Heather Worley Living in St. Petersburg, Russia

Hey everyone -
This week's issue I wrote in chunks.  Chunk one: Sunday.  Chunk two: Wednesday.  So if it seems disconnected, that's why.
 
I should also mention that on Wednesday the weather was great - no wind, no rain, plus temperatures, and the snow had all melted so the streets were clean.  And then on Thursday it started raining and basically has not stopped since.  It's also incredibly windy, so it feels colder than it did when the temperatures were still below zero.  Ick.  But everyone assures me that spring actually will arrive...I hope so.
 
Till next time -
Heather:)
 
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Strange things happen in foreign countries.  Normally, I hate generalizations, but this is a good one to keep in mind.  At the moment, I have a rather strong headache.  I have had this  headache all day long - well, since after breakfast, really.  The last time this happened, I spent all day contemplating where it was this headache came from: was I stressed? tired? dehydrated? grumpy? had I forgotten to do yoga this morning? slept poorly? been sitting with bad posture?  Maybe I should wear my scarf more?  And then Adrianne said to me, "How much caffeine have you had today?"  The answer was, none.
 
When I first came to Russia, I was quite shocked by how much tea people here drink.  A cup at breakfast, a cup mid-morning on a work break, a cup at lunch, a cup when you come home (because you're just in from the cold), a cup after dinner, and usually one before bed, too.  And if you're like Anya, you also drink tea whenever you watch TV.  I was only drinking one or two cups of black tea per day, and the rest of the time green or red tea.  Red tea is from some sort of flower. I've been told it's Egyptian, it's hibiscus, it's karkade (whatever that means) - everyone has a different idea of what it is.  But it is caffeine-free, I know that. 
 
However, I quickly got tired of the green tea here, because it's generally quite awful unless you go to an Asian restaurant, and the red tea is basically like kool-aid without sugar.  So I drink mostly black tea, and gradually have started drinking as much as the Russians do.  It was just too cold in the winter not to drink tea all the time, besides which it's much cheaper than bottled water.  And I've been taking it almost as strong as they do, too.  I used to choke when my host father made tea, because when he pours it, it's nearly as dark as coffee.  Now I like it that way.  So I apparently have a caffeine dependency now - something I've never experienced before in my life - and if I drink red tea at breakfast (as I did today) instead of black, I will pay for it all day long.  Gospodi!
 
The fortunate thing about a headache is that it gives one the opportunity to think stupid thoughts and not be too ashamed of it.  While medicating myself (chainik to the rescue!), I was watching Klub Hakhodchivykh i Vesjolykh (Club for the Curious and Fun, a Russian comedy contest), on which someone was making jokes about George Bush the Younger (as he's known here, since "W" doesn't translate well into a language that doesn't have this letter).  It occurred to me that he probably has no idea what people in Russia think of him.  So I've invented for myself a future career.  I'm going to propose to the American government that I will act as an Advisor-Consultant for Monitoring Public Opinion in the Former USSR.  Sounds impressive, right?  I think I can get someone in the government to pay me a living wage to watch Russian TV, transcribe and translate all the jokes about the President, and even record on some sort of scientific scale how the joke was received (laugh-o-meter?).
 
No, seriously, though - it worries me that no one in America really knows how people think of us.  The American media completely overdid the "anti-American sentiment" phenomenon.  The truth is that no one hates America because of the war in Iraq, except for the people who already hated us.  They just think we're stupid.  Most find us a bit silly for believing the war in Iraq was all about freeing people from a horrible dictator - that was a nice by-product, but our motivation?  Yeah, right.  There are many people much worse than Hussein on this planet, and we don't consider it our manifest destiny to eradicate all of them.  And the WMD thing?  Well, even if Hussein does have them, that's probably our fault - we, after all, have provided more third-world dictators with dangerous weapons than everyone else combined.  We are also the only country ever to use two H-bombs in a war we were already winning.  Everyone else saw right through all those little fairy-tales our government told us.
 
But I've discovered that people in Russia are also pretty unaware of others' opinions of Russian politics, so maybe I could also be a consultant here, too.  For instance, people here don't seem to realize that the rest of the world thinks the war in Chechnya is pretty stupid.  Sure, the war in Iraq was all about oil, but so is the war in Chechnya - and that's how a lot of other countries see it.  Russia, like America, is the big guy on the block who plays the bully when he feels like it.  "But Chechnya has always been part of Russia!" the Russians protest.  No, Chechnya has always been fighting not to be a part of Russia.  "But Russia, with Russian money, built that pipeline they keep breaking!"  The USSR, which Chechnya never wanted to be a part of, with USSR money (which is technically also Chechen money, since they were part of the USSR) built the pipeline the Chechens never wanted in the first place. 
 
But back to my job.  I also think that in my capacity as Advisor-Consultant for Monitoring Public Opinion in the Former USSR, I could teach American politicians how to be taken more seriously by the rest of the world.  Let me present to you a picture.  After a weekend of hanging out at Camp David together, discussing sports, and their dogs, and their daughters, and nuclear disarmament, Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush host a joint press-conference.  George Bush comes dressed in a polo shirt (with the top button undone) and slacks.  He says, smiling his big smile, "Yeah, me and Vlad, we're good buddies now.  We had a heart-to-heart.  We see eye-to-eye.  We want to be friends."  Putin, wearing a black turtleneck, black jacket, black slacks, and polished shoes, soberly says, "President Bush and I over this weekend have discussed some very important issues concerning both of our countries, including disarmament.  We also have decided to work towards future economic cooperation."  Now, who are you going to have more respect for?*
 
While I'm dispensing advice to America about their image, I could suggest that we start exporting more serious things, instead of pop-crap like Britney Spears, McDonald's, Cosmopolitan Magazine and Terminator III.  We do so much cool stuff in America that so many people in the world have never even heard of: the hundreds of varieties of jazz and folk music like swing, rock-a-billy, bluegrass, real country; foods like BBQ, sweet tea, sweet corn; art like Walt Whitman, Andy Warhol, experimental dance, and all the great southern writers.  They think because they've heard Madonna, they know American culture.  They're wrong, but is that their fault?  I don't think we should blame things like this on the market - I mean, come on, how can the richest country in the world plead not guilty to what's sold on the international market? 
 
So, if you have friends in high places, help me sell them on this idea...I think I could do the world a lot of good. 
 
*I should mention that this is by no means word-for-word, it's quite abbreviated, but this actually did happen about a year ago.
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You should know before you read this that, although I like Russia, I don't always understand it.  Following are my musings on a contrast that I find completely unfathomable.  If you've argued on the "nature" side of the "nature vs. nurture" argument, all you really need to do is live in a foreign country for a while to understand how much your own culture ("nurture") has shaped you.  Even if you don't change your mind completely, you'll come to understand the other side.
 
In my Russian language class, we were reading a poem whose essential premise was that people who live in the southern part of Russia cannot truly appreciate spring because they have not lived through the god-awful, forever-long, dark dark dark northern winter.  Our teacher was trying to tell us that one thing we will take with us from Russia is that spring here is so great, because we survived the winter, and he knows that winters like that simply don't exist in America, so now we'll know how to truly appreciate spring.
 
I had two main objections to this statement.  The first is that winters like Russian winters do exist in America - sure, not in Oklahoma, but it happens farther north, in, say, Montana.  Russians tend to forget that, like Russia, the United States is very large and includes many climate zones.  When Linnae left for home in December, it was actually colder where she lives in Idaho than it was in Saint-Petersburg.  Sure, there's nothing like a Siberian winter in the contiguous 48, but we weren't talking about Siberia.  No one writes poems about Siberia.  I also object to this because Oklahoma has a continental climate, which means both our summers and our winters are awful.  Sure, we don't get much snow, but the winter sleet and cold wind and nasty-cold rains, and the knowledge that within three months it will be so hot and humid you'll wish you could peel your skin off, are more than enough to make me appreciate spring.
 
My second main objection is philosophical - you don't have to go through something awful to appreciate something good.  Unless you're stupid, that is, and don't know a good thing when you see it.  For instance, when someone dies, and everyone around him says, "I'm only now beginning to appreciate how much he meant to me."  That's not touching, that's negligent.  If you don't know a good friend when you have him, then, well, you're a bad friend.  I feel the same way about spring. 
 
Anyway, so while we're talking about Russian winters, our teacher brings up the idea that climate can affect personality.  For instance, Italians, who live where it is warm, talk loud and are generally very chummy people.  Did we agree with this?  I said I didn't know, but since he was requesting me to describe people in St. Petersburg in one word, I would choose the word "distant."  Polite, but distant.  And here's how our conversation goes.
 
Me: For instance, a girl can fall on the ice, and a young man will help her up, and when she says thank you, he simply turns and walks away, doesn't even say "you're welcome."
Prof: Well, of course, people fall on the ice all the time.  That doesn't mean you should talk to them.
Me: What if it's a pretty girl? [We'd been talking earlier about how Russia has lots of pretty girls, and while blatantly admiring girls is okay, it's not actually okay to approach them.]
Prof: There are pretty girls everywhere here.  There's no reason to talk to her.
Me: She's pretty!  You want to meet her!  That's a good reason!    
Prof: But if she doesn't want to talk, then I'm wasting her time to start a conversation.  That's rude.
Me: If she doesn't want to, she can just not reply.
Prof: But then I've forced her to say, "Look, pal, I don't want to have a conversation with you."
Me: But what if she wants you to talk to her?  What if both people want to talk, and no one makes the first move?  Then you will never meet!
Prof: Very true.  And that's exactly why the friends you do have are so valuable. 
 
And then he says something about not wasting time and effort on people you don't know.  If someone spends any time and effort to be with you, then you know they're a friend.  This, to me, seems very strange.  By this logic, you can only make friends with people you're forced into contact with, such as at work or school.  Eventually, you get to know them, and at some point you can decide to be friends outside of this normal situation.
 
And truthfully, this seems to be the way Russians do it.  My host father was telling me one time that it was very strange for him that his tour guide in England (some guy named Butch who collects antique cameras and leads tours to support his hobby) talked to random people in parks he didn't know.  I said, "Yes, it's like that in Oklahoma, too."  He said, "You can just walk up to anyone on the street and talk to them?"  I said, "More or less, yeah."  He was surprised that this was not some strange idiosyncrasy of the British.  He said, "Russians don't do this.  We generally only associate with our co-workers and our classmates." *
 
I've noticed that all of the people my host family has over v gosti (visiting) are old college buddies.  (Keep in mind that they are both in their fifties.)  Apparently, once you make friends with someone, you're friends for life.  So any time any of these people are in town - from Murmansk or Siberia or wherever they live now - they drop in and spend the evening chatting and eating and drinking, even though they haven't lived in the same town for over a decade now.  In my observation, my host family has neither invited over nor gone visiting to someone whom they've known for less than twenty years.  While I think it's great that Russians are so loyal to their friends, it seems to me that this mindset severaly limits your social circle.  How do you make new friends if you move, or if all of your friends move and you're the only one who stayed put?  You're just SOL. 
 
This brings up something I was talking about with some of the other Americans here.  We noticed, in our travels about Europe over Christmas break, that it was incredibly easy to talk to Europeans.  Russians, on the other hand, assume that if you ask for a light, you really just want a light, and are not trying to start a conversation.  It's like Russian culture has a really strong insider/outsider dichotomy.  You are my friend, or you are not.  If you are my friend, you will be forever.  If you are not my friend, then we are nothing more than co-workers/classmates/acquaintances/strangers, and we should keep each other at arm's length to avoid any confusion about that sort of thing.  At least, this is how it seems to us.
 
My professor's theory on wasting an unknown person's time is also related to another difference I've noticed between Russians and Americans: privacy.  In America, if you are in a public place, you are not allowed to be offended if someone invades your privacy.  You are in public.  You want privacy, go home.  In Russia, on the other hand, it is still possible to intrude on someone's privacy even if they are in a public place.  Hence not talking to strangers.  It is possible to do things considered rather private in a public place and no one will bother you.  Hence the scores of young couples slobbering all over each in parks and in the metro.  (Now that spring is coming, they are absolutely everywhere.  Last week, I only saw minor cuddling, but the change in temperature did something weird to everyone's hormones, I guess.)  Contrast this with the couples at my institute, who don't even hold hands at school.  You can usually tell people are dating if they stand closer than ten inches apart, but that's about it.  The anonymity rule doesn't apply if you're in a place where everyone knows who you are.
 
I think the insider/outsider orientation is one of the characteristics of Russian culture that comes from a lot of eastern influence.  The Chinese are very much like this, too.  This is one reason the Chinese always butt in line - it's doesn't count as rudeness if it's someone you don't know.  People in China are not offended if someone cuts in line: you don't know them, therefore it can't be personal, therefore it doesn't matter.
 
* Note: I almost always immediately discount any sentence that starts with the words, "Russians don't...", because it's usually either false, or at least so far from true that it's not useful.  However, he's not the only person I've heard say this.  I don't know if he's correct when he says this; but I do know that whether he's correct or not, he thinks he is.  So you know that if someone completely invented this and it's way off base, that someone was not me.