Just as an observation, it is absolutely incredible how in just 25 years, the capital of one of the sternest and most ideological top-down communist states[1] h

Just as an observation, it is absolutely incredible how in just 25 years, the capital of one of the sternest and most ideological top-down communist states[1] has become a mecca for technology startups, the apotheosis of bottoms-up entrepreneurial capitalism. The collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union was a critical factor in unleashing the internet wave of innovation that is still cresting today; though this occurred contemporaneously with the technological breakthroughs of the early 90s, the importance of the fall of the USSR in unleashing the web is not as widely appreciated as it was in the 90s. [1] And that's saying something; see 'The Lives of Others'.