> If you went with the '.su' ccTLD from the soviet union some years back, well, that would have been quite unfortunate.

.su is still being operated. Still being sold, even. How bad .su is for you depends on how friendly you are with the current Russian regime (though that also applies to the American regime, as the owners of autistici.org found out, though .org has always been American and .su was non-Russian for about 15 months).