Do you think that the collapse of the Soviet Union was good, or bad? Do you think that any of these countries should still be part of Russia?:
Ukraine
Belarus
Moldova
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Georgia
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

1. I think that the fall of Soviet Union was bad for everybody, not only Soviet people, but for the West too. 
2. I'm OK if all the countries be intependant, until they stay in legal field and respect Russian-speaking people. I love visiting Belarus. I often was on Ukraine before they became crazy. I know in Baltic states situation with Russian-speaking people is difficult last 25 years. But our lovely EU does nothing on this. 

BTW people from EU - you have an elections now? How is it going, what do you expect from it?

Thanks for replying! I'm sorry if that message came across as one who thinks that Russians want to invade every country and turn into an empire. I would love to visit Russia one day, and learn Russian, but unfortunately I chose China over Russia =( Maybe one day! I would love to go to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Are there are any nice suburban areas in the actual city limits in St. Petersburg?

Also, I have another question: Do you support the death penalty/capital punishment?

Suburbans are not the way you have it in the west, lifestyle is very different. )
On the death penalty - I personally support it. And my opinion is that we need to return it for the big crimes. From another side - the main problem of death penalty is that court mistake is always possible. So it can stay the way we have now. But as I understand the most people think that it have to be back.

I think Kazakhstan shall be still a part of Russian Federation. Russian gov invested a lot in this area and they shall take profits.

As europarlament elecion, I vote and I look forward to eurosceptics win ( by win I mean good % of voters, not rule the EU directrly ). Immigrantion, homos, gender, debt - this problem must be fixed and all normal people will agree that socialist will not even try to face these problems.

I really want PiS/KNP in Poland, Marine le Pen, Nigel Farage etc got good results today. God gave us Real Madrid Champions League win in 90 +3 min, so maybe he will give us another good news today ?

Also I hope Poroshenko will win in Ukraine election. He has no connect to Maidan ( i can be wrong ) and his win will show everybody that all this Maidan stuff is not supported by Ukrainians.

And the last thing - dont be bothered by anything what Scisca said about Poland - Russia history/politicis. He just want Poland to be superpower again, and blame others for our nation past failuers ( he even is unfair - Germany did a lot more bad thing to us and now they are our ,, role model " )

Sadly, Poroshenko is a maidan man too. Only man who was against maidan was Tsarev, but he was beaten hard in Kiev and don't allowed to take part in the elections. You know, ukraine way of democratic elections?

Moldova should belong to Romania!

Out of curiosity, what would you want the West to do in order to stop Evil Russian Empire? They will never throw a stick at them, all they can do is to wave their fists in front of the camera while shouting empy threats.

I personally adore seeing the West in all their powerless incompetence, as they cant stand the taste of thier own medicine 

Yeah, I can get why you would say that. I personally think that countries shouldn't even exist. I believe that they should merely be regions or geographical indicators of Earth. However, a world with no borders would only work if everyone got along, which will never happen. I guess the European Union is kind of a step towards that, but the way that people resist and oppose it just proves my point that it wouldn't work. Oh well, I guess that I can still dream.

Just finished reading this thread (yes, all in 1 day took me awhile!) Its a fascinating read. Thank you for all the effort you have put into your answers (the OP and other members) its really been enlightening.

I actually lived with a very diverse group of guys in College (A Chinese Guy who had just moved to the US for College, a Korean-American who moved here when he was 10 and became a citizen at 18, a Russian-American who moved here when he was 12 and became a citizen at 18 and me born and bread in the USA).

Very interesting times with some great conversations. My roommate from Russia went back once I year I believe, to visit his father (staying for multiple weeks) and he absolutely loved it. I know he was trying to go back once he finished college (I unfortunately have not kept contact with him). Have to say that he was an awesome guy and all the Russian speaking guys he introduced me to (They introduced themselves as Russian but were from many different Countries in that part of the world) were great as well.

First off, I hope this thread has been good for your English training. So far so good as I think you are doing a great job of it. But I did have a question on your use of punctuation. At the end of a sentence you might do something like this:
! )))
or
)))
What does that mean exactly?

Also, one of my roommates friends told me this on the day I graduated and I have wondered what he meant since then. Its possible one of you guys might be able to shed some light on it. We were having a conversation about where we were from and our convo went something like this:

ME: "Well,where are you from?"
Him: "Belarus"
ME: "So you are Belarusian right? Isnt that the word?"
Him: "Some people are that yes, but Im Russian"
ME: "Would you rather be a Russian from Russia then?"
Him: "No, I love being from Belarus"

Unfortunately, someone interrupted our conversation and I never got to really understand what he meant. Maybe something was lost in translation? I am a North Carolinian and also an American (From the State North Carolina and from USA) could it mean something like that? Also did Russians consider themselves Soviets during Soviet USSR? One of my roommates friends called himself a Soviet and was never 100% sure what he meant.