toilets otherwise?), and my parents are simple middle-class, not rich at all.
I did live through period in Russia when all you could eat was pasta and dry milk that came as aid from nice people in Germany.

My cousin lives in middle of Russia and he drives old Lada and makes about 700EUR a month (200EUR - you must be really unfortunate or really lazy). He read Dostoyevsky, but you seem to imply that reading/knowing classics is a prerogative of rich people. Maybe this is so in US, I have no idea, it was not like this in USSR, these days Russia is very americanized, unfortunately, with all the iphones, designer clothes and brainless american movies as interest of young people as a result.

Yes, I am very fortunate, I recognize this and I tell this to myself everyday, but before you start accusing someone of being a hypocrite maybe you should find out more about a person.