Russians adapt to a future out of the limelight
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People will never forget that Russia changed prime minister four times in one year when the Russian financial crisis struck in 1998-99.
The pictures of the political mastermind Boris Yeltsin and the frequently changing young prime ministers continually hit the front pages across the world.
Hardship was commonplace. It meant an end to the formerly pro-Western sentiments that prevailed after the Soviet Union disintegration, when some Russians naively believed the West would embrace them, given the falling away of ideological boundaries.
But the West's response was not another Marshall Plan to give aid to Russia, but an unprecedented eastward expansion of NATO. The West vigorously opposed Russia's retrenchment efforts, and supported anti-Russian political factions in Georgia and Ukraine.
Russians finally realized the US wasn't coming to save them, and that the West didn't want to take in Russia and its boatload of problems.
Vladimir Putin's election as Russia's president in 2000 marked a milestone in ending the nation's unrest and setting its development objectives. At the same time the global media lost their interest in covering Russia, which had ended its dramatic political alterations.
The fact that Russia could not regain the global prestige it once possessed also led to the nation's inevitable marginalization in the international political and economic system.
As emerging nations like China become more powerful, multipolarization has already been widely accepted. Russia is drawing media attention more as a member of theBRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) group of emerging nations than its own right.
As a former global superpower, Russia has experienced a winding and bumpy road full of bumps in the past 20 years.
Many Russians are still not able to adapt themselves to the gap between past superiority and the current decline.
When the West only cares about the competition between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin and the West's own relations with the nation, fading out from the world focus is probably beneficial to Russia.
We cannot predict when the nation can regain world predominance, but it is certain that Russia is bracing for a national revival in an easy and confident manner.
The author is an editor of Huanqiu Shibao.tulimei@globaltimes.com.cn
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