The flight from Kiev, Ukraine, to Moscow takes just over an hour and a half, but the countries' two airports are decades apart. The lines for passport control in Moscow's dilapidated Sheremetevo Airport are long and unorganized. Dim lights barely offer enough illumination to allow arriving passengers to sort through their documents before unfriendly border guards scrutinize them. In Russia, documents are still worth their weight in gold. Not just in the airport, but on the streets of central Moscow and elsewhere. Without them, you are subjected to fines and possible jail time, especially if you are from one of Russia's ethnic regions of the North Caucuses.In Kiev, 13 years of independence from the former Soviet Union and the oppressive grip of Russification has brought small improvements to this country of 48 million as it tries to join the ranks of its nearby Eastern European neighbors such as Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. Kiev's Borispil Airport has been remodeled into a modern, efficient operation. International passengers stand in a bright open room where the administration has taken down the Russian signs and replaced them with Ukrainian and English directions. There are few signs in this small airport that this was once the Soviet Union. It's a friendly greeting compared with the one awaiting visitors to Moscow. No wonder that Ukrainians, given the choice between a presidential candidate promising European integration and a Kremlin-backed establishment figure, voted for change. No wonder when they looked at the prospect of falling into Russian President Vladimir Putin's increasingly authoritarian net, Ukrainians took to the streets by the hundreds of thousands bearing the campaign's colors to protest a fraudulent election. No wonder there was an Orange Revolution.