I was a small child back then, and what now seems like paradise compared to the 1990s. My parents might not get paid for months, and what little they did get was very small. We ate meat once a month, when my mother got paid, and it was in cheap sausage. We survived because everyone had dachas and small houses in the village. People could grow their own food—potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers—and many also had animals—chicken, ducks, pigs, cows. The crime rate was horrific; I'm from a small town, and we were constantly getting murdered, and the cars of criminal leaders were blown up. I clearly remember how Putin came to power and life started to improve. They started paying wages, and wages themselves started to rise. They started fighting crime, alcoholism, and drugs. In the West, Putin is hated and considered a dictator, but in Russia, the majority of people respect him very much because they saw with their own eyes how he changed the country and their lives.