Heather
Worley Living in St. Petersburg, Russia
Vol 3: There's no place
like home. Oil money. Grazhdanskii brak. US/Russia.
Hey everyone -
I've started receiving a "second wave" of emails resulting from links
to my student website posted in various forums. Thanks to everyone who's
written me. I really like getting feedback. It's interesting to talk
to people who've seen both countries, as I have, but from a Russian perspective.
It's interesting to talk to Russians from other parts of Russia, who assure me
that SPB is not all there is to this country. And it's especially great
to talk to people who tell me they're interested in American culture the way I
am in Russian culture, and that they like hearing an American perspective on Russia.
A sincere thank-you to everyone.
And a quick note to the "itsmypage.com" group: I did not say I wouldn't
date a Russian, I just said that that was not my purpose in coming here.
I don't have too many qualms about inter-cultural relationships, but I would hope
that someone wouldn't think I have to fly halfway around the world just to find
a date on Friday night...even though I "wasn't the one Nekrasov was writing
about." ;) Seriously, though, y'all were a fun group to chat with...
But I should run. My eyes are starting to cross from staring at the computer
screen for so long. Love to all -
Heather:)
****************************************
There's no place like home.
Natalya's home project right now is hanging pictures in the front hall.
She said when she was in Holland, all of the homes had a lot of family photos
hung in the front hall, and she kind of liked this, so she wants to do the same
thing here. It was funny what she said to me, "I think it's a nice
idea...do people in America do that, too?" It hadn't occurred to me
before she said this that Russians might find this a novel idea. I think
every house in America has pictures in the front hall. But most Russian
homes I've been in don't have pictures of people hanging anywhere, or sitting
on desks, either. Russians have drawers of pictures and picture-books, definitely,
but they're not on display. It's funny that I didn't notice this until Natalya
mentioned it, though.
The first picture to go up is a picture of her father just after WWII, with three
of his medals on the matting. He looks very debonaire in his cap and uniform.
It's quite a nice display. He fought in the Battle of Stalingrad, and the
medal he has from that is very rare, apparently.
The other thing I really miss about American homes is the living room. Most
Russian homes have a gostinnaya, but it's more like a parlor. The default
room for gathering is usually the kitchen, which is almost always the dining room
as well. There's even some sort of saying about how there's always room
in the kitchen for a group, because the kitchen is the warmest room in the house.
In northern climates, warmth is everything. It has severe disadvantages,
though. Kitchens here aren't very roomy, so if someone is cooking (as someone
always is), they might need the table while someone else needs the space for homework,
and someone else for fixing things (Evgeny is constantly dissecting radios or
some such thing at the kitchen table). So while the kitchen is like our
living room in that people go there if they're not in their own bedroom, it doesn't
have the same relaxed atmosphere in that you can just plop down on a couch and
not do anything. People are always doing something in kitchens.
Most annoying of all is the TV in the kitchen - I don't like lots of background
noise when I eat, I suppose because I'm used to thinking of mealtimes as a time
for conversation. It seems that people here, however, prefer to save the
chatting until they drink tea after the meal, assuming they even eat together
in the first place. I'm really surprised that as much as Russians eat at
home (instead of eating out), they don't eat together. As everyone comes
home one-by-one, they just sort of warm up whatever the mom fixed in morning.
Anya, however, always has the TV on, so in addition to no conversation (either
because no one's there or because people who are there won't talk) I have to listen
to Brazilian soap operas dubbed over in Russian or, even worse, MuzTV.
The other thing I miss about American homes is the open space. Again, due
to cold and to heating concerns, rooms here all have doors, so if you're in a
different room from someone, you are physically very separated from them.
To conserve heat, the doors are almost always closed. There were times in
the winter when my room was colder than the front hall, so I'd open my door to
let some warmth in, and without fail someone would come along and close it within
the next ten minutes, because they assumed it must have been left open accidentally.
Contrast this to my family's house, where only the bathrooms and bedrooms have
doors, and the living room, dining room, kitchen, and front hall are divided only
by half-walls. It gives a house a very different feel. You can actually
have a comfortable conversation with someone two rooms away (even if you're speaking
in your "Russian voice").
*****
Oil Money.
My dad is an accountant. In America, you say your dad is an accountant,
and everyone assumes you're pretty middle-class because he probably works for
H&R Block. In Russia, you say that and everything assumes he's in the
mafia. So basically I've been implying to everyone here that my family is
the American version of New Russians. I just realized this the other day
- the revelation explained a lot of strange looks I get.
Someone had asked me what my parents do - I said my mom's a school librarian,
and my dad's an accountant. And the eyebrows went up. "Oh, so
he earns a lot of money." I said no, not really. "What kind
of company does he work for?" A small oil company. (Ah-ha! the
Russian thinks. Oil money = dirty money, and lots of it.) "So
he's really rich." No, not really...accountants don't earn much in
America. "But I have a friend whose mom works as an accountant for
an oil company here, and her salary's okay, but she gets LOTS of 'black money'."
And then I explain that in America, it doesn't work that way, and even if it did,
my dad wouldn't take illegal money. And they don't believe me. Maybe
Arthur-Andersen made the news here or something. So then I explain that
my father, as an accountant at a small oil firm, earns approximately the same
as what my mother does working as a school librarian. And then they are
really confused. Librarians in Russia are paid even less than teachers,
who only earn about $70 a month to start with. How could an accountant be
making only $70 a month? they wonder.
This is what privatization has done to Russia - made everything backwards.
Accountants at oil firms are rich, and the most well-educated people are dirt-poor.
This is true to a certain extent in America, too - rarely do professors, even
with doctorates, earn as much as a businessman, who doesn't even need a degree.
But in Russia the difference is even more exaggerated. Privatization was
conducted so badly, and there are still so few checks on corruption, that nothing
is as it should be. This is a constant complaint of my host mother.
There's an institute here in SPB that actually used to be a good school when the
government owned it, but now it's full of rich kids whose parents bought their
way in, and the director, who acquired the school dishonestly, caused some scandal
by marrying a British girl young enough to be his grand-daughter (and of a different
race, too - that didn't help the public opinion along) in a palace here in the
city.
Western firms love to complain about how difficult it is to do business in Russia.
I read a quote by a western businessman once, saying they usually spend about
1/5 of a project budget on bribes. This is a problem. I am by no means
an economist, but I it seems to me that communism is better than capitalism with
absolutely no rules. And I don't really think you can blame all of this
on Russian culture, especially when everyone here is fully aware that it's a problem
and thinks it's disgusting.
*****
Grazhdanskii Brak.
I'm really tired of talking about "grazhdanskii brak" (the Russian legal
term meaning "common-law marriage"). I'm not really sure why middle-age
Russians here think this is such a necessary thing to discuss with American students,
but they do. So far, every Russian teacher I've ever had has made us read
an article about common-law marriage and then had a very serious discussion with
us about why it is such a terrible thing. My host mom even sat me down and
talked with me about this one day. She's concerned about her niece who lives
in Berlin with her boyfriend, but has no plans to marry him. She said it's
like this all over Europe - young people don't want to get married, they only
care about being beautiful and healthy and having fun. It's such a problem
that (according to her older daughter Alisa, married to an Egyptian and living
in Egypt) German girls are marrying guys from other countries, like Egypt, because
they literally can't find a man who wants a family.
Middle-aged Russians see this as one of the signs of a crumbling society.
Where are the traditional Russian values? People my age, on the other hand,
seem to think it's pretty normal. I know a lot of guys my age who openly
admit they are putting off getting married as long as they can, fully aware that
their girlfriends are trying to rope them into it. I've met girls here who
say they would never agree to a common-law marriage because it's disadvantageous
to women and not conducive to family life, but I can't think of anyone my age
who opposes it on a moral basis like the adults do. There's a huge generation
gap here. Adults are aware of this and are very, very concerned.
Russians always want to know how Americans regard this. I never really know
what to say. First of all, I'm from Oklahoma. Oklahoma is a very conservative,
Bible-belt state, generally opposed to such things. On the other hand, it
might be considered pretty normal and accepted in places like New York and California.
But I don't know...I'm not from New York or California. And how do I answer
this question without going into the regional differences in America? (I
have this problem with virtually every question about the U.S.)
The very strange thing about this is that one of the goals of the Communist regime
was to "liberate women from the duties of family life," i.e. create
a sexual revolution that would make the family outdated. Part of this plan
included things like making divorce easy, doing away with alimony and child support,
making abortions easily available, creating utopian communal living quarters where
people live with co-workers and neighbors rather than spouses and children...all
these things are very, very alien to Russian culture. I don't understand
why they thought anyone here would like this plan. And the irony of it is
that after the fall of communism, society goes all topsy-turvy and the sexual
revolution comes in a completely uncontrolled way that shocks people who grew
up in the communist era and seems normal to the generation who grew up on capitalist
ideals. But it is essentially just what the communists were aiming for,
minus the dedication to the regime.
*****
Concerning questions about America that are difficult to answer.
While chatting in a forum the other day, I read a great quote (thank you, Nick,
for letting me quote you!) from a Russian currently living in the US: "Americans
expect that things will be worse in Russia than they are here. On the other side,
Russians expect America to be this great place, just as seen in the movies.
Reality is far from the movies... and when they get here they realize that what
they were looking forward too is not really here. And, Americans don't stress
about Russia that much, i.e. they dont care. They stay there as long as they have
to, and go back. The idea that you can always GO BACK and not deal with everyday
Russian life - helps. Not a lot of Americans immigrate to Russia."
One thing that Russian students often say to me is, "Life in America is probably
very comfortable/convenient, right? Much more comfortable/convenient than
here." The answer to this is probably yes, but it really depends on
what you like. It's also a difficult question for me because they are asking
me to compare St. Petersburg and Oklahoma. It would be more appropriate
to compare St. Petersburg and New York, or Oklahoma and Yaroslavl'. But
I've been to neither Yaroslavl' nor New York. So it's hard to say.
So I say, "Yes, maybe...I don't know."
But then they follow it up with, "What's your public transportation system
like?" Then I have to tell them we don't have public transportation
in Oklahoma. I mean, theoretically, OKC and Tulsa have city buses, but the
routes are so limited that it's not like they're actually useful, and they're
only inner-city. We certainly don't have a metro or marshrutkas, and you
can only take a cab if you call the taxi company first. Since most people
live in the suburbs, and there is no way to get from the suburbs to the city via
public transport, I have to say, "No, we really don't have public transportation."
And they don't believe me. Even when I tell them that Oklahoma is really
rural they don't believe me. They "know" life is better in America,
and how can it be better if there isn't public transportation? I must be
mistaken. A rich country should have really modern, really convenient, really
fast public transportation.
And they're right, it should, but America doesn't. Oklahoma doesn't have
the population density (I point out to people here that the population of SPB
is more than my entire state) for good public transportation, and there isn't
even enough demand to financially support bad public transportation. I have
no idea about places like New York, but from what I've heard from others, transportation
here in Russia is better.
Russians also tend to say that if they move to the US, they would live in either
New York or Los Angeles. Then they ask if I would want to live in Los Angeles.
I tell them I would move to any city on earth before I would move to Los Angeles,
and they don't understand this, either. To Americans, Los Angeles is a big,
dirty city full of guns, crime, earthquakes, fires, power outages, and smog.
Something bad is always happening in LA, which is why it's always on the news.
Plus, they keep telling us it will fall into the ocean any minute now. We
can understand San Francisco or northern California, but for the majority of Americans,
and especially for Oklahomans, LA would be like a death sentence. And Russians
look at me like I'm crazy. They talk about Los Angeles like it's the promised
land.
As to New York, I can't really say. I've never been there. And Russians
don't believe this, either. Natalya's English class actually laughed at
me when I told them I'd never been to New York, like I was stupid or something.
How can you live in America and never have been to New York? The answer
is - I've never had a burning desire to go. I counted once, and I think
I've visited over 40 states, but New York is not one of them. Natalya reminded
her class that the US is a big country, so not even many Americans have seen all
of it. How many of them have seen all of Russia? Very few, I'm sure.
I've actually met some St.-Petersburgers who have never left the Leningrad Oblast'
(region).
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