Frankly, being Russian myself, I'm also very disappointed by the state of tech in Europe.

But you know what hurts the most? That I know it wasn't always that way.

I'm sitting right now in the same country that invented the Minitel, built out the TGV network and the Grands Projets, and don't even get me started about the weird and wonderful machines they've got in that museum in Mulhouse, hell, you could go back in time to Gustave Eiffel. Industry and ambition used to be here. It was almost physically painful to discover that it seems to be gone now.