Still, it startled me.

So, last week, I flew to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and from there to Moscow. The sanctions President Joe Biden imposed on Russian persons and businesses — and kept in place by President Donald Trump — bar, among much else, direct flights to Russia from the West.

These absurd executive-ordered regulations, meant to punish Russia for its Special Military Operation in Ukraine, have neither caused a change in Russian military strategy nor harmed the Russian economy.

But they have deprived U.S. businesses of more than $330 billion in revenue in three years.

If you accept the Biden version of the conflagration in Ukraine — mouthed uniformly by mainstream media — then you think Russia wants to devour its neighbors.

If you move beyond Western propaganda, you know this war started in 2014 with a coup against a popularly elected president who sought neutrality for Ukraine.

The coup — orchestrated by the U.S. State Department in conjunction with the CIA and British MI6 — brought about a series of governments determined to attack their own Russian-speaking population in the east and to put NATO armaments on the Russian border aimed at Moscow.

If this doesn't frighten you, just imagine Chinese long-range missiles in Havana aimed at Washington.

Moscow today is the city of lights. Its atmosphere is one of midtown-Manhattan hustle and bustle — but cleaner, happier and friendlier. Its older buildings around Red Square and its Doha-style gleaming skyscrapers in the financial district are nearly all lushly illuminated at night and packed with workers during the day.

The perception of Russia embraced by the consensus of Americans is stuck in the Cold War era of central economic planning, hungry workers, crumbling infrastructure and no relief in sight.

Today's Russia is thoroughly modern, generally happy, devoutly Christian Orthodox and yearning to interact commercially, culturally and even politically with the West.