There is nothing really that novel about this story to anybody who knows anything about Russian history. Rural Russians have been saying "God is too high and t

There is nothing really that novel about this story to anybody who knows anything about Russian history. Rural Russians have been saying "God is too high and the Tsar is too far away" for centuries now. A strong central government that cares little for the provinces is the status quo that has been maintained despite a variety of different political systems. Unlike the US, which has had powerful agrarian political parties that were fiercely suspicious of a strong central government since at least Jefferson, Russian serfs and the overall "agricultural class" have never had any significant political power (factory workers and other lower-class city dwellers were the prime force behind communism while the serfs were mostly an afterthought). I don't know if anyone can make any sort of objective claims as to whether the highly centralized Russian power structure is any better or worse than a more evenly distributed one. Yes people in small towns live without infrastructure, but they also choose to live there, often for the "clean air" as the article notes. I'm sure there are many American individualists out there that would love to be able to disappear into an unregulated wilderness, mostly free of government scrutiny and yet be like 4 hours away from the capitol.