Communism probably played a role in that.
It creates a dumbed-down ignorant mentality and peasant culture.
No one, and I mean no one ever took communism seriously ( save for the occasional provincial bum who worked at a factory/foundry and hasn't been sober for years.)
People had to pretend they did in order to build a semblance of life.
Constantly having to find ways to circumvent the system in order to achieve relative success and comfort ( a good career, access to fundamental goods and commodities, etc ) tends to sharpen your mind a lot.
Trust me on that.
Also, having a good education and a good career was extremely important in "normal" soviet families.
it predates communism, russia/slav countries have always had a serf/vasile based society, slaves and masters
It's almost as if you only ever dealt with what we call "Gopniki" or simply trash. How unfortunate.
In terms of mentality, Eastern Europeans are "function over form" type of people, whereas North Americans tend to be more..... "form over function."
This usualy leads to a lot of misunderstandings between the two cultures.
