ABSTRACT
There is one argument that is referred to with the frequency of a mantra by a large number of my respondents, namely the expressed desire that Russia be a state to be reckoned with. The contrast between the Soviet period and the contemporary situation is most starkly illustrated by the controversy surrounding the diaspora Russians (russkie). According to a frequently cited figure, there are about 25 million of them residing in the so-called Near Abroad. This amounts to some 17 percent of the total Russian population of the former Soviet Union (Sakwa 1996:345). Whereas these Russians used to be citizens of the Soviet Union, a superpower on a par with the United States, albeit more feared than respected perhaps, they are today left in a situation where the protests of the self-proclaimed great power, the Russian Federation, are only occasionally heeded. No doubt, the fact that Russia is practically without fool-proof levers with which to influence these former Soviet republics in the desired manner, is one that may be hard to accept by those who retain sympathy or maybe even nostalgia for bygone days. Even so, the recipe to mend the situation proposed by one KPRF representative in Perm turned out to be unusually blunt:
The Baltics and partly the Caucasus, are the main problems. A re-establishment of the Soviet Union by peaceful means would be the real solution... Everything else is only half-measures.
