Been living for 19 years, 19 of them in Russia, here are my observations. Do some Russians see America as their enemy in the same way some americans see Russia? Yes, that's definitely true. I don't think it could be any other way with 2 huge countries and their interests conflicting each other. What do Russians think of the west and america generally? I'd say nothing much, some might casually say something like "fat americans" or "gayropeans", some might just be tolerant and some admire the western culture. There are all types of opinions with no prevalent, I think. What's the general Russian opinion on the Ukraine situation? ** The whole situation started with Ukrainian government being overtaken by nazi. Russian language was prohibited in schools and many people were ready to beat you for simply being Russian. The origin of this hate is barely known to me, but from my point of view it could be just something trendy that everyone got agitated for. There are a lot of videos with kids playing games that involve chanting racist songs. Many people in Crimea and eastern Ukraine were in disagreement with the current situation and didn't want to stay as a part of a nazi country. Also, to many people it was obvious that oligarchs overtaking the government wouldn't make the country any better and might in fact ruin it. As far as news tell us the current Ukrainian government is America's puppet, with certain American officials regularly visiting it, and many of the conflict reports are stated right after those visits. I'd say the general view on the sutiation is that Ukraine, with all the separatistic and nationalistic movements it had, was a good weak target to attach strings to, then move it however you like. And it's not like USA couldn't do things like these after all the conflicts in the eastern countries. Well, this is just one side of view you could get by living here, in Russia, and I believe it is quite accurate, with many reports being confirmed by the people involved who speak the same language as we do. I'm not saying that it is absolutely true. As for it being different from the western point of view - nothing surprising, you won't tell your people that you're doing some shady stuff to gain more power around that scary country of snow and bears, almost like children say "he started first!!!". Phew. Fuck politics and this world. Back to normal questions. **What's a common Russian thing that would surprise most foreigners? Well. You'd porbably get surprised how gray and gloomy most of the smaller towns are for the colder half of the year. All in all Russia is nothing bizarre. A country just like any other with people of all sorts. As an Irish person I'd like to know what most people think of Ireland and the Irish people, stereotypes etc Here's not much I can tell you, simply because we're not close neighbors and don't hear much about Ireland. Most people would probably remember that your national symbol is shamrock. Apart from that I don't know about any stereotypical things or prejudices against Irish people. Like, you'd probably only see them for the Americans, given the circumstances we're in, and even these are only in words.