How familiar with Russia are you, by the way? Maybe if we trade backgrounds, the conversation could proceed more interestingly... My contacts are mostly through

How familiar with Russia are you, by the way? Maybe if we trade backgrounds, the conversation could proceed more interestingly... My contacts are mostly through my wife, so I hear it from St. Petersburg, North Ossetia, Georgia, and the Ukraine, with a slightly over-representative Jewish tint. I am none of the aforenamed.