When does discontent spill over into open revolution? It depends. Certainly there's a lot of historical examples to look at, but one factor is always an inciting event: something that sets people off. It can be something small that spreads into bigger events (like a produce vendor setting himself on fire), to the dismissal of a minister.

And usually the situation is far more dire than today's Russia. For all our bitching in this thread, things aren't that bad yet.

The Hermitage's queue - it's funny, it symbolizes a lot about russia for me, actually. People line up there in the morning and then sell the queue position to tour groups. They make quite a lot of money that way, but everyone else gets screwed! And since so many people do that, an d nobody really feels responsible, it just keeps happening. Wanna know how my family got in? My father just pretended to be part of a tour group that had bribed one of the guards, and then fetched us. I'm still not quite sure how the fuck that worked :P The museum was worth it though!

I loved being in Russia though (we went to Moscow and St. Petersburg). We were just there as tourists, and to visit our friends.

I'm a bit of a subway nerd and I still like Moscow's the most (those soviet-era stations are incredibly beautiful!). I actually spent one day with a group of older students - it was really fun trying to communicate with them (I was, what, 16? And could understand Russian ok, but not really speak it).