It is obvious that out of the two researchers compared by Masha Gessen in “The Dying Russians” Eberstadt uses a more “scientific” approach to understand the high mortality rates. It is noted that Eberstadt “systematically goes down the list of usual suspects” and “is interested in the larger phenomenon of depopulation, including falling birth rates as well as rising death rates.” This is juxtaposed with Parsons who conducted “a series of long unstructured interviews with Muscovites” more than 10 years after the population decline of the early 1990s. The initial obstacle faced by Parsons is mentioned in the reading by Scott, citizens mask their private thoughts and it takes a tremendous amount of effort and time to break down the barriers and reveal the truth. It is impossible to say if the information Parsons received in those interviews were the true feelings and rationals of the subjects interviewed. The larger cultural obstacle facing Parsons, Eberstadt, and Gessen is the Russian culture of deceiving outsiders. Neglasnot, the distrust of foreigners, was the way of thinking in Russia from the time of the tsars through Gorbachev’s rule, when he implemented his Glasnost policy in 1986. Despite Russia becoming seemingly transparent in thee late 1980s, this progress was destroyed by the immense corruption and government secrecy under presidents Yeltsin and Putin. Without being an integral part of this system, there is no way that an anthropologist or journalist will be able to hunt down the facts and find the true source of the high mortality rate. Organized crime is the backbone of Russian elites, and there have been many documented cases of journalists being targeted and killed in Russia, so the cultural aspects of Russian society prevent even the most “scientific” approaches from succeeding. This case serves to show the inherent difficulties associated with social science, namely cultural barriers and unpredicatable human behavior.