As an American living abroad, I see nearly every day the results of our endless empiral wars. Today some renters of ours our moving out. They are Afghan refugees fleeing the war we started there. The previous tenants were a family of Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war we started there. I can't do business with Iran because of sanctions. Our destruction of Iraq brought waves of refugees to Europe. Our destruction of Libya the same.

Yet I still love Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Hemingway, Gene Wolfe, Raymond Chandler, Roger Zelazny and many others. These writers didn't write the Patriot Act, torture prisoners at Abu-Ghuraib, or repeal Habeus Corpus. They are a wonderful part of American culture that helped form me into the man I am today.

Keep what you want from your Russian culture. You can leave Putin, Stalin and Dzerzhinsky if you like without dismissing the massive amounts of wonderful culture to come from your country.