Even
with the amazing changes that have happened here over the years, you
still get the impression that Russia has not changed in a lot of
fundamental ways; or at least that it's teetering on the edge, trying
to figure itself out.
The
daily newspaper is filled with pieces complaining about how Russians
still see themselves as the ugly stepsister to more civilized
European countries. They've been working for two decades to fix what
is wrong with their country, but there is the sense that something
fundamental has to change. Russians are frustrated, but don't know where to do with that frustration.
They have built fancy buildings and
people are buying nice cars, but they are conflicted. They are proud
of their peasant roots, but don't want to look like a bunch of
hayseeds; they want their individual lives to be better, but they
don't want to expend the energy to fix the system.
When it comes to success, they are all about "Me" and nothing about "Us."
As the
saying goes: "God is high and the czar is far." In other words, the powerful people are a long way from
you, so get away with what you can, while you can.
Let's
look at some pictures.
Remember
our tanker truck serving kvas? Well, you can now get kvas in proper,
landfill-clogging plastic bottles.
But
there's something about that kvas truck that Russians can't shake. As the lettering on the side says, here is an unrefrigerated milk truck I saw last week, parked in a nice sunny spot, serving milk
straight out of a spigot on the back.
And if
you think about that shiny, modern block of apartments that went up on the site
of the dump, we only have to pull the camera back a little way to see that parts
of the dump still remain. It's as though the Russians have succeeded
in getting the nice apartment, but are missing the point that the
nice apartment needs to be in a nice setting.
As
another old Russian saying goes: "If
you have a spoonful of honey in a barrel of poo, you have a barrel of
poo. And if you have a spoonful of poo in a barrel of honey, you
still have a barrel of poo."
I'm really not sure what to make of all that I'm seeing. Is there real change here? Is this just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic/Chernobyl?
Or
maybe Russia is just extremely advanced. It has skipped along all the phases of modernization and is
already on the decline:
