Funeral

I paid my respects to Yeltsin yesterday evening at Christ the Savior Cathedral. I arrived at 7:30 pm and only had to wait about 30 minutes to enter. By the time my host parents went around 10:00 pm, the waiting time had increased to two hours.







The funeral and burial, an all day affair, has been on TV all afternoon. A while ago the cortege passed our apartment on the way to the cemetery. The first picture is of the hearse. The second is a limousine flying the Belarusian flag; I assume it was carrying Lukashenko.




The most touching image of the day was Naina Yeltsina, his wife, gently caressing his hair and kissing his face before saying goodbye at the cemetery. It was a powerful reminder that he was, first of all, a human being. A human being who was called upon to do superhuman things for his country. While mistakes were made, we can only imagine how a weaker individual would have carried his burden...

Ode to Yeltsin

In August 1991, you showed them that the State should answer to the People, that it could be defeated. You showed them that democracy was worth fighting for because it could be won.

In October 1993 you showed them that sometimes it was OK to use the iron fist to save "democracy." But what would that teach your successors who have their own ideologies (and power) to save?

In July 1996 you showed them that it was possible to win an election at any cost, even if it caused that election to fall short of the democratic ideal for which you had once fought. Because the alternative - a return to communism - was too horrifying to contemplate. And so, in the name of democracy, democracy was undermined. But what would that teach your successors who have their own reasons and resources to win an election at any cost?

And in December 1999 you showed them that when you've made years of mistakes, sometimes it's best to slip away quietly for the sake of stability. Stability for yourself, knowing you won't be prosecuted for your mistakes, and stability for the country, which won't have to go through the discomfort of a disruptive election process. And while your hand-picked successor was a man the people wanted, he was still your hand-picked successor, given all the resources and benefits of office not by the people but by you. What would that teach him when it comes time to pick his own successor?

More importantly, what would that teach the people about their ability to control the destiny of their country? In August 1991 anything was possible. By December 1999 it was anything but possible.

And so, perhaps your legacy is unfulfilled hopes, dreams, wishes, and promises. For what started out as an historic experiment in Russian democracy was slowly undermined, chipped away at in the attempts to save that ideal. But what are they left with in the end?

Perhaps your prime minister's famous words are the most fitting epitaph for you:

"We wished for the best, but what we got was the usual."

Boris Nikolaevich

While this is not how I planned to mark my return to blogging on Russia, it seems empty to write about anything other than today's news that Boris Yeltsin is dead. The mood is heavy in my apartment right now - as I've noted before, my host parents are among the dedicated faithful that remain of the old democrats. They were with him at the White House in August 1991 and despite his many flaws, believed in him to the end. We just toasted to Yeltsin's memory, but it's obvious that the shot of vodka does little to dull the pain. It's interesting, of course, since few Russians would ever hold Yeltsin in such high regard.

Of course, the question of Yeltsin's legacy, already an overworked topic, will once again be in the limelight for some time. I don't wish to reflect on it at the moment; I don't have the energy. Plus, the historian in me knows that we have to wait another 50 years or so before we really can say what his legacy was. Nevertheless, I'll leave readers to ponder the following question:

Which of the following dates will come to be seen as the "defining moment" of Yeltsin's legacy? Each date is important to reflect on, as each one yields a different portrait of a leader. Only time will tell which Yeltsin history chooses to remember.

August 1991
October 1993
July 1996
December 1999

Of course, there are other important dates - November 1994, August 1998, August 1999 - but the ones listed above, I believe, are key not only in Yeltsin's political legacy, but more importantly, in setting the current path of Russia's political development.

Terminal Velocity

So much for the tekhnicheskii pereryv...

I'm writing this from the terminal at Domodedovo, waiting for my British Airways flight to board. I should be sleeping - its 4:30 am, and I didn't go to sleep last night. The car picked me up at 3:00, so what was the point? I would be sleeping were it not for a curious phenomenon that has broken out behind me.

It seems that a large group of Russians and a smaller group of Central Asians have joined forces and vodka bottles from the duty-free shop and are throwing one hell of a party. Seriously, they're having a great time back there, hollering and laughing almost to the point of tears. I half expect them to break out in song at any moment now...Ah, there it is, one man started singing a tune. They've taken so many pictures or their old and new friends already, I'm afraid they won't have any film left for their real vacation.

Did I mention that it's 4:30 am and they're on their way to getting good and drunk (in all likelihood they are already)? And that we're all on our way to London? I have no doubt that the party is going to migrate to the plane, following me all the way to London. Talk about friendship of peoples! And all I really want to do is sleep. So much for that idea.

Obviously I'm irritated and more than a little puzzled: how in the hell can anyone - ANYONE - be so lively at this time of day? And yet part of my (the part of me that's clinging on to my sense of humor) can't help but smile. After all, anyone who knows how to turn 4:30 in the morning at the airport into such a good time knows a thing or two about life. I guess it comes with the territory - a people that knows how to suffer also knows how to rejoice.

That's as philosophical as I can be at 4:30 in the morning (did I mention that it's 4:30 in the morning and all I want to do is sleep?). I have a feeling that little glint of a smile on my face will have disappeared by London, though...

*****************
Update from London:
It turns out the raucous crowd of Russkii partygoers weren't on my flight after all, so I have no idea what they were doing at our gate. Actually, I know very well what they were doing there (they were having a party at 4:30 in the morning). I just don't know why they were doing it there.

Fortunately it was an uneventful and rather empty flight, but I still didn't manage to sleep much; I rarely do on airplanes, no matter how tired I am. The only detail worth noting was the lone Russian who burst into thunderous applause when the plane landed in London. This seems to be a common reaction to the successful landing of an airplane among Russians - I've observed it many times flying in and out of Moscow. If anything, today was unusual in that only one passenger took up the cheer. I always chuckle when they applaud, as it implies that their safe arrival is an unexpected and pleasant surprise. I suppose with Russia's aviation safety record, this is an understandable reaction...

London, I'm finding, is sort of an intermediate gray area for me. The English (and often South Asian) accent is just "foreign" enough to my American ear that I instinctively start attempting to decipher the code from Russian into English. But then I realize that they're speaking my native tongue, by which time I've missed the first couple of words of the sentence. Very confusing. I also keep feeling the urge to address people in Russian. However, I'm keeping my mouth shut, as Russian + London hasn't been a very healthy combination lately...

Технический Перерыв

As you may know from my previous post, I'm taking a little break from Russia for a couple of weeks. Thus, I'll follow in the wise footsteps of my friend Lyndon at Scraps of Moscow and declare a brief "технический перерыв" (tekhnicheskii pereryv).

In a post dedicated to the subject, Lyndon provides a variety of technical definitions for the term:

Деловая лексика (business lexicon):
перерыв по техническим причинам - interruption for technical reasons

Техника (equipment):
перерыв по техническим причинам - maintenance outage

Телекоммуникации (telecommunications):
перерыв по техническим причинам - out-of-service

But of course, in Russia, there is often a gap between practice and theory. Lyndon writes:

"In practice, though, as anyone who's ever needed to (just for example) urgently change money in a one-exchange-booth town knows, it's a phenomenon that can occur at any time, although generally at an inconvenient time, and for just about any reason. One cashier and she has to take a bathroom break? "Tekhnicheskii pereryv." The paper receipt roll in the cash register ran out? "Tekhnicheskii pereryv." Smoke break? "Tekhnicheskii pereryv." You get the point."

And so, I'm going on my own технический перерыв for the next couple of weeks. It's possible that I'll be able to sit down and write a bit, as I'm sure I'll be wide awake in the middle of the night for the first few days. But even if I don't manage that, I can assure readers that there are a lot more stories rolling around in my head, waiting to be liberated upon my return to the Motherland.

До скорого,
R

Dueling Identities

Academic eggheads like myself who study identity like to drone on about how "identity is multifaceted - individuals have multiple consructed identities." Don't worry about what that means - nobody really knows, including the people who utter such words.

Nonetheless, I find myself dealing with two identities at the moment, my Russia identity (not my Russian identity, as I would never dare lay claim to such a thing. I mean my identity in Russia) and my America identity.

In Russia I go to art museums and history museums on the weekends (at least when I'm not at Izmailovsky searching for Lenin busts). I go to the ballet and the opera. I listen to Prokofiev and Shostakovich while reading Solzhenitsyn and Bulgakov. I go for evening walks on the Arbat because the golden light of the setting sun bathes everything in a warmth that is too beautiful to resist. I go alone because I am alone. Yet there is beauty, comfort, and retrospection in my solitude. Russia is my life and my life is Russia.

In America I go to Costco on the weekends so that I can barbecue out back. I'm a competitive skeet & trap shooter and shooting coach. I do a lot of fishing and a bit of hunting. I love to cook, doing everything from scratch. And yeah, I'm pretty good at it. I cure meats and make cheeses. I am rarely alone, and this is one of my greatest blessings because I've married a wonderful woman; I want to spend every minute I can with her. In the fall we pick apples. In the winter we play in the snow. In the spring we play golf. In the summer we barbecue and go to the beach. My life is ordinary. It is my life.

The point is that these two worlds seem miles and ages apart. It feels as if my physical presence in both is the only unifying thread between the two. Even that is tenuous, as I'm never in both at the same time. Laws of temporality have taken care of that one. Even the point at which the two should intersect - my academic work at my little desk in the political science department - isn't really an intersection. The desk is part of the other world, the American world, and though I may be reading about the Russian world, it is so distant. Too distant. A week's worth of intuition gained by walking the streets of Moscow have taught me more about today's Russia than all the reading I've done in the last three years. No, they are separate worlds and they do not easily intersect.

But the two worlds are about to meet. I'm leaving for the airport in 6 hours to fly back to the States for a brief trip home. I'll see friends, family, the wife. I'll cook and eat American, Chinese, Italian, and French food to my heart's content. I'll even being coaching at a national shooting tournament. My body will be there, but where will my head be? More importantly, where will my heart be?

I have a feeling that it will be precariously straddling the fence between my two worlds, between my two identities. On the one hand, I have looked forward to this trip from the moment I arrived in Russia. Let's face it - parting from your wife for 8 months before you've even reached your first anniversary is nothing to look forward to. At least not for me. My mother will tell you that I don't like change - I never have - and uprooting a very comfortable life in a little college town and exchanging it for one in a dizzying metropolis where I only understand part of what's spoken to me was never going to be easy. But I viewed it as something that had to be done. I would get through this hardship. Do it for the career. Holding onto the thread of this trip and looking forward to the comfort of my "real" life, if only for a couple of weeks, made February bearable.

And yet I came to realize that Moscow is my home now too. I do have a life here, and it is a good one. I was surprised to find myself genuinely saddened by the thought that I would be missing so many Moscow sunsets in the coming days. I will miss my strolls through the streets, cashiers that smile kindly when I stumble on my words, and even things like the screeching brakes of the metro as it pulls into the station. I know I'll be back soon, but I'm sad to leave Russia too. She is something beautiful, and she will be missed.

The fact of the matter is, Russia is my primary identity right now. It is the one in which my feet are planted, along with my head and at least part of my heart. The next couple of weeks will be interesting. I won't bother taking the rubles out of my wallet. I wonder what will happen when I try to pay for a "Coca Cola lait" with them. I won't bother taking the Moscow pocket atlas that's always in my jacket pocket. I won't bother taking my Russian keys (the funny 4-sided kind) off my keychain. I wonder what will happen when I try to stick it in the lock to my apartment.

And I wonder what will happen when I try to stick myself into my old life. Will I fit? Will everything fall into place like it was before? I've heard of reverse-culture shock before - the disorientation that comes with repatriation, and I suppose there might be some of that. After all, I'll be surrounded by people so distant from my world of the last several months. How could they possibly understand where I've been and where I'm going?

For there are no words that can do justice to an evening stroll down the Arbat, a cool spring breeze stirring the leaves on the cobblestones, swirling them around in circles until it gets bored and releases them from its grasp. There is no way to explain the way the pastel buildings seem to burst with surreal color as golden rays of the sun's dying light transform them from the ordinary to the extraordinary. And it is impossible to share the soft strains of a guitar whose notes float in whisps and whispers along the street, as if hitching a ride with the wind.

Such things defy words. They cannot be described; they can only be felt...

Soviet Innocence

As this blog started as a travel journal, I haven't been in the habit of linking to other blogs. However, two posts recently came to my attention that are well worth the link, relating directly to the recent discussion of innocence and guilt among ordinary Russians during the Soviet period (see Beggars and Choosers, LR's Russian Philosophy 101, and and older post of mine, The House on the Embankment).

The first is Natalia Antonova's fiery and impassioned response to La Russophobe's views on post-Soviet babushkas.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Natalia's work, she is a truly gifted writer with some stunningly beautiful prose. I strongly suggest you check it out here. Among my favorites are "She had Eyes So Blue" and "You Died for Three Days Straight, as they leave you gasping for air.

But back to the subject at hand, the second blog I'd like to bring to your attention is The Clone Factory by Deborah Hoffman. Deborah is currently working on translating into English Children of the Gulag, a collection of letters, diaries, and reminiscences of children who were sent through the Soviet prison camp system. Lucky for us, we don't have to wait until the book is published (though I, for one, look forward to having a copy on my shelf), as Deborah posts drafts of her translations on her blog. Fascinating for anyone with even a remote interest in Soviet history. For those of us who have read some of the more famous Gulag memoirists, hearing the voice of a child offers an entirely new experience and perspective. Huge thanks to Deborah for bringing the project to my attention. I strongly recommend that you take a look.

That should keep everyone busy reading for a while...