Abroad, the most striking difference is the relationship between parents and children.
Our former fellow citizens (I do not know which republics they are from, but they speak Russian) beat their children, shout at them, humiliate them in front of people. I have never seen such scenes from anyone else. Even among representatives of poor African countries.
The European and American culture is quite different (South-East Asia, most likely, took it, too). Here I have never seen children being beaten, at least, in public. I have never seen parents shouting at their children and spanking them. More often I see touching scenes of caressing children by father and mother. I hear the words “honey”, “baby”, etc. Even strangers here consider it their duty to smile at someone else’s child, wave them, pat on the cheek, treat him or her with a candy. If you do not behave this way towards other people’s children, you already look like a cold fish and a shady character.
But after all, the loved, caressed children grow up to be kind, educated, affable people who smile to people in the street, give way, apologize when somebody pushes them.
And who grows up from beaten, abused, humiliated children? Those who later swear and humiliate their parents, who consider force to be the main argument in disputes, and impudence – the manifestation of this force, who project this type of behavior from family to society and behave in a boorish way on the streets. Moreover, the cult of power then pours out even to the state level. It is these children who then grow into politicians who consider it valiant to demean the neighboring country or take away part of its land while it is weak, to threaten the neighbors with rockets and aircraft carriers and to “make it hot” for the whole world. These people want people not to respect them, but to be afraid of them. The cult of power and domination is manifested in everything for them.
Personally, I see a direct connection here.
P.S. Of course, as in any rule, there are exceptions. There are some sadists and vandals in Europe. And in our former Soviet republics there are many beautiful intellectual families. But the general pattern is visible to the naked eye. You should just travel around the countries and see everything with your own eyes.
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