02.12.08

i'm just back from dinner at mary's and have sooo much to tell. she has been in russia now for a year and a bit. she moved to nizhny novgorod two months ago, to beginwhat she assumed what be an easy second year... but boy has it been grim. she is living alone in a three bedroomed flat, (bathroom, kitchen and living room/study/bedroom)and has been very lonely, experiencing first hand the russian 'friend/alien' cultural perspective (which has been the subject of international research apparently). in almost a moment, anddepending on region/personality/interaction and some other undefinable decisive factor a russian will immediately categorise you as one or the other- and treat you accordingly; keeping you at a distance if they are polite, and becoming hostile and uncooperative if they are not. it is another one of the 'mysterious russian ways' which Mary kept referring to; meaning the general groundless, irrational and usually unpredictable behaviour of this people. She believes that russiansdo not think of consequences, and have very little grasp of personal responsibilty; at the university where she teaches, teachers are still forced to cater to undergraduate students; going so far as to have to phone parents! despite having chosen to remain another year- and presently contemplating a third (but in St. Petersburg), Mary's impression of russians is not particularly positive. She compares her feelings for Russia to an abusive relationship, she hates it, but keeps coming back for more. she has had some very bad experiences, and has become embittered by continual interference, or else the lack of it. Both her and Deborah (who had also come for dinner) have been refused change at supermarket tills- for no good reason! They have literally been prevented from buying, or else forced to count out exact change; which Mary has triumphantly and spitefully done in kopecks, which are worth a fraction of a penny. And during Mary's parents' visit, pickpockets attempted to steal from her father on a bus, in broad daylight, somehow even managing to break the chain under his shirt which carried his passport, and openly attempting to unfasten their suitcases- as other russian passengers looked on completely unmoved. At the end of their two week stay, her parents left avowing to never return. for a moment it felt like i was in some suspended reality outside of russia, as we ranted in her bare room about the facist tendencies here, and an increasingly nationalist government (which has gone so far as to outlaw Halloween and St. Valentine's Day, because they are 'too western'). it was a good vent, somewhere that i felt safe, and with someone i could understand. but i'm afraid it has opened my eyes to things i didnt want to hear or know e.g. the russian saying that if a nail is sticking out, you should hammer it back in. None of us have experienced the dreaded 'document check' one of the many officers roaming the streets may suddenly spring upon you, but as Mary travelled to Moscow by train she was woken up at 3am by a policeman asking to see her passport. Physically she can easily pass as russian, she is fair skinned with light brown hair and blue eyes, and yet she understood the train conductor concluding 'she's not one of us' as she boarded- a woman who refused to serve her tea, and then must have 'tipped off' the policeman because he woke noone else. Luckily he didnt demand payment for it's return, but Mary assured us that the majority of the police force here are corrupt. Before leaving the US, the embassy warned her that calling the police would just make a situation worse. and she has what is probably fluent russian! yet people will still humilate her by assuming, even as she speaks, that she cannot communicate. Mary says that she was always a very calm person, but since moving to Russia she has begun to carry so much anger around.
ive been here a month, and i have to reiterate, thank the Lord, that i havent experienced any direct hostility, or hopefully, indirect. but being of mixed heritage, i cant help but to feel that any form of racism, against anyone i know, is still an offence to myentire existence. and though i am desperately clinging to memories of the hospitality i have recieved here, the woman with the flashing eyes at the ballet, the elderly who nod in gentle acceptance when i reply that i dont understand, Luba and Anton from that party, Darina's concern, the night another Sasha walked me to my bus stop and we conversed in two languages, the man at the market who sold me my gloves and smiled inquisitively, the sales women at the coat stores that mothered me, even that gang of boys, Almira and Angelie, Vladimir and Daniel, the english conversational class, the teenage girls who gave us a tour of the Kremlin, Anastasia...Sveta and Sirosha most of all- i still cant help but to expect hostility. the street is an entirely different place. Opening the door to leave Mary's flat was like reentering a world of insecurity. I stood waiting at my busstop, quaking in my boots because it was dark, the streets were beginning to empty, buses' final departures are generally unknown, and nothing is more of a walking victim herethen a foreigner- or so it seems. but i want to believe that they are good, and i dont want to be pulled into that base reaction of mutual suspicion. it sounds like such a cliche, but its the only way to walk around without a bowed head; to rise above it. i stood on the bustrying feebly to extend sonar beams of love and trust to all the suddenly potential facists that surrounded me. i dont want to become another drab joyless stranger, that shoves before they are shoved. im not going to be reduced by the atmosphere, surely i am stronger then that. surely i am not so weak or temporary as to be snuffed out. i watched one of my dvds today; A Troll in Central Park- it's an old school cartoon about this good troll with a green thumb that is put on trial by the troll queen Gnorga because she is repulsed by happiness. Rather then turning him to stone, she exiles him to a place 'where nothing grows' worse then her troll kingdom as punishment for growing a secret garden of illegalflowers. He is sent to New York; this whole plot unfolds, but what is important about the film, and why it compelled me so much this morning, is that Stanley, despite being pushed into despair after a terrifying confrontation with cars, barking dogs and all the horrors of city life doesnt give up. in the sewers where he hides, he grows a beautiful paradise of flowers and plants; the nature i miss terribly. I want a green thumb as well. Things around me aren't going to stay grey when i touch them.