Russia currently is run by an ex-KGB dude. The KGB opposed Gorbachev's reforms. Putin is actively trying to rehabilitate the Stalin personality cult and revive a longing for Soviet era colonialism to legitimize his war of expansion.
The Russian people are amazing, but there's only so far you can go if you don't have a free press, if expressing certain facts about history is illegal and if people are murdered for being too open about their opinions.
I don't doubt there are people who are still unhappy that Russia lost its status from the imperial days, just as there are British people frustrated that they're no longer an important empire. But that was happening anyway and it was only a matter of time.
It's not really surprising that the average opinion in an authoritarian country aligns with the position actively promoted by the government of that country. Just like it's not surprising that the party wins by a landslide in a one party state.
LOL. I'll get right on that, after I ask the North Koreans for their opinion.
So Russia was effectively cargo culting the idea of capitalism and democracy. They did things that looked right, but because they didn't understand a core principle, Rule of Law, they did not get democracy or capitalism. Instead opportunists attained all of the once governmentally owned assets, and then used their levels of wealth gained to consolidate their own power, leaving Russia in the current mafia state/oligarchy it is in.
I wish I could find it for you, but it's kind of painful to search for videos based on semantic information.
Snyder's US centric video on rule of law, was not only prescient, but it builds some of the scaffolding needed to understand just how bad everything is right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6fpu_9S31c
But as you describe it that's fairly plausible to me. Russia under communism had no rule of law and was basically a mafia state. So it's not surprising that remnants of those institutions, the paranoia, the corruption, opportunism, etc carried over through the transition.
My point wasn't that Gorbachev was some sort of miracle worker, just that he helped end totalitarianism and is recognized for his efforts. And Trump will definitely not be remembered as that kind of figure. Putin is trying to bring back the state religion, and Trump is trying to do something similar in the US so if we're going to compare him to someone in Russia historically, it will be someone who tried to tear things down and impose a dictatorship for the supposed "betterment" of the people.