> I don't doubt for a minute that Western media is filled with all kinds of ridiculous apocrypha about Russia. At the same time, I've never encountered this kind of ridiculous sensitivity about a country's perception before.

You won't find many Russian authors vilifying USA habits and culture. Not among popular ones, for sure. Nor the Russian movies. That makes a difference.

When there's a Russian in the US movie, I mentally prepare myself for a cringe. Usually, it would be a unreasonably aggressive person, killer or terrorist, or just a bad person. Drinking vodka like water, beating women, etc, etc.

You'd have hard time finding anything resembling this in Russian books or movies about USA.