Or maybe I wouldn’t call it a “note”, since it is just a few tiny bits of conversations that I’ve picked up from people around me. The longer I live in Russia, the more Russian people surprise me. I thought it would be the other way around. I thought that I would grow to understand Russia and Russians more and more the longer I lived here. That this country would seem comprehensible and sensible to me after a couple of years. But no. It is still surprising. And I was rather surprised when I arrived here. Not to say shocked. I was almost shocked, as a matter of fact, but I thought it would pass with time. I was wrong – the astonishment I feel toward this country and its people has continued and will, most likely, never come to an end.
I was sitting in a little café in the cellar of Ural State University’s main building on Lenin Prospect in Yekaterinburg with a piece of cake and a hot glass of Nescafe black coffee without sugar in front of me. Next to me sat two young girls of hard to determine age, probably one or two years younger than me. They were both wearing the standard outfit for today’s Russian female student studying at a prestigious institution of higher education – high heeled leather boots, short skirt, tight top, medium length fur light-colored coat with sparkling details and jewelry dangling from every possible body part. One girl says to the other: “So I found out that the car isn’t really his, but belongs to his boss and that he is only the driver of it. Can you imagine? How could he do that to me?” The other girl, obviously feeling for her friend, asks: “What are you going to do now? Dump him?” The first girl nods: “There’s nothing else I can do.” Her friend agrees and adds: “But make sure to ask for the number of the guy he works for. That car is nice, and who knows? His boss might be single…” I looked up from my coffee to stare at them. They didn’t notice me but I didn’t give up, I continued to look and listen, but was disappointed in the end. After this the conversation moved onto some new collection in some clothing store and they lost me.
I was waiting for my friend Julia at the shopping center “Greenwich”, in downtown Yekaterinburg. It was one of those Saturday evenings when everybody seems not to be able to sit at home but has to go out. One of those evenings when nobody cares about what they’re doing or who they’re with as long as they’re doing something with somebody. A young man was walking by me with his girlfriend. She was wearing a fake fur coat in a strange purple shade – these coats are growing ever more popular among the young – and he himself had on a leather jacket and rough leather boots. He asks her: “What do you want for New Year’s [Russians do not give presents on Christmas, but give them on the Soviet-made holiday of New Year]?” She laughs, looking at him and batting her long mascara enhanced eyelashes: “Nothing really, just give me a big box of money and you’ll have my love forever!” What the young man answered his woman I didn’t hear. They walked away from me and their words didn’t reach me anymore. I stood there and wondered what ever happened to the country that tried to build communism.
I often wonder what happened to the country that tried to build communism. Sometimes it seems to me like there’s nothing left of that country, the “old” country, and I start to wonder if maybe it was all a dream, but at other times it seems like the Soviet Union never ended and that anytime now someone will come up to me and say that we’re building a new world, we’re creating a new people, and that the happy future is just around the corner.
Russia is a big country, though. “Around the corner” could be around any corner. From Kaliningrad in the west to Vladivostok in the east – where do you begin?
7 Comments
Perhaps, Russia will remain a decent country only when generation of people brought up during communism no longer exists.
Indeed if someone decides to build communism one more time here, he wont need to change people much…
Perhaps Russia will become a decent country AGAIN, even though before October, Russia was a “backwards” but forward progressing Empire.
(Remember that before 1917 there was not a Nation known as Russia, but only an Empire held together by the Divine Right of the Romanov family.) The Soviets created a culture of people who were “nice” because they soon learned that they could be “next!” The Dream of Utopia was actually a Nightmare. What you heard form these two girls and the young man and his gilrfriend are archtypical of Humans Anyhwere and Everywhere that people live.
One of the things that gives me hope for Russia is that almost immediately after the collapse of the USSR, THE PEOPLE began re-building the many churches and Cathedrals that the Communists tore down to make way for swimming pools the Utopian Workers…without God!
As long as Russia is on the current path, in a generation or two Russia will be a fully modern industrial country with most of the same Liberties of Western Europe and America. And don’t lose focus on the fact that there are shallow people in those places too!
It’s hard to say if a few conversations on the street represent the direction of a whole country.
In my experience, comments like these are more often spoken with irony or frustration directed at the New Russian identity, making me think they may be more common. Irony and poverty don’t make for a high profile identity, but they are tied up in Russia’s future as well.
Russia seems to be an ever changing country. But as much as it changes, everything stays the same. But as long as customer service or the lack thereof continues, Russia will continue to rudely scare away foreigners. Maybe a new generation of Russians will change things for the better…
I am just writing to say thankyou for your amusing ‘notes’ on this site. I visited Russia a couple of years ago and am saving to go back. Your comments about eating icecream in the winter reminded me of doing just that when staying in Barnaul. Your ‘New Russians’ comment is indeed a reflection of how a great number of young people are veiwing their future, their thinking that having a lot of money and great looking cars will bring them the happiness they are looking for. This attitude is not just in Russia but in most countries particularly the more developed countries, family and traditions are taking second place to this kind of thinking which is a shame. The fact that Russia/Russians are comprehensible, sensible or logical is one of things that I found fascinating and enjoyable although frustrating particularly in dealing with the beauracy. I saw many many wedding parties during my stay and I loved the idea that not all the brides wore just white, the combination of red and white, black and white and in one instance a totally red wedding dress with the attendants in white showed me that many Russian people are forward thinking and do not blindly follow the fashions/ideas of other countries. As someone who lives in a country where the only snow we see falls in our mountains and not in the city areas (that is when it falls we have had drought conditions for the last few years, consequently there has been very little snow and only for realtively short times) waking to see snow outside your window each morning was incredible and as my friend said to me when walking in snow ‘it the best free facial’ a person can get, now I know why Russian women have such wonderful complexions – I totally agree with you that Global Warming should never, ever ge a visa to Russia.
In response to Kelly’s comments:
Ice cream ouside in winter is better than in summer – it doesn’t drip or melt
))
About your comments on how Russian’s are turning more to money and away from family – as a Russian-American (my family immigrated to the US when I was 10 yrs old), I totally disagree. Family has always been important in Russia, and family ties between siblings, children and parents, and extended family members are still very close. In particular, living in the US – the archetypal western individualistic/materialistic society, I have to say Russians have a long way to go towards the selfishness, egotism, and self-absorption of the west.
Currently, I am studying cross-cultural matters in psychology, particularly distinctions between collectivist cultures (that are more oriented towards group and family goals and interdependence among group members) and individualistic (those each person’s uniqueness and individuality, and each person’s indpendependence from other people’s wishes). The archetypal collectivist culture is China, with its many formal family obligations, and the archetypal individualistic culture is, as I stated earlier, the United States, and Canada.
But when looking at Russian culture, I see them as in the middle between east and west, seamlessly blending these two contradictory relationship patterns. In fact, even in the individualistic US culture, Russian immigrant children prefer the close and supportive family ties and constantly criticize US/American lack of closeness and commitment with friends and family.
You speak that Russian culture is changing change more towards individualism, however, being an insider of both cultures, I fail to see this change.
What I do see is that Russians are becoming more materialistic (obviously coming from their natural wish for a state of economic prosperity and financial security). Since the west, particulary the US is currently the most economically successful country in the world, Russians are trying to imitate them: meaning US culture and traditions. However, this imitation is largely outward, and has not gone long enough to effect significant changes in deeply rooted family traditions, and definitely has not caused the weakening of family ties and closeness.
If your hypothesis were true, then we would expect Russian immigrants living in US and other individualistic cultures to lose the close family ties in the new country and become more alienated from their relatives. Living and growing up in the US for over 10 years, I do not find this true, and therefore do not believe that by imitating the west, Russia will automatically become individualistic. My prognosis is that (as usual) Russians will come up with an ingenius way to blend influences from both sides, and end up with a new hybrid culture that is very their own and uniquely Russian.
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To the author of this blog – I love reading your website – it’s great to see myself “so storoni” (from the side). I truly enjoy your insightful and thought-provoking observations and commentary. Way to go!!!
Huh… Your blog is nice in general, but this very post… It is brilliant!!! It can be never better.