Someone has mentioned that between Russians and Poles there is a love-hate relationship. This is also very true. You see, we are very different and very similar to each other at the same time. First of all, both of our nations are slavic. This makes us culturally similar and you can even encounter people in Poland referring to Russians as 'their slavic brothers', basing on that principle. It is also worth noting how close our languages are to each other. From what I know, many foreigners also perceive Russians and Poles as very similar nations, which even contributes to us sharing same stereotypes (concerning mostly slavic fierceness and our endurance when consuming alcoholic beverages ;). For these reasons, Russia and Poland seem very close to each other.

At the same time, when making a historic analysis there is a tendency to draw a line between Poland and Russia (or Rus' in general, which is kind of a broader term). You see, Russians have always been perceived as the far end of the eastern Europe, mainly due to their belonging to the orthodox church, using cyryllic script instead of the roman one, and few other cultural aspects. On the other hand, Polish nation has always aspired to be 'a country of the west' - we were baptized according to the rites of roman catholic church, we were using roman script and so on. Some historians point out that we always tried to imbibe fashions and trends of typically western european countries (for example, there was a time when most of polish aristocracy preferred to speak french and dress like french people instead of cultivating typically polish traditions).

What makes the situation even worse is the fact that many political parties seem to be trying to take advantage of the fact that a part of polish community still has some antipathy towards Russians hidden under their skin. You see, the nation is easier to handle when it is fixed on strong emotions, therefore here and there you can see polish politicians making pretty anti-russian statements. You cannot call it an indoctrination, though. Wise people usually distance themselves from such statements.

Why would Russian be easier than Polish? This is not a rhetorical question — I’d really like to know your thoughts. As far as I’m concerned, first of all, Russian uses a different alphabet — no big deal, but still…. Second, Russian vowels tend to change timbre based on their position relative to the stressed syllable — which, (third), is mostly random. In Polish, you have the Roman alphabet (like English), and some letters have diacritics, which, while somewhat annoying to write on a keyboard (maybe), are what allows you to know the exact pronunciation of any word, with zero guesswork (fourth advantage). Btw, all Polish words are accented on the penultimate syllable — even the exceptions are accented on the penultimate in real life. The decision is a million percent up to you — you need to choose the language you’re most excited about, but considering you’ve already started Polish, your grandmother is Polish and lives in Poland…. After you have an advanced level in Polish, Russian will be relatively easy.

Enmity between Russians and Poles:
(It is a very broad and multidimensional topic and I decided to write few paragraphs about it, I hope it will not bore you to death, if anyone decides to read it.)

Well, this is a pretty touchy topic, as we can see even in this particular discussion. The thing is that because of close geographical proximity between Russia and Poland, our countries have fought many wars against each other throughout the history (e.g. Dimitriads at the beginning of seventeenth century or World War II). In course of these wars, there have been some very savage, horryfying war crimes conducted which I'd prefer not to name here. Of course, this is all in the past now and no reasonable person in Poland would blame Russians living today for something done by their ancestors, for crimes of older generations, and I'm sure that Russians think about Poles in the same way. However, even though people don't want to openly blame each other anymore, there is still a certain tendency among some people in polish community to subconsciously look down on Russians which contributes to creating certain stereotypes. This is very harmful and unwise.. I can also ensure you that this way of thinking is mostly common for elderly people.