Kremlin Tour Guide

My guide has a master or PhD in linguistics but works as an English and history teacher. She has travelled inside Europe, is married and a bit older than myself. Her husband works in business. She lived through the end of the Soviet era. For years she has been giving tours to English speaking tourists and not ignorant tourists; her tours attract business professional and professors.

She is a staunch supporter of Putin and thinks Russians need a strong ruler to keep Russians in order.

She says some Russians think that Lenin was paid by Germany to start the revolution.

She has an interesting story on the Crimea at the time of separation in the 1990's and the current conflict.

When the Ukraine originally separated Russia / USSR gifted the Crimea to the Ukraine as an autonomous province on the condition that the people of the Crimea consent by vote. This condition was forgotten and the vote never held. The most recent vote in the Crimea was the vote that should have been held. It was democratic and a proper vote to international standards. Russia is the most democratic country in the world and Putin always follows the law and is very clever because he found the law on the Crimean vote. The current troubles in the Ukraine are caused by American interference in the O&G interests in the Ukraine. The US doesn't want a strong Russia. (That I agree with; a strong Russia means US has more trouble in the UN). Russians have access to the BBC and other foreign news and are not kept in the dark.