My Extremely Friendly Country

“I just want people to be nice and polite, to smile and grant me a few words of civility, even though I don’t know them, even though it’s the first and the last time I see them”, he complained. At the time, I did not really understand the meaning of his words. I was adamant in the belief that all those phoney smiles and politeness don’t serve any use. Now, that I have returned from a long holiday in Europe, I’m absolutely all for it. I felt this shock of being badly treated upon my arrival to the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. The middle-aged woman at passport control, her face absolutely indifferent, didn’t welcome me at all. I don’t mean that I expected her to greet me with flowers, but just a nice  “Hello!” with a quick smile was all that I expected.

Just that morning, I had been in the Paris airport with lots of luggage, and the airport staff ran to my assistance when they noticed I was having trouble with my juggling act. They didn’t even charge me for the extra weight of my luggage. It seemed that everybody smiled and greeted me at every gate. These are just a few examples of their politeness and kindness. I was a foreigner in France, but, soon I got easily accustomed to be treated this way all day long, in shops, boutiques, restaurants, pharmacies, and so on…

Coming back to Moscow I didn’t expect to notice the difference quite so soon. Ap­proaching the passport-control lady, I said in a loud voice, “Hello!” in an effort to greet the lady and my Motherland at the same time. But, the lady’s indifferent expression said, “Leave me in peace, I’m working!” I tried again, thanking her in the same enthusiastic way, and said goodbye. She remained poker-faced and replied nothing. Yes, I was certainly back home.

For whatever reason, it seems to be a typically Russian feature to be indifferent, even preferring to avoid any contact with people. Once, I got lost in Paris and I decided to ask one woman for directions. The reply was immediate, “No!” Just as hastily, I understood she was Russian. Any other foreigner, I think, would have tried to explain to me that he was a foreigner, too, and he was unable to help me due to being every bit as lost as I was. Why are Russian people so closed and even hostile even when they are on holidays and abroad? I can find lots of excuses for such behaviour, for example, feeling unsafe in a big city or simply being in a hurry. But, when one is abroad and taking pleasure in relaxation, there is really no excuse.

The only reason for this social blockade that comes to my mind is the effects of the Soviet period. The country was closed, the nation was used to being a “thing in itself”, and people had no other model of behaviour. A mark was left on the Russian people, and unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be a trait easily forgotten. But, today, we are more akin to Europeans, we travel extensively; we have a chance to see the world, to understand the habits and cultures of other nations, and to adopt the best examples of their behaviour. I hope all these facts are brought in and that soon the indifferent mentality of the Russian people will change. Still, I have grave doubts that the next time I’ll go through passport control, the attendant will smile. This transformation is bound to take a long time.

21 August 2008

Daria Chernyshova

Moscow News

A Russian Briefer

http://www.mnweekly.ru/columnists/20080821/55343026.html

Editor’s Note:

This article reminds me of conversations I have had with Russian friends from the rodina. “You Whites are nicer than we are! You are polite like the English!” Of course, the major factor in the coarsening of Russian public behaviour was the communists. Remember, they were not peasants or workers, for working-class people have dignity and are often more “conventional” than those in the middle- and upper-classes.

The communists were middle-class haute bourgeois pseudo-intellectual poseurs in the main. They thought that coarse and boorish behaviour made them “closer to the people”. Nothing could be further from the truth. They attacked politeness and refinement in the name of the “Revolution”. There was 75 years for this poison to eat its way into Russian society. As for indifference, that is a result of the repressions of the Reds, and that is going to take some doing (and no small amount of time) to dissipate.

When public civility returns, it shall not be on the Western model, but, it would be a social lubrication so often lacking in contemporary Russia, as some of my friends have lamented. Perhaps, it would not be a “greeting”, but, a bow or nod of the head, and a meeting of the eyes. No phoney smile would be involved, but, there would be human interaction instead of lacklustre indifference and ennui.

This is a warning to us in the West. We have leftist PC advocates who call for the coarsening of our public standards. Language is heard on the street nowadays that wasn’t heard in the gutters forty years ago. I was alive then, I should know. Of course, profanity has invaded public discourse to the extent that one finds it just about everywhere except for church. If the PC commandoes follow the communists in their affectation of boorish behaviour, then it follows that they would follow the communists in other things. GULag redux, anyone?

Russians tell me that it is freer in Russia, that there are no PC “speech codes” and that people can pray openly in school. Indeed… just who is free and who is enslaved? I fear that it is we that are shackled and held in irons… if you doubt that, try testing free speech on a local college campus of your choice. You would be thrown out within the hour for “hate speech”. May God forgive us for what we are doing…

BMD

West still asking: Who is Mr Putin?

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (1952- ), RF President 2000-08, with the tranquiliser gun he used to bring down the Amur tiger that was threatening a group of scientists on 31 August 2008.

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It would be very difficult to name another international leader who’s had more trash, potato peels and all, dumped on his doorstep than Vladimir Putin, the former two-term Russian president and present prime minister that “the West” loves to loathe. However, perhaps, in no other business than politics does one’s accumulated amount of garbage speak volumes about the natural abilities of the politician in question. Indeed, it’s only the retired, resigned, or impeached who sit dejected on the porch of power, waiting for the postman to deliver the next batch of steaming hate mail. Nevertheless, like the judo expert he is, Mr Putin is at his most effective when on the defensive, twisting the black press to his general advantage. The work of analysts, pundits, and politicians, labouring to unravel the mystery of the Putin puzzle after almost a decade, has become an entire cottage industry unto itself. The unemployment rate in American academia alone would jump a full percentage point should Vladimir Putin ever opt out of the political game. Of course, the Russian leader’s stint with the KGB back in the Soviet era only enhances the intrigue. The perennial question, “Who’s Putin?” hasn’t taken a pause since that magnetic moment in 2001 when US President George W. Bush dared to gaze into Vladimir’s steely poker blues, whereupon the Texas oilman, no easy pushover for partners, we must assume, declared to the world, “I looked him in the eye. I found him to be very straight-forward and trustworthy… I was able to get a sense of his soul”. You could almost hear the collective shriek from the US intelligence community from Washington. So, American experts had basically two uncomfortable choices. Either declare their commander-in-chief incompetent, dim-witted, or the unwitting subject of some new Manhattan Project, or cast Vladimir Putin as he’s now portrayed in the western world, as cold, cunning, and calculating.

The subject of Mr Putin’s soul, despite so many other matters of urgency, continues to haunt the US political scene. In an effort to show her strong feminine side, apparently, Hillary Clinton, whilst campaigning for the Democratic nomination, said, “He was a KGB agent… By definition he doesn’t have a soul”, to which Mr Putin coolly replied, “I think that a head of state must have a head as a minimum. In order to build interstate relationships, one must be governed by the fundamental interests of one’s own country rather than by emotions”. Incidentally, Putin was nominated Time Magazine’s Man of the Year for 2007, for his “extraordinary feat of leadership”. Nobody ever said politics was easy. John Kenneth Galbraith described it as forever making a choice between “the disastrous and unpalatable”. Mr Putin, like every leader, has made his share of arguably “unpalatable” choices, but, he could never be accused of not serving the interests of his nation. Perhaps, this is the source of the contempt he regularly attracts from abroad. Putin contradicts by 180-degrees the stereotypical image of the “Russian leader”, an oxymoron in the West in its own right. Images of Mr Putin performing judo, fishing bare-chested along the Volga, or bringing down a tiger in Siberia are actions that speak far more accurately about the man, and the country at large, than do the contemptible words of jaded critics. Mr Putin’s phenomenal political success is underscored by Russia’s rapid resurgence since he first stepped onto the political stage. Many critics, however, explain away Putin’s political fortunes as due to the lucky spin of the resource wheel; they ignore the fact, however, that Russia had oil and gas prior to Putin’s rise to power, yet, it still managed to wallow in debt and decadence. Here’s an easy way to disprove the resource argument. The next time you meet a Russian tourist abroad, ask what type of business they’re engaged in. Unless you somehow found an oligarch, the last answer you’ll hear is “gas and oil”.

Having lived in Russia for the duration of Mr Putin’s presidency, I’m at a loss to explain what irritates the West about this man. After all, he achieved everything “we” demanded from Russia. The economy is back on track; the military has full control over its weapons of mass destruction; and nowhere else is freedom more alive and well than on a Russian street. Finally, Mr Putin fully respected the borders of foreign nations, something the US, NATO, and the EU glaringly failed to do. Despite, or because of, Mr Putin’s solid record of honouring the territorial integrity of sovereign states, western analysts charged him with actually prompting the Georgians to attack on 8 August, as if the Russian prime minister himself held Mikhail Saakashvili’s trigger finger to the fire button. ”Bush… lingered in Beijing yukking it up with our beach volleyball team”, neocon hothead Charles Krauthammer foamed on the pages of The Washington Post, “whilst Putin flew to North Ossetia to direct the invasion of a neighbouring country”. Some would call it self-defence, Charles. However, few mentioned that Russian forces stopped far from the gates of Tbilisi, whilst NATO forces in 1999, acting in their own “democratic” interests, bombed Belgrade for 78 days to “free” Kosovo. Perhaps, Mr Putin’s problem with getting fair western representation hinges on nothing more than the public’s notoriously short memory. Nevertheless, we can be sure that Mr Putin will always remind them of their shortcomings.

5 September 2008

Robert Bridge

Moscow News

An American in Moscow

http://www.mnweekly.ru/columnists/20080905/55345171.html

Rival Revival

After the conflict between Georgia and Russia erupted, the international media set out to analyse its motives. As was quickly evident, the Russian and international media provided audiences with entirely different perspectives in their war coverage. But, abroad, where people are more inclined to blame Russia, the opinion that Moscow is flexing its muscles in a “resurgent” mood is popular. So, what is the position of Russia in the world today? What type of country is it, really? These are the questions I want to ask in this column.

For a long time, global affairs revolved around the United States. Their politics and programmes in all spheres prevailed; their leadership was obvious. At that time, Russia was weak and unable to compete, but, at some point, Russia started gaining more and more clout, becoming stronger and more influential. Nevertheless, its authority wasn’t a declaration; it was a fact that occasionally surfaced. The opinion in the West was that Russia was no longer content being on the back burner, and that the desire to prove its worth was its reason to wage war.

In Russia, as elsewhere, we have different information and different opinions when it comes to major events. Although the West’s argument doesn’t seem reasonable, it may be partially true. Not in its full meaning, of course, Russia would not risk a war just because of its new status. Being acknowledged might be a good consequence and a certain kind of profit of this war, but, certainly not the reason.

Russians united when Georgia attacked near our borders and struck our soldiers; we had to defend ourselves. The events looked entirely different in the eyes of western society; they thought (and still think) that it was Russia who played the part of the aggressor, and that Russia is to blame. People in the Russian Federation were shocked by Georgia’s attack, and their only thought was to “defend”. Given the timely information they received, and the rational response of their leaders, they scolded the Georgian government for their decision. They also had choice words for the West’s attitude to our response. Do you think the Russian people were wrong? Yes? But, wouldn’t you defend your country under similar circumstances?

So, where is Russia today? Answering that it is a reviving nation with great potential is a zero-risk variant. Russia plays the most important role in the post-Soviet region. Although there are some “problem spots”, Russia leads the many countries that once were a part of the Soviet Union. Russia helps them, sponsors their economies, it provides support in the international arena, and, generally, leads them forward. At the same time, Russia is very significant in Asia (The Shanghai Coope­ration Organisation), and is respected by many outsider states such as Venezuela or Cuba.

In fact, it is distressing to many that Russia is rising like a phoenix from the ashes. Its jump to the next stage is close, and the world is afraid. Upon noticing signs of further development, it falls back upon scolding and scorning Russia and supporting its foes, regardless of how right or wrong the latter are. This fear, and the actions stemming from it, means little to politicians, but, the problem is that people are different; all their minds are about war today and they don’t see the reasons for this sort of attitude. It’s worth trying to swap positions for a moment. Imagine your reaction if you were in Russia’s shoes. I think you would have a feeling of bitter resentment as do many Russians.

5 September 2008

Daria Chernyshova

Moscow News

A Russian Briefer

http://www.mnweekly.ru/columnists/20080905/55345197.html

President Medvedev: Events in South Ossetia Show that Russia is a Force to Be Reckoned With

President Dmitri Medvedev (1965- ), the August events in South Ossetia and Abkhazia proved him a fit and worthy co-ruler along with Prime Minister Putin.

After the events in South Ossetia, other states will have to take Russia’s opinion into consideration, President Dmitri Medvedev said Saturday. “The events in South Ossetia show that Russia will not allow anyone to infringe upon the lives and dignity of its citizens, that Russia is a state to be, from now on, reckoned with”, Mr Medvedev told the State Council. He said political pressure on Russia will not yield any result. “They are trying to subject us to political pressure, but, we have gotten used to it, and they will not be able to do anything”, he said.

Russia recognised South Ossetia and Abkhazia on 26 August, two weeks after it had concluded its operation “to compel Georgia to stand down”. The operation came in response to an invasion of South Ossetia by Georgian forces on 8 August. Moscow said hundreds of civilians were killed in the Georgian attack on South Ossetia, and thousands fled the devastated region.

Apparently hinting at the United States, Medvedev said certain nations keep arming Georgia under the guise of humanitarian aid. “Unfortunately, the armament of the Georgian regime, under the pretext of humanitarian aid, is continuing”, he said. The US sent humanitarian and economic aid to Georgia, leaving Russian officials wondering why such aid would be delivered using warships. However, the US denied there were any munitions on the ships.

Mr Medvedev also said, “The world became different after 8 August… we were supported by hundreds of millions of people, but, did not hear words of support or understanding from those who, in similar circumstances, spoke about the freedom of choice and the necessity to use force to punish an aggressor. Unfortunately, as a result of such forces’ activity, the rearmament of the Georgian régime is continuing”, he said.

Regular Russian forces have withdrawn from Georgia, but, the Kremlin insists it can maintain checkpoints in security zones near the conflict zones under the ceasefire deal brokered by France. Moscow also accused Tbilisi of building up troops near South Ossetia. Western nations strongly criticised Russia for its “disproportionate” response to Georgia’s attack and the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. NATO-Russia cooperation was also frozen. Nicaragua became the first country after Russia to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

6 September 2008

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080906/116593944.html

Editor’s Note:

When it comes to foreign policy, the difference between these two cannot be found using an electron microscope. Caveat emptor!

Do not forget that John McCain and Randy Schneuerman, one of his foreign policy advisors, are paid shills for Georgia; they have received thousands of dollars from the Saakashvili junta for quite some time. That does put a different face on their fulminations, doesn’t it? They are willing to betray America’s true interests for thirty pieces of silver from an overseas despot who makes Alfredo Stroessner and Park Chung-hee look like angels.

Unfortunately, Barack Obama and Joseph Biden are just as bad. It is truly a case of Tweedledee and Tweedledum. They advised by such sorts as Richard Holbrooke and Strobe Talbot, both of whom belong in prison jump-suits for their planning and execution of the nasty war in Federal Yugoslavia. The poor American voter is not given a real choice as far as foreign policy in concerned, as both major candidates support the neocon hegemonist line unreservedly. Both endorse a foreign policy based on violence and threats. How low has our country fallen?

Both McCain and Obama support the hedonistic nihilist point of view (often mislabelled as “democracy”). Do not be fooled by McCain’s nomination of Sarah Palin as his running mate. She is an utter ignoramus who is nothing but a former small-town mayor and a rather ineffective governor (elected solely because her predecessor was so corrupt). Her knowledge of foreign affairs can be placed in a thimble with room to spare.

This is what President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are facing. Most Americans do not understand that the present sharing of power in Russia is very traditional, it has roots in the Orthodox Empire of New Rome; indeed, one could see its precursors in the pagan state of Classical Rome that preceded it. It is a diarchy, a sharing of power by two equally-powerful individuals with different responsibilities.

Dmitri Medvedev acquitted himself well in this crisis, far better than the West expected. Vova chose well. As an Orthodox Christian, he is aware of his mortality and the fragility of human life (no doubt, Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, his confessor, keeps him up to speed on this), so, he provided for his succession whilst he was still in power. This is wisdom. Compare it to McCain’s choice of Palin, who is utterly unsuited for real power. It certainly shows one who is the wiser man! Vladimir Vladimirovich does it again. He is the foremost leader in the world today, and it is clearly evident to all who care to look with unblocked eyes.

May God grant long years and health to the Servant of God Vladimir Vladimirovich. May God also grant the same to his colleague and co-ruler, the Servant of God Dmitri Anatolyevich. Na mnogaya lyeta, rabi bozhie Vladimir i Dmitri!

BMD

6 September 2008. Let’s Go the the Movies!

The above is a six-minute clip from a new (in 2007) Russian epic film on Genghis Khan entitled Mongol. Not for the squeamish, I’d say!