This: "Well, this is not England (or Europe), but what Europe is imagined to be by the Russians, and probably this piece of imagination could tell you why "European" lifestyle remained so enticing for generations and generations: who would miss the kind of life in which people forced by their mutual lack of money to share an apartment, change daily their fashionable clothes, have wonderful galleries leading into their bedrooms and breakfast each morning in that unhurried and gentlemanly upper-class style."

Is STILL making me laugh:) :)

And oh we have our equivalents here too - and in many different media - all pedalling the same myths.