September 2005 Issue
Back in the USSR
Diane Ellis '08Commies aren’t cool. This summer I learned that first hand by living in St. Petersburg, Russia, a city and country still devastated from years of oppressive communist regimen. On my homecoming, a friend asked me to summarize Communism. I think John Lennon does a relatively good job outlining it in his song “Imagine,” so I borrowed a line.
“IMAGINE NO POSSESSIONS.”
In a communist society, there is no private property. Under Marxist theory, everything is collectively shared and no one is permitted to gain an “advantage” over anyone else. When my friend remarked that “that sounded like a pretty good idea” to him, I was reflexively infuriated. But stepping away from the heat of that conversation, I was able to see what so many people find attractive about Communism. It is the sultry promise of equality for all, and suffering for none. I quickly learned that Communism may have achieved equality for all (excepting its rich leaders) but the “equality” was and still is a lowest common denominator not unlike the third world.
In modern Russia, there is a widely known adage, “дом и не дом,” which roughly translates as, “the home versus not-the-home” or private property versus public property. To a Russian man, his home and private property are the most important things in his life.
The home is a sacred place treated with the utmost respect. It is, to echo an American metaphor, his castle. The home is kept religiously clean; dishes are always washed, the floors are always spotless, there are no trash cans and, mysteriously, no trash either. It is a world unto itself. The Russians whom I befriended love to use their homes to entertain guests. They are warm, hospitable, and have a singularly gregarious sense of humor when inside their private castles. The gaiety though, is strictly confined. Take one step out of the apartment proper, and you are hit with a completely separate reality. The public spaces in the apartment buildings are absolutely contemptible. Public stairwells-cum-toilets make common passageways noxious, and the smell permeates throughout the building, from hall to elevator to stair to lobby. I had no choice but to hold my breath while moving between the apartment and the street.
But the streets are no better.
Outside, people are cold and insensitive. You will never get a friendly smile from a stranger. No one smiles. In fact, during my orientation program I was told that any positive facial expressions would have me mistaken for a prostitute. On the dirty roads, drivers are inhumane and unsympathetic; the pedestrian, by virtue of his method of conveyance, has no value. There is no kindness of strangers to speak of, and it is impossible to get any roadside aid. At a Metro station in St. Petersburg I found myself in need of direction. “Where is the Red Line, please?” I politely asked a stranger. He offered no response. I asked two more straphangers. Nothing. As if I didn’t exist. I made a full round before someone gave me the simple answer I needed: “upstairs,” without making eye contact.
In the world outside the home, there is, apart from the culture-borne hostile temperament, also a largely unchecked pollution problem. City trash cans are a rare sight due to the recent and unduly successful trash can bombings. So, rather than take the time to find a proper waste receptacle, Russians throw their waste on the ground or make sport of it and fling refuse into the canals and waterways. The air, as a result of this and other dubious activities, is injected with muck and gases. Well-nigh everyone smokes, the vehicles dump smog into the air, and there are almost no governmental regulations on factory pollution. The net result is a city with filthy streets, vile waterways, and almost unbreathable air.
IRON CURTAINS AND IRON HEARTS
It is absurd to think that Communism was tried here, of all places. The Russian mentality is self-reliant and individualistic. Those virtues, now twisted and blackened in the toothless maw of a crumbled empire, look like utter selfishness. In even her finest cities, or what ornate shells are left of them, Russia shows no regard whatever for the public good, for fellow man, for preservation of resources. The old gold and guns of Lenin and Stalin are preserved, and that only through their sturdy construction. (The massive diversion of currency by those dictators to keep stasis in government and glory in self produced durable monuments.) There’s a McDonald’s in Pushkin Square now, but the irony misses the mark. No one cares to hail or have at the old relics of Communism. They are merely there. No one allows a smirk or frown at the conquest of freedom and French Fries. The McDonald’s is merely there.
But the people, whether marketers or Marxists, tell a nation’s real story. Russia’s most noticeable scar from its seventy-year slog is its reluctance to let go of the Soviet mentality. The concept of red thought seemed abstract to me for a time, but after a while I was able to identify it in daily encounters. The most exasperating face was apathy in all deeds. Service, which, to exist in the classic sense necessitates personal pride, is but a fossil. Service does not exist. To be honest, I did not expect very much from public officials or employees of the state. American bureaucrats and administrative workers are well-paid, and they, as any driver knows, are slothful. But standing in line at a Russian post office makes the DMV seem like a far-off arcadia of efficiency and caring, competent customer assistance. Perhaps the post office, too, was excusable. But I never expected what I found in the marketplace.
I cannot determine with certainty whether it was because I was an American tourist or because they expect to sell so little anyway and, over time, have disheartened, but shop keepers from luxury stores to the cart-bound purveyors of life’s essentials either ignored or abused me when I tried to conduct any sort of business. It was a sad disappointment to see such a sullen market, even if economic indicators on the news should have prepared me. When I stopped at food kiosks or convenience stores I was verbally harassed. At ice cream stands, ignored. The customer is never right and the customer’s money is apparently of no interest. At one shop, I learned of the trials involved in getting change for one’s purchase. On several occasions, in fact, I presented the clerk with a five-hundred ruble note for an item that cost half that, and the clerk would refuse to sell me the item. Oh, he and I understood one another. I had the cash and he the change. But something stopped the transaction from occurring. This sounds absurd, I concede. But it nonetheless is the state of things.
The same steely, dejected nebbish mindset bleeds into family life. In the United States, is a commonly-cited and always-lamented fact that slightly over half of all marriages end in divorce rather than death. In Russia, 100% of marriages end in divorce. Infidelity is routine and expected. A popular television ad campaign tells male consumers that if they are going on vacation and didn’t want to infect their wives upon returning, they should purchase the company’s disposable STD vaccine(ish) formula.
Russia is one of the only countries on this Earth with a population that is actually decreasing. Many couples simply choose not to have children.
GODLESS AND HOPELESS STILL
Expectedly following a brutally secular regime, the state of the Cross is mangled in Russia. Under Communism, the state seized and destroyed anything that intimated hope or evinced reliance on any power other than the State. The government therefore reclaimed holy property and destroyed countless numbers of churches. The rest were turned the others into storehouses or public gymnasiums and pools. Under Stalin, St. Petersburg’s most magnificent cathedral was turned into the Museum of Atheism. Christmas, Easter and all other religious holidays were expurgated from calendars and minds. To the joy of believers, religion has made something of a comeback since the fall of Communism, and nearly every Russian woman wears an orthodox cross around her neck. But, though Russians are not persecuted for practicing their religion these days, few see any use for faith. The storehouses, gymnasiums and pools are sanctified ground once more, but are largely vacant.
On one of my last days in Russia, I had a sobering conversation with a native Russian with whom I had become very close during my time. He told me that he feels so trapped in his own country- so depressed- that if he had one wish, he would take his family to America. He spoke of the lack of opportunity for his children, the deficit of hope, and the failure of the government to lift the country out of its sad state.
Needless to say, I left Russia with a stronger sense of patriotism toward my own nation and a strong distaste for purblind advocates of Communism who have never seen what the actual thing does to a place, to a people, and to a once-bright national spirit.