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The Soviet Union collapsed more than 20 years ago, yet genuine democracy is still a stranger in most of the 15 former republics. Ukraine, where at least 25 people were killed on Tuesday, is just the latest bloody example.

From President Vladimir Putin's hardline rule in Russia to the 20-year reign of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus to the assorted strongmen of Central Asia, many post-Soviet rulers consistently display a fondness for the old days when opposition was something to be squashed, not tolerated.

There are exceptions, but they're rare. The three tiny Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia stand out as countries that regularly hold fair elections, change leaders at the ballot box and have developed strong democratic institutions. They also belong to NATO.

Post-Soviet Leaders

Russia: Vladimir Putin has been president or prime minister since 1999. His current term runs through 2018.

Belarus: Alexander Lukashenko, president since 1994, is often called 'the last dictator in Europe.'

Kazakhstan: Nursultan Nazarbayev became the Kazakh president in 1990, the year before the Soviet breakup. Won the most recent election with 96 percent of the vote.

Azerbaijan: Ilham Aliyev, president since 2003, succeeded his father who ruled from 1993-2003.

Uzbekistan: Islam Karimov, president since 1990, won his most recent election with 91 percent of the vote.

Every year, students come into my office and say, "I don't know what I want to do with my life." Of course, plenty of people in the world don't have the luxury of such cluelessness, but my students don't look like they're enjoying their privilege; they look scared and depressed, as though they've already failed some big test of character. They might find some comfort in Michael Sims' new biography of the young Henry David Thoreau called, simply, The Adventures of Henry Thoreau.

Thoreau's parents, who ran a boarding house and a pencil-making business, managed to scrape up the tuition to send him to Harvard University. When the 19-year-old Thoreau graduated in 1837, he landed a competitive teaching job in his hometown of Concord, Mass.; he quit that job after two weeks because he resented classroom interference by his principal. Throughout his 20s, this Harvard grad helped out in the family business and worked spasmodically as a tutor, caretaker and manure shoveler. He mostly lived at home — with the exception of that two-year stretch at Walden Pond — and he was known round Concord as "quirky."

"How shall I help myself?" The yearning 22-year-old Thoreau scrawled in his journal one night. His answer wasn't practical, but it was profound. "By withdrawing into the garret," Thoreau went on to write, "and associating with spiders and mice, determining to meet myself face to face sooner or later."

Thoreau's youth seemed aimless to himself and others because there were no available roadmaps for what he was drawn to be: A hands-in-the-dirt intellectual who's now hailed as the father of "environmentalism"; a philosopher of non-violent resistance whose writing shaped Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. If Thoreau had committed to a professional career right after Harvard, his parents might have rested easier, but the world would have been poorer.

Many people fervently consider alleged NSA leaker Edward Snowden a whistleblower who did a great service by revealing information about the U.S. government's secret surveillance programs. His release of highly classified national security documents, they argue, has sparked an important public debate that could ultimately force a needed overhaul of the NSA's surveillance programs.

Others feel just as strongly that Snowden is a traitor who has revealed highly sensitive information to unfriendly countries and put national security at risk. He undermined the NSA's ability to track important developments within al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and in countries like Iran and Russia, his critics argue, and deserves to be prosecuted.

Two teams recently faced off on the motion "Snowden was justified" in an Oxford-style debate for Intelligence Squared U.S. In these events, the team that sways the most people by the end of the debate is declared the winner.

New York City firefighters Sophy Medina and Thomas Olsen don't work together very often, but their first Valentine's Day as a couple was an exception. They worked the same fire that night — and then ended up at the same hospital with minor injuries.

"There really wasn't much romantic about the night it was," Tommy tells Sophy, now his fiancee, on a visit to StoryCorps. "I kept coming over. I sat in your bed and was talking to you."

"We were wearing big, stinky, heavy gear," Sophy recalls. "We're all, like, sweaty, and everyone smells like a foot. ... The only thing that was romantic was the idea that it was Valentine's Day, and that we still managed to spend it together somehow," Sophy says.

The couple are now parents of a baby boy, Luca, who was born in December. "I worry about you when you go to work," Sophy tells Tommy. "When I was pregnant I would think about it a lot, like if something happened to you."

"Yeah, just never know. Blindfold yourself and put yourself in an oven — that's pretty much it," Tommy says. "If you asked me when I first got on the job, 'Oh, you're gonna have kids and marry a firefighter?' I'd be like, 'Never.' But if [a fire] happened on our block, we could take it out."

"You're such a nerd," Sophy replies.

"We'd take it down. You could be my backup."

"I would," Sophy laughs.

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Jasmyn Belcher with Emily Kwong.