Recently, a reader of my posts to the Russian-language BBC’s “Strana Russia,” warned me to lay off the satire about Russia, using a Russian proverb: “don’t take your own charter to another’s monastery.” [“Со своим уставом в чужой монастырь не ходят.”] What the reader was trying to convey was that no foreigner should never ever presume to write about Russia, and certainly never in a humorous or negative vein. Here’s my response.
