Heather Worley Living in St. Petersburg, Russia
Hi everyone!
First of all, a huge congratulations to James Mullins, who became a father-in-law
(for the second time) and a grandfather (for the first time) all in less than
24 hours! :)
Secondly, I realized in reading over this that I have stepped up on
my soapbox once again, and, once again, I apologize.
Till next time -
Heather:)
*************
If one more person tells me that St. Petersburg is not very Russian, and Moscow
even less so, I will scream. If this ain't Russia, I don't know what it
is. I'm running into Russia all over the place, everywhere I go.
Russian people, speaking Russian, eating Russian food, listening to Russian
music, marrying other Russian people, having little Russian babies (all of whom
speak better than I do, unfortunately), buying hand-knit socks at the metro
from little Russian babushkas - really, if this isn't really Russia, what is
it?
Russian culture is going through a massive identity crisis. People keep
telling me that to see the real Russia, you have to go out to the country, talk
to derevenskie lyudi, simple people. That there is no Russian culture
in the city. No culture at all, whatsoever - St.-Petersburgers are a culture-less
people. Completely culture-less. Not uncultured, mind you, but cultureless.
There are no values, no traditions, nothing. Little do they realize that
this is not actually possible. It is not possible for people to interact
without culture, and without interaction, you can't do anything except sit in
a hole in the dark. You can't eat, you can't buy things, you can't work,
you can't even move - because once you've done any of these things, you've done
it in some sort of structured way dictated by your culture. (Or maybe
you've made everyone mad by doing it in some way your culture forbids...but
still, that's culture.)
So if St. Petersburg is not Russian, what is it? The correct answer is
not, "European." Just because it's technically situated on the
continent of Europe does not mean it's European, else we would all say that
Moscow is all "a European city." The only things in St. Petersburg
that are European are (1) the name, which shouldn't count, because no one here
ever says the full, very German, very unpronounceable "Sankt-Peterburg,"
they all say "Piter"; and (2) the 18th-century Italian architecture.
The correct answer is that St. Petersburg is Russian, just not in the same way
that Russia was Russian fifty or a hundred or two hundred years ago. But
that's normal. Culture cannot be stagnant. Stagnant cultures cease
to exist, they die. But Russia and Russian life (and the world in general)
changed so drastically in the 20th century that people can feel the disconnect.
They are aware that the country is nothing like what is was when their grandparents
were little - and since that is the epitome of "Russian" in their
mind, and since it does not match their lifestyle now, they therefore "cannot"
be Russian.
Rubbish.
Adults keep telling me that Russian culture is still very traditional, that
families are very conservative. This is partially true - but society is
not the same as family. Russian society is changing very fast, even while
families are trying to maintain their traditional structure. There is
a huge generational conflict going on right now. The kids, of course,
will win, because they're going to live longer. But all the adults are
afraid that Russia will just cease to exist if they can't pound these things
into kids' heads and keep the modern media and western culture from ruining
them.
What happened was this. The last few generations of Russian tsars were
not incredibly forward-looking people. The country, long after Europe
had industrialized, was still basically agricultural. Then along came
the Communists, who completely re-vamped the economy, moving millions of the
peasants to cities to work in factories, and sending the rest to collective
farms. This created, instead of an urban culture, a displaced peasant
culture, all in one generation.
This government completely redefined "Russian culture" to fit its
own terms. Suddenly, in a country that had been run by the church for
centuries, religion as "the enemy of the state" was forbidden, including
things like Christmas and Easter, very long wedding ceremonies, and pretty churches.
These were replaced by New Year's and Labor Day, a quick registration at the
city ZAGS office, and community swimming pools. In a culture where family
was the most important group to which one could belong, suddenly a political
party made all the difference. And this political party wanted to liberate
women from the burdens of motherhood, men from the responsibilities of fatherhood,
and adult children from the obligation to their own elderly. This took
another generation.
City-dwellers got used to the idea of communism, urban life, etc. They
were living in a city but still doing very small-town things, like knowing their
neighbors and being respectful of old people and stuff like that. Meanwhile
they relied on the government for big things, like health care, education, and
work. Yet another generation passed.
Then all of a sudden communism disappeared, leaving Russia with completely unrestrained
capitalists robbing the little guys, who started robbing each other to survive.
Suddenly, in a culture that has been collective since the beginning of time,
no one trusts anyone anymore. We come to the new generation.
Russian history, in a nutshell, is that basically nothing happened for a very
long time that affected the average Joe in any significant way - whatever happened,
he always had his land, his family, his church and his neighbors to rely on.
And then, suddenly, in the space of one hundred years, the land disappeared,
then the neighbors, then the church, then the family, then the government who
claimed to be replacing the land and neighbors and the church and the family
also disappeared...I'd feel a bit disoriented, too, wouldn't you? Russian
culture every generation for the last century has had some unbelievably complex
upheaval.
But it is still Russian.
However, this situation has created an incredibly confused generation.
For instance, one guy I know was very shocked that American guys do not always
bring flowers to girls all the time, hold doors, etc. etc., but on the other
hand he thinks it's completely normal to lose one's virginity at the age of
14. Another guy I know loves Madonna - the American icon of trashy pop
culture - but finds homosexuality repulsive solely because it means one can't
have children and a family. There seems to be a pretty common standard
that girls should not be sluts, but on the other hand, it's okay to wear see-through
clothing and no underwear underneath it, as long as you have the body to show
it off. Honestly, none of this seems inherently "Russian" to
me, but it is modern life in modern Russia.
***********
What is it with Russian men being unable to take a direct route anywhere?
The streets here are crooked enough - the potential for disorientation multiplies
exponentially when one takes the most un-intuitive route possible. I thought,
at first, the desire to completely avoid actual streets and go only through
courtyards and backalleys was idiosyncratic, something only Zhenya did, or perhaps
at least unusual. After all, he has some gypsy blood, and we all know
how nomadic gypsies are. Apparently not.
There is a bar that is located exactly twelve minutes by foot from the metro
station Ploschad' Vosstaniya, but it took Adrianne two hours to get there.
Why? Because she'd only been with Valentin before, and he also likes to
go through courtyards. The simplest route is to turn right out of the
metro, take a right at the first street, walk three blocks, turn left, walk
20 meters, and the bar is on the right. When you leave the bar, turn left
and then backtrack. Valentin always turns right going out of the bar (i.e.
in the exact opposite direction from the metro) and then he goes through a series
of courtyards, and then somehow ends up near the metro, except on the opposite
side of the main thoroughfare. I suspect one of the reasons it takes them
so long to get there is that he takes a different route every time, gets lost
and won't admit it. Adrianne was ready to strangle Valentin When I told
her how simple it really is to find the bar - it's a good thing he wasn't there.
So maybe it's something only young guys do, right? No. My
host father says one day, "I know a way you can walk all the way from Sportivnaya
to the other end of the island, all the way through courtyards and back alleys,
and never walk on a street. It's like a completely different St. Petersburg
you've never seen before." My host mom said, "What are you talking
about? Why would anyone want to do that?" And then she started
to scold him for having weird ideas all the time. He said he could show
me the narrowest alley in the city - a mere 50 cm wide. "A fat person
can't walk through there. You'll be fine, because you're thin, but not
everyone can." Natalya told him he was talking nonsense.
Honestly, I don't know what's so cool about courtyards. They're just like
the streets, except a little quieter and a little dirtier.
Now, some people cut through courtyards because it's actually a shorter route,
or for other good reasons. Adrianne's babushka did it the other day, we
think because she was trying to figure out a route that wouldn't take Adrianne
past a kiosk where she could buy some cigarettes. She's always nagging
Adrianne to quit smoking. (She's khitraya, Adrianne's babushka.)
Probably because, as she told me, she loves Adrianne as if she were her own
(kak budto by ona svoya vnuchka). It made me want to have a babushka.
But then her babushka started telling her that on the days she doesn't have
class, Adrianne has to read to her three hours a day so she can practice Russian
pronunciation, and I changed my mind. I get enough of that from Natalya.
If I had two women in the house constantly monitoring my linguistic progress...ay
yi yi. And the bad thing about babushkas is that they have crazy amounts
of free time. But honestly, this is one thing I really like about our
host families - they really want to help us learn. My host father and
I talk every day after dinner for an hour or so, and he always goes over all
the new words or expressions I learned in our conversation, and then has me
try to list the ones from before.
******
One thing about living in a foreign country that's odd - the language.
Specifically, the way in which one learns it. Progress is very uneven,
and surprising in weird ways.
The nearly universal Russian exclamation is "oi." It's usually
used for mild surprises - you bump into someone accidentally, or drop something,
or surprise your French teacher by rattling off a long sentence, etc.
I swore when I came to Russia I would not ever say "oi," because it
sounds so very weird to my English ears. And then one day I did, accidentally,
and I wanted to kick myself.
Somehow, even after studying Russian for five years, I'd never heard the word
"vot" before I came here. It's used as a sort of emphatic demonstrative
(my apologies to all the linguists out there who know the real term for it...).
For instance, "I want that one" would be "I want vot that;"
or "That's what I meant," is "Vot what I was saying," etc.
It took me forever to figure out how to use this word. The dictionary
was not too helpful...it, of course, attempted to define it, which is not quite
possible. Real, live examples of usage are what made it clear to me.
But before I even figured out what it meant, I used it one day - unintentionally,
but correctly. It made me want to cry.
I often have the problem of listening to someone say something in Russian, and
understanding it perfectly, but not being able to repeat it back to them, or
not being able to remember it correctly long enough to write it down (such as
when I'm trying to take notes). It's either because they use a word I
don't actually know but can figure out from context (or because it's a cognate),
or because I can't hold the grammatical structure in my head long enough.
It all sort of gets tangled up. But, nonetheless, I know what they said,
and were they to ask me questions about what they said in English, or ask me
to translate, I could do both just fine.
Every once in a while, someone will tell a joke, and I'll get it, and I'll laugh,
and then someone asks me to explain it to them in English, and I can't.
Not because I can't understand it, but because I can't think of the English
words. Or if I can, it takes me so long to translate it in my head, that
by the time I figure it out, it's not funny anymore.
I was talking to Mom on the phone and couldn't remember the word "suitcase."
I kept starting to say "chemodan."
The other day I had the weirdest moment yet. My host mom was talking about
her mother's recent illness. Her mother has lived in a small village her
entire life, but in the last month moved in with her other daughter, Natalya's
sister, becoming an official Muscovite. Natalya was talking about what
an emotional struggle this was - they considered hiring help to come to her
mother's house once a week or once a day to make sure she was okay, but decided
against it. They'd heard too many stories of these companies deliberately
neglecting their patients, because the care was free in exchange for money left
in their will. As Natalya said, "The nurse wouldn't really care about
my mother - what good is an old lady to her?" And I agreed, "Da,
medsestry ne ochen' zabotlivy."
And then it suddenly occurred to me, what does "zabotlivy" mean?
Where did I get this word from? Is it what I wanted to say? In my
head, while pretending to be listening to Natalya still, I translated what I'd
just said back into English. And yes, it was exactly what I meant, "Nurses
are not very attentive." Apparently I learned this word some time
since I came here, but I don't think I've ever actually used it before, and
certainly not without struggling to think of it first. I think it was
the first time I spoke Russian so automatically that I can honestly say I just
blurted it out. I don't even usually speak English that way - I always
try to check what I say before I say it, because when I don't I often get myself
in trouble. That's why I was so scared when it occurred to me, all of
a sudden, that I didn't actually know what I'd said...what if I'd said something
bad? But I hadn't. It had been what I actually wanted to say, totally
appropriate to the conversation, 100% grammatically correct, and somehow also
completely spontaneous. All in all, rather frightening.
*********
And now for a funny moment I had the other evening as I was walking home.
Two men were standing on the sidewalk, chatting, hanging out, doing what Russian
men do, and one of them says to me, "Devushka!" (Miss!)
I reached into my pockets, sure that he was either going to ask for a light
or for the time, because he obviously was not lost. And somehow, the next
sentence he uttered had neither the word "zazhigalka" (cigarette lighter)
nor "vremya" (time) in it. I thought I'd understood what he
asked, but somehow, it just didn't seem right. So I said, "Chto?"
And he repeated it. "Tebe kakoi-nibud' muzh nuzhen?" (Do
you need a husband?) I was so thrown off that by the weirdness of the
question, and the fact that I'd understood it the first time (since it turned
out the same the second time), that I couldn't think of anything smart to say
in reply. So I just politely said, "No thank you," which ended
up sounding a bit sarcastic, and kept walking. He responded with, "You're
welcome."
*******
Well, the elections were Sunday, and (surprise!) Putin won with an overwhelming
majority. I think people would be upset if they actually cared.
This election was very odd. For one thing, there was significantly less
political activity (flyers, commercials, etc.) in Saint-Petersburg before the
presidential elections than there was before the mayoral elections. On
the other hand, Putin's face was everywhere on TV. The "democracy
police" (various other candidates, independent news agencies, human rights
organizations, etc.) made official complaints about this. They complained
that the coverage was not in proportion to his official duties - i.e. there
was more coverage of Putin doing goofy stunts before the election than there
usually is, simply to increase his appeal. But what could they do?
Even when the state owns all the TV stations, you can't keep them from reporting
on the president, even if it's stupid stuff like him working out with the state
boxing team. (Which he did, by the way...I would really hate to be the
guy that was sparring with him. What if you accidentally broke his nose
or something?)
The other thing that seemed odd was that all the other candidates were already
talking about what they're planning to do after the election. They all
went into it knowing they would lose. In America, even if you think you're
going to lose, you act like you're going to win. No one here even pretended.
Everyone knew they didn't stand a chance. There was no use pretending.
But as Irina Khakamada put it, they had to participate in this election so that
there would be at least some opposition, and so these other parties could continue
to exist for future elections.
Putin won almost 70% of the vote. The second-place candidate got about
15%. The other six each had less than 5%.
The "protiv vsekh" (against all) people showed up again, but not in
as great numbers as last time. Supposedly, by showing up to vote, but
checking this box, you could protest the un-fair un-democratic nature of politics
in modern Russia. Or you could do what other people did, which was to
boycott the elections. I still maintain that both are silly. If
you want to be apathetic and not vote, fine. But if you are going to have
an opinion, express it in some certain terms besides "this sucks,"
which is what "protiv vsekh" amounts to. At least if you vote
for one of the other candidates you are saying, "I have an opinion, and
it is that Putin is not the man for the job, in fact I think this other person
has at least one good idea." That sends a message - e.g. liberal
is better, conservative is better, this candidates' ideas are closer to mine
than Putin's...but just dropping out of the process says that you think the
system is broken and unfixable. What good does that do? What do
you want, another revolution? If you want to clam up and refuse to talk,
no one is going to try to force your opinion out of you. A voting strike
is not like a hunger strike. They're just going to continue to ignore
you.
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