Россия: дураки и дороги

The problem with Russia - fools and roads. I heard this phrase so many times when I first started reading LJ a few years ago, but never understood it until I visited the country. Fools, they're found everywhere on the planet, but the roads in Russia remain a mystery to me after so many visits. The answer to yesterday's game - the Kursk villagers had a huge celebration because the dirt road in their neighborhood was finally paved. According to my reader, the villagers had been waiting for this day for over 85 years, and now live in happiness over something as basic as a proper road. For me, it's almost incomprehensible that such a celebration would ever occur in the U.S., because good roads for us are the norm. Even in small towns, with few rural exceptions. The only time I've seen a lot of dirt roads was in rural parts of Kansas, but such pathways were usually leading to privately owned farmland or very remote areas, not neighborhoods where many homes and people are located. Rural roads in the U.S. look something like this.( how roads should look! )