Yes true , we as nation don’t have in our souls and mind a aggression , despotism , actually we are quite friendly and open as hosts for anyone who came with good intentions to our “small” but nice land , something like the ukranians . We don’t use hate in our arsenal often unless someone invade us or treat us bad .Actually when the germans were here they didn’t made anything bad to us ( unlike in Ukraine ) as bulgarian nation , mainly from what i know because we were from one hand allies and from other were included in the Hitler imaginery arian list of nations on last place which saved us from Gestapo and einsatzgruppen, so we didn’t and now days don’t have any bad feelings towards the germans , and i think they deserve to take their place now in the Europe again as leading country which they deserve as there is not more Nazi Reich there , and for me they don’t have anything to feel guilty more as they paid their price and the world should turn his eyes finally and to see the communist regime crimes and to ban them as he did with the Nazi ideology too otherwise it’s not fair .
To come back to one of your points, I have the feeling that even the Russians seem to strongly differ between Russia during Czarist times and Soviet Russia. I was wondering if the Russian sentiment is positive towards the Czarist times, when they were respected (and not only feared) by the Western powers, or if they still look more favorably towards the Soviet Union, under which the Cold War and the associated Western propaganda turned them into enemies if not even monsters for generations of Europeans and North Americans?
I’d say that the average Russian would have a more positive view of the Soviet period, when they were the “equals” of the West and not as backwards as under the Czars
Maybe in fifty years Russians will say that Russia under Putin was their favorite…
I don’t know whether they were considered backwards under the Czars. Also, keep in mind that the Czarist period lasted quite a while - and especially around the turn of the century towards the 1800 up until after the Napoleonic Wars, they were one of the most influential powers in Europe.
True, but Russia in 1914 was a sham compared to Russia in 1945 or 1979
Agreed.
But still, this had nothing to do with the change of governance and was more a linear result of the increasing industrialization and banality of automobiles in the European world.
Had the Czars been given an additional 20 years, they would have been able to further improve infrastructure throughout their country. Couple this with the introduction of cars as a more common kind of transportation, and a Czarist Russia would have been just as powerful.
To condense this into a sentence:
The strength of Soviet Russia '45 had nothing to do with Communism but rather the wider availability of vehicles, allowing Russia to harness its powers more effectively.
Yes, sure, you friendly nation.
But all you neighbourds , romanians, makedonians , serbs and greeks didn’t know this:)
friendly Bulgaria fought all of them since 1912.
Seriously, Ivaylo, you might be proud of your nation, and honesly i like bulgarians becouse you speak and write almost like russians.
But do not be the cynic.
Yep but never i repeat never against the Soviet Union directly in the waffen ss or in the wehrmacht there was not even one bulgarain soldier fighting on the eastern front .But something that the russians strongly forget is that Bulgaria after 9 September 1944 joined the front and send soldiers against the previous "ally " Germany in Macedonia if my memory…
your memory , my friend , make fun with you:)
Russia has not forgot the bulgarian participation on allied side.
The Stalin advocated in 1947 the former romanian Southern Dobrujia has been passed to Bulgaria.So we really did care to make you “little miserable” country a bit bigger;)
Bulgarian army fought with Germans in Hungary in junary-fed 1945, but with very little success.
Why , then , not to say than the strenght of Wermach in 1939-43 has been reached by aviability of vehicles?I thought the vehicle can’t make you winner:)
I’d like to see what the provisional Kerensky Government could have achieved had it not been overthrown…
Oh jeez…
Those guys barely had the country under control in the first place. I’d predict either the collapse of Russia into several smaller states, or the return of Nicolaus II. as a constitutional monarch.
Which, knowing what I do about Russian monarchs, wouldn’t have remained very constitutional for very long. 
It took a scared Bolshevik supporter to decide to knock off Nikolai II and the family. If the Kerensky govt decided not to continue the war they would probably have prolonged their existence