We haven't talked about Russia much so far because 1. It's complicated and 2. I actually speak Russian a little bit because I had some Russian in college and that makes it difficult to mispronounce things, which is my thing. Mr. Green, Mr. Green, why'd you take Russian? Well, because I had this big crush on a Russian major. But anyway, I'm sure I'll still mispronounce everything. So today we're going to talk about persistent stereotypes about Russia and how Russia came to take its current shape, a turn of events we owe largely to the Mongols.