I didn’t mean to suggest Baltic states are one people! And of course I’m aware of class and social differences. I lived through much of shock therapy suffering you mention, I wish we could talk in person, I have lots of thoughts I’m not sure how to put into writing…

I think culturally, from Catholicism and Lutheranism to Latin script to just architecture surrounding them in their cities, people in Baltic states feel European in the way Ukrainians, Moldovans, and Georgians simply can’t.

I remember a lot of late-Soviet Russians coopting reactionary language - when state informed them of the crimes South African whites commited on the black population, Russians would say “aren’t we whites too?” which was of course in part a joke, but there was an underlying sense of entitlement to be the oppressor, to be the slave master. I bet you’d find less of that in the Eastern republics where people still remembered living under Russian Empire yoke and had less reason to self-identify as prospective oppressors. When in the referendum Russians voted lowest of all the republics in support of preserving the USSR (except Baltic republics), I think this is a large part of the reason why (also worth mentioning Eastern republics voted by far the highest to preserve it). It’s the feeling of belonging to a powerful, respected, “cultured” nation that deserves more than the plebs around them. I think Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, and Balts had even stronger claim to proper “Whiteness”. Ukrainians on the other hand needed much more mental gymnastics to devise a theory where Russians were “Mongolised” since medieval times and Ukrainians were the only “pure” Slavs which also somehow made them essentially Nordics… They managed of course, but it was laborious.

Again I wish we could talk in person cause I can see I’m fumbling.