I, Russian

A Typical Russian

I recently spent a few weeks in Mexico with a group of people from around the world. It was led by Dr. David Miano, and we were exploring the ancient cultures and ruins of the Mayan, Aztec, and Toltec, etc., peoples of Mesoamerica. The reason this essay is about Russia and not about Mexico is because of a German.

Let me explain.

In the course of our explorations people would bring up experiences they had had on other visits to other historic places. An octogenarian, nearing nonagenarian status, named Joyce was disappointed that we didn’t have the option of a balloon ride this trip like the one we did in Egypt last year. The Valley of the Kings looks so grand from the air.

“Next time, Joyce,” our guides assured her. I fully expect to see her in the future, and I expect her to be up to the best any balloon can offer.

I mentioned my richly memorable trip across Russia in 2018 where I rode the Trans-Siberian Railroad; the one that goes Choo-choo, not the rock group; from Moscow to Vladivostok. For 9000 km, 9 travelers in our own first class car shared a train with migrant workers, students, and the rugged, impossible, enchanting, Russian fairytale terrain of Siberia.

First class, in this case, meant we each had our own cabin and the bathroom at the back of the car had a kitchen sink type sprayer we could shower with. Oh, and hot water. We could make instant coffee and stuff.

Luxury.

I don’t know how the subject arose, but a fellow explorer in Mexico, a German man named Christian, said that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is ‘authoritarian.’ I was probably reminiscing on my trip there and the people I met along the way.

I replied that he has an 85% approval rating. “Authoritarian presidents always have 99% approval ratings,” he said. “85,” I corrected. “And I saw nothing while I was there to contradict that.”

Which got me thinking. Why do Europeans hate Russians? And not just since the proxy war between the west and Russia in Ukraine. That has an entire history of its own. There is always a lot of misinformation during conflicts and wars. That’s unavoidable, sadly. The first casualty of war, after all.

But even before that it seemed that Europeans, and Americans as well, had a hate-hate relationship with Russia. We are more than happy to trade with them, buy energy from them, entertain them as tourists and visitors and Russia has been trying to be like Europe since Peter the Great moved the capital of Russia to St. Petersburg a century before the French Revolution. But we have always considered Russians as second class citizens, more so than any other foreign country.

Why is that?

When I was in Russia, I found the Russian people to be kind. On several occasions someone went out of their way to be helpful. Once, late at night in St. Petersburg, someone saw me looking lost. I was looking for a show of Russian folklore and was out of sorts.

“Can I help you?” he asked in flawless English. “Yes,” I said. “I’m looking for a palace…”

That’s like saying, “I’m looking for a bar,” in Boston or, “I’m looking for a temple,” in Kyoto. Every street corner in St. Petersburg sprouts the palace of some Stroganov or Kalashnikov or somebody-ov. And don’t get me started on Romanovs! They have a palace that eats palaces on black bread for breakfast. And that’s just one of their palaces!

“You’re just a few blocks away,” he said looking at my ticket, and directed me to my night of Cossack dances, Karelian harps, string quartets, and young people dressed in French, nineteenth century outfits and big, powdered wigs while serving us Russian hors d’oeuvres. They looked excited. Young people love to dress up and act the part of an exotic host.

So do we!

The show included Karelian singers and harp players, acrobats, dancers, and more. Folk everywhere love their culture. As should they. And as should we enjoy it with them, as well. Our culture, language, history, religion, and beliefs are what make us who and what we are.

It was delightful.

Our various guides, we had a local guide wherever we went, were knowledgeable, quite open, and engaging. I wanted to know how the Russian people are relating to their membership to the global community after so long under the Soviet regime. I got a bit of a reputation from the questions I asked…

One guide said, “I had a question about how people feel toward the government,”

There was a murmur of, “Jon…,” “Ya, Jon…,” “Jon must have asked that question….” Murmur, murmur.

My reputation, and questions, proceeded me. “And I’m going to get to the bottom of this!” I expressed in faux determination.

What I got was that the Russian people are divided into two groups: Those who remember, ‘The Crazy Nineties,’ and those who came of age after President Putin came to power just before the year 2000. The former had lived under Communism and the breakdown and dismantling of Russia after its fall. Russia was reduced to an impoverished state until the economy entirely collapsed in the late 90’s, the ruble was devalued severely, and people lost their life’s savings, savagely. The goal seemed to be to return Russian to a feudal state before Peter the Great even. 

One of the people on our trip, a woman who had lived through that time and had been a teacher in St. Petersburg, told me that during the Crazy Nineties she would exchange lessons for food. 

Let that sink in for a moment.

Then Vladimir Putin became president and everything turned around. That's what infuriates our leaders. Not that Russians are deluded puppets, but that they are free.

We are programmed to hate Putin, not because he is authoritarian, but because he gave Russia back to Russians. Our leaders don’t want us to get any bright ideas.

The Russian people appreciate what the current government has done for them. But they are far from oppressed.

The latter, those who came of age after all that hardship, accept that Putin’s government had done a great deal for Russia and, by extension, themselves. But the Putin government was all they knew all their lives. They would like a change, that’s all.

Their generation must take control someday, after all. The mantel will fall on their shoulders and the current power brokers must relinquish it to them. As is right.

Not an unreasonable expectation and certainly not the musings of a repressed group of people.

I asked one guide about religion in Russia. There are a lot, and I mean a lot, of new churches, renovated churches, churches reclaimed from being warehouses and barns during Soviet times, and monasteries being built or worked on literally everywhere.

The Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a church in Moscow, had been demolished by Stalin and left as a gaping, life sucking hole in the middle of Moscow. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture was first performed there in 1882.

It was supposed to be replaced by a government building called, ‘The Palace of the Soviets.’ They really love their palaces over there. People used to swim in its flooded foundation during the summer heat.

The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow was completely reconstructed from old pictures and scant documentation, all from private donations, during the 90’s. Today it is stupendous. It is truly a people’s church, the Body of Christ among us.

That’s dedication to… Something.

As an aside, Stalin himself was sympathetic to religion. His mother was religious and Russia had chaplains in the army during World War II. We visited a church in Siberia. The Communist party had ordered all the icons destroyed and the church turned into a barn, the smellier the better.

The local leaders just couldn’t bear to do it, so they covered the icons with whitewash instead, at great risk to themselves. Seventy years later art restorers just had to wash the chalk off with distilled water and everything was back, good as new.

Sometimes, the legacy of a people lay under dung heaps and buried in cellars. They emerge when most needed. A pearl in a dung heap is still a pearl.

I wonder if many people weren’t just going along with Communist atheism with a furtive look to the side?

I wanted to find out. I wanted to know what was going on, spiritually, and if it was genuine. So I asked our guide…

“Well," she said, pausing and pondering. “Some of it is curiosity. After seventy years of enforced atheism, the younger people are curious. Some of it is wanting to honor their grandparents, many of whom preserved their Christianity in private during the Soviet times. Some of it is to annoy their good, Party-member parents.”

Kids and their rebellion. Am I right?

In Nizhny Novgorod, a town about a hundred kilometers east of Moscow, we arrived late at night. We got off the train, met our ride, were shuttled to our hotel, and checked in for the night. Yevgeny, our overall guide for the whole trip, shepherded us through the check-in process, got our passports straightened out, keys issued, and sent us to our rooms.

“We noticed that the stores were open in town on our way here,” said two of our company, Michelle and Dennis.

“Yes?” said Yevgeny.

“We lost our luggage in transit and would like to pick up a few things.”

“OK. You know where we are. See you at breakfast,” he said cheerfully and that was that.

The next morning Dennis said, “It was really busy last night! There were people on the streets and the bars and clubs were all open. What was going on?”

Yevgeny looked puzzled, thought for a bit, and said, “Oh. It’s Thursday. Thursday is gay night at all the bars,” as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Europeans seem to think that gay people in Russia are hitched up to yokes and used to pull barges up the Volga River or something. No. People don’t care. Just don’t make a nuisance of yourselves, that’s all.

And children. Don’t do anything to recruit children. Nyet. Ain’t gonna happen. Let them grow up first. Then they can decide what they want to be in life. They are serious about protecting their children.

Not an unreasonable expectation all around, actually. People can be tolerant, but only if you are respectful in return.

We could stand to use some of that kind of tolerance in the west.

Later we toured another city. Our guide here wanted to show us the Opera house where they performed ballet. “My nephew is a dancer there,” she beamed. “It has the largest performance space in Russia. He says he hates going on tour because other ballet houses are so cramped.”

She went on. “This was built during WWII. The men had all gone to war, so the women continued the work. 'You will have ballet when you return,' they told their sons and nephews, daughters and nieces."

And so they did. And so they do.

Across the street, around the corner from the local assembly chamber, is a statue on the sidewalk. It is of an iron chair with a heavy crown hanging just over where the sitter’s head would be. Behind is an opening through the back of the chair where someone, a demon in this case, can whisper into the sitter’s ear. It is meant to symbolize the temptation to corruption that stalks every public figure. And serve as a warning.

In another town further east, I don’t remember the name, I wanted a beer before going to bed. The hotel we were in was far from four star-I’m not even sure they had hotel stars there. There was no lounge or restaurant in the lobby. The room was fine, with a coffee maker even, and it was close to downtown. Um, close to ‘downtown,’ as it were. ‘Downtown’ being a negotiable designation.

I decided to investigate.

I walked to the river a few blocks away. Along a lovely promenade and back into the city. I found a restaurant that was closed. The bar was still open. I went in. Plopped myself down by the bartender. Asked for a beer.

“Are you English?” he asked.

“American,” I replied, glad he knew some English.

“Oh, here!” he excited. “Let me make you a drink. I can make you a Cosmopolitan,” he offered.

“Just a beer,” I said, flattered that he thought a Cosmo was something Americans drink.

“No, I know how to make one.”

I don’t drink Cosmopolitans, or Martinis-Shaken, not stirred. But I didn’t want to offend him and was amused at his stereotype.

“How about I have a shot of vodka with my beer?” I said, mirroring my own stereotype.

Nestled down the barstools a couple of shots away from me were a few barflies, which is a species endemic to every working-class bar in the world.

“Are you American?” one fly asked, suspiciously I thought.

“Ye-ess?” I ventured, wondering if, just maybe, I should have had coffee in my room instead of venturing out.

“We love Americans!” he answered. “What do you think of Russia?”

“I think Russia is very beautiful and the people are very nice,” I answered, relieved and quite honestly. “Have you ever been to America?” I returned.

“No,” he said. “But I’d like to go.”

“I hope you do,” I said. “And I hope you will be received as warmly as you have received me!”

I sincerely hope they are.

Even further east we had a guide who was part Mongolian. He explained to us that non-Slavic Russians have two ways of referring to themselves: With Russian first or with their ethnicity first. He, for instance, refers to himself as Mongolian-Russian, which means he chooses to put his Mongolian heritage first, but he also considers himself Russian. There are over 150 ethnicities and languages spoken in the country and they all consider themselves Russian.

Oddly, that’s what America was supposed to be: A melting pot. Russia beat us to it, apparently. I wonder if they use the expression, ‘My fellow Russian?’

These encounters were not uncommon. They were regular, as a matter of fact. I grew to expect them.

Is their society perfect? Hardly. Do they complain about it? Robustly. They are Russian, after all, and complaining is their favorite pastime. Are they happy being who they are? Absolutely. Is there corruption in their government? Pfffft! Seriously? Could they be better?

Yes and no. Nothing is perfect nor will it ever be. But maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Perfect in its imperfection.

Russians are… people. People like us. Their hearts are large and warm. Their cities clean and wholesome. Their opinions are varied and contentious, as is the right of free citizens everywhere. And they are, above all, genuine.

What more could a citizen of the world ask?