Saturday, September 23, 2006

Soviet Paradise, New Apartment, Cold Victory - 9/23/06


You should see it, the lavish pavilion in front of our new apartment; it’s the pinnacle of Soviet urban planning. In the post-revolution center of the city, it lies in front of an impressive, well known apartment building on Prospect Lenina [see above background right, that's where we live]. Walking through it’s greenery late yesterday morning, I could imagine myself back in the time when it was just designed and built. The air is fresh and sweet and the warm, angled sunlight makes every living thing look as though it were dancing on the inside. Babi [old women, literally grandmothers] stroll down the pavilion’s verdant, bench-lined walkways, their gold teeth shining in a smile, their granddaughters pulling them forward by the arm as they skip along ahead. Its bright, floral circles and well-kept soccer and basketball courts [see left and below] bring the drab, quarter-mile long, 9-storey apartment building, along which it stretches down to human size. The old men gossiping on benches are shielded from the bustling traffic of Prospect Lenina [see right] by carefully planted rows of evergreens. Their square, tinted glasses reflect the sun’s overzealous rays.

This is the socialist paradise we are all working so hard to bring about. Sure, it is only apparatchiki who live alongside this little strip of heaven, but soon we will bring this way of life to all Soviet citizens, to the workers who built it as well as the planners who organized it. We are almost there. You can see it. You can taste it. You can feel its air brushing up against your cheek

This pavilion is still an idyllic place, but now it is only oil industry businessmen (and foreign researchers on government exchanges) who can afford such luxury. Our apartment is a comfortably large, recently remodeled two-bedroom apartment with a living room, satellite television and, soon, DSL. It is not in the style known as ievroremont [euro-remodel], but has some nice new appliances. (Of course the podezd [entryway and stairwell] is decrepit and smells strongly of urine and the elevator occasionally doesn't work, but that's virually unavoidable in Russia)

This wonderful apartment, for me, comes with a tinge of guilt. We are paying half the money for twice the space we would get in the still gentrifying neighborhoods of Brooklyn. But, our apartment is costlier than that of anyone I know in Samara. Everyone who learns how much we pay think it is an astronomical price (about $700 a month for the whole apartment). But they also could not imagine looking for an apartment in this neighborhood. My friend Olya and her husband who helped us find the place, for example, are starting a family in a slightly smaller apartment, a fourty minute bus ride from the city center (here). Most Russians have difficulty understanding how two kids in their early to mid twenties would be able to afford such an apartment, let alone why they would want to. It is unusual for Russians to spend time living alone between the home of their parents and the home of the family they start. This is the result of both cultural norms and economics. If they do, it is usually time spent in an obshchezhitie [the word meaning dormitory but also youth hostel].

The fact of our luxurious living situation only exacerbates what I have found to be already a difficult dynamic. I wish to represent my country as accurately as possible, explaining both its strengths and its weaknesses, but I do so in a country that has been saturated for the last few decades with Americans singing their own praises, through cold war propaganda campaigns like Voice of America, through foolhardy economic advisors in the chaotic Yeltsin’ years, through the zealous foreign aid or religious missionaries that have been streaming in since, through the wealthy business advisors that now come and spend their conspicuous wealth, and, perhaps most importantly, through imported American cultural products which depict American life, for the most part, in the terms of its own ideological paradise – that of a rich, well functioning, freedom-loving market economy and liberal democracy.

Certainly those living in America do benefit from high quality service provision, relative transparency in both business and government, and some meaningful opportunities to affect the policies of their government, and it is easy to appreciate those things here where socio-economic and political arrangements are still in constant flux. However, many Russians, especially young ones see America as a paradise where all are rich enough to afford the flashy goods and services they see on MTV and in shows like the Sopranos. I am often asked if life in America isn’t ‘better’ than life in Russia. How can one compare entirely different ways of life? Well, the life expectancy is higher (if you don’t live in an urban high poverty area), but the literacy rate is lower… One student was truly surpised when I told him that, indeed, there are poor people in the United States too.

If America ‘won’ the Cold War we now have a cold victory. The warmth and joy that we all saw when the Berlin wall fell has now dispersed.

The Soviet paradise that our pavilion once represented has crumbled. The pavilion remains, but there is no rational scheme in which to fit it: paradise is a place far, far away; toward which one cannot hope to achieve rational progress. Marxism-Leninism provided a plan, a rational schema, which might someday literally extend our paradisiacal pavilion down the extent of Prospect Lenina and, ultimately, through the rest of the city. The current power structure is not built upon any ideology. For better or worse, as the United Russia party entrenches itself into the organs of the government, its only coherent policy platform is to bring (its version of) order where there is chaos (along vaguely nationalist lines). Much like the American left, there is a vacuum of ideology. And, much like those on the American left, the average Russian is left without any coherent, rational strategy toward its goals. For many Russians, the path from here to paradise is not a matter of strategy, but one of geography.

Perhaps my perspective is merely skewed, because I am an American, but I see ample evidence that it is not around me in the reactions to my being an American. The other day, my American roommate and I were drinking a beer in the square catty-corner to our apartment building [see right], chatting about our experiences here, our hopes, our fears, etc. There were groups of teenagers all around us drinking beer and enjoying the ever-so-slightly-cool sunset of what is turning out to be a babi leto [Indian summer, literally grandma’s summer]. There was group no more than ten feet away from us that at one point clearly noticed that we were speaking English, but did not approach us to talk. The dusk turned into twilight and the twilight turned into night [see below]. As the teenagers passed by us on their way out of the square, one of them said, not directly to us, but in clear, hesitant English, “Russia.. is the.. best in.. the world!” I stammered out, “Ya.. soglasen” [I agree].

It is becoming increasingly difficult, as my time here slowly fades from tourism into a life, to hold such reactions in their rational context, and not to be simultaneously saddened and annoyed. I could not imagine being so unwelcoming to guests in my country. I would hold my friends to an equal ethical standard. Is it condescending of me to not take offense by such antagonism? Or would it just be callous of me to take such a comment out of its broader geopolitical context, and then go home to my fancy new apartment to leisurely work on my prestigious, self-structured and self-glorifying research project?

I’m not sure, but I’m sure glad I can.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

The Pendulum - 9/13/06

The day before yesterday, I was overwhelmed with anxiety and homesickness. I felt out of place, like I had made a huge mistake in coming here. I watched the movie version of RENT and cried my eyes out it made me miss New York so bad. I would like to say it was cathartic, but I was still anxious and homesick yesterday.

But, today... today I am great. I woke up early this morning to go to nearby Togliatti with Sasha, the director of PSI, Samara. There was a krugliy stol, a round table on case management. They were delighted by my presence and asked me to speak before the podium. Though Sasha speaks excellent English, I refused his translation services, except for a few words during my speech (almost entirely off the cuff). People seemed engaged and asked a number of questions. Afterward, during the conclusionary coffee, I was told by a worker at the Togliatti's case management program (whom I had actually met, since she was an alum of the USRVI, the year that I spoke at the orientation) that I should speak to the woman in charge of the entire organization about getting involved. Later, this woman approached me. I spoke with the directors of both of the case management programs PSI is funding in the Samara area, the one in Togliatti and the one in Samara. They both seemed interested, perhaps even eager, for my involvement.

In the car afterward, I asked Sasha, "Moi rech -- eto bylo Normalno," (My speech, was it okay?) "Luchsche chem Normalno," better than okay, he said.

I am now, because of this, quite excited. I went home and wrote out a detailed plan for my initial work with these programs. I had written three quarters of a blog posting about how homesick and anxious I was. Instead of posting that, I will list a couple of great things that have also happened: I am taking private Russian lessons with an excellent professor at the university; I am involved in a peer education theater group and may be performing RENT in St. Petersburg in October (as Collins, in Russian); I was interviewed on live TV on Saturday for my opinion on national flags; I saw a martial arts festival on Saturday; I was warmly forcefed all evening Saturday night by my very pregnant friend, Olya (to the right) and her husband and husband's friends; Olya is helping me find an apartment to rent with the other American girl here and we viewed an excellent one near the center of town with great views and lots of space; having a lot of fun playing charades with my friends, called krokodil in Russian (see below).

More analysis to come, but for now, just a thank you to the world for being so good to me.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Order and the Public Good in Russia - 9/4/06

There was an article is the last issue of Foreign Affairs entitled, “Russia Leaves the West.” In it, the author argues that the attempts by various Western advisors and Russian political leaders in the nineties to bring the Western way of life to Russia and to include Russia in the political institutions of the West were unsuccessful; that Russia, now growing rapidly due to high gas and oil prices, is now self-confident enough to step out on its own and throw off what it perceives as the shackles of Western limitations on the power of state actors.

Indeed, this seems true when you consider some of the high-level goings on of late: the jailing of Yukos CEO, Mikhail Khadorkovsky and the subsequent behind-closed-doors buy out of Yukos by the state oil company Gazprom, the new law that requires all non-governmental organizations to reregister and show how each and every dollar is spent and that prevents any international organization from funding political activities (and almost prevented them from existing).

However, when you walk around small and medium-sized cities, this seems too broad a stroke. Across from the university where I live is a brand new, shiny, western-style mall called МЕГА–СИТИ (Mega City transliterated into Russian), complete with a Body Shop, a Sephora, a food court and a fancy new fountain (pictured at right). The floors are so clean you feel a tinge of guilt walking on them. Looking around inside it, you could be in any United States suberb, were it not for the extreme thinness and angular features of the young women (and, of course, the Russian tongues twisting around inside your ears, ringing the occasional familiar note).

Most overlooked by this analysis is the obsession of Russian marketers with the English language. No shiny, blinking new sign is complete without at least one English word. Far from the center of the city, in the maze between the main traffic corridors, one can find a restaurant whose name is entirely English and not even transliterated into Russian. (the one pictured below says "Second Hand: Aut Let iz Evropi" I'm not sure what an Aut Let is, but I guess they have them in Europe)

English, it seems, is a signifier of coolness and high quality. Its position as the lingua franca of the West cannot be ignored. While those in power may be seeking to unburden themselves of the promises their predecessors made to Western reformers in exchange for assistance, the relationship of the general population to the idea of the West is not as uncomplicated as “on” or “off,” “in” or “out.”

There is an advertisement above a great number of urinals in Moscow. In it, three men are standing at adjacent urinals, apparently finishing up their business. One turns to another and says, “Sir, we at Oxford learned to wash our hands after using the toilet.” The second man says in response, “Ah, but we at Harvard learned not to wash after the toilet.” (A rather strange notion, it seems to me.) Then the Russian man says to the audience, “And we in Moscow don’t think about this, because every self-respecting man uses Sanitelle gel for the hands.” The ad is entirely in Russian, except for the brand name, which is French, I suppose. However, both Anglophones use the transliterated word, “sir,” suggesting that they are actually speaking English. To me, the comparison to Brits and Americans suggests a sort of inferiority complex; as though we are constantly insulting Russians with our superior quality products that we continually export from the West.

While there are some substantive differences in quality, it seems to me that the biggest difference is in marketing (see photo at right, which is an ad for a marketing company called "Marx;" more ironic than a hipster). If there is one thing we are good at in the West, it is selling each other crap. We have spent the last fifty years figuring out clever ways to create demand where there was previously none. I was discussing this with my Russian friends this weekend and I learned an excellent new Russian expression “iz govna sdelat' confeti,” which translates roughly as “to turn shit into confetti”.

To be fair, part of the reason the Soviet Union fell apart was the effect the substantive differences in quality had on Soviet citizens' understanding of their society. And markets, in addition to creating excessive demand for goods and services, also more successfully fulfill the needs of some (not enough) of its participants, by encouraging creativity in ways we easily forget on the American far left. By leaving decisions to decentralized competition for limited resources, we are encouraged to be creative about ways to give others a sense of satisfaction, and hence convince them to give up their money (even if that satisfaction is fleeting and at the expense, sometimes, of the public good).

I believe an essential understanding of this dynamic is still missing from the everyday thinking of Russians, 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the other Fulbrighter and I arrived, we were picked up at the trains station by a young Russian lady who works at the university's office of international affairs. She told me she had briefly been to Berlin and was amazed at how everything was “in order.” “Russia,” she told me, “is too big a country to keep in order.”

The word for order in Russia is poryadok. A common phrase that is used like the English word, “okay” or the phrase “it's all good” is “vsyo poryadkie”, litterally “all is in order.” There is a word, “poryadochny” that is often used to describe Putin and emphasize that he is a good leader. It indicates a link between the concept of order and some intrinsic quality in the person given that adjective. Order, as created by an external authority, it seems is still an important concept to Russians in a way it is not to Westerners. Everyone, for example, Russians and foreigners alike, is required to register with the government, every time he or she enters a new city, and you cannot get a cell phone number without presenting a properly registered passport.. In many buildings (not just state ones), one needs to present identification to get a propusk, a pass which allows one to enter. And (goddamnit) I was not allowed to take photographs in the supermarket in the fancy western mall.

But market economics, which Russia now officially espouses, is all about disorder. Markets work because individuals, and firms that behave like individuals, struggle to make order where there is none. The only successful, sustainable strategy given disorder is to cooperate with others to create stable arrangements that will allow all participants to succeed. Given, there are certain public structures necessary for the kind of cooperation we expect in a modern society, and public institutions are necessary to allow for any kind of justice or fairness to exist in real terms. But the essential orientation required for markets to work is that of individual seeking behavior in the face of disorder. With each market actor looking for some higher authority to place things in order, markets are bound to fail to provide goods and services in sufficient quantity and quality. At the extreme would be market failure. At the moderate degree to which most Russians expect some external source of authority to create order, we simply have a situation where the highest quality goods come from abroad.

As both history and the contemporary state of the world attest, this is an extremely difficult balance to reach. States must be able to step in and create those public goods necessary for cooperation, justice and fairness. But their scope must be limited, so that we each must free to find creative solutions to the world's problems, and thus build order from the ground up, without needing the state's approval. In the West, those in power have simply given up on the idea of fairness, it seems. In Russia, the consolidation of the ruling United Russia party and many of the recent moves by president Putin to limit the mobility of opposition parties indicates an ambivalence toward the limitations of scope of state order. Certainly this is not a return to the Soviet state. No one in the United Russia party is a true Marxist to my knowledge. But, there are still arrangements in place on many levels of society, which require individuals to gain approval from higher authorities, and Putin's emphasis on state approval for political activity seems to reenforce that emphasis.

As much as Russians want to live like Westerners in terms of the quality of products they consume, it seems they are stuck in a sort of triangular struggle. They would like fancy things, but must import them from the West. They would like to take pride in their own ways of doing things, but are constantly comparing homegrown products to superior (and superiorly marketed) Western things. They'd like to improve the quality of homegrown things, but must deviate from their own way of doing things (in which they take pride) in order to do so.

I must say, though, it is nice to be able to buy a fresh loaf of French bread in a shiny new supermarket with English names everywhere. It makes me feel at home almost as well as Russian hospitality.