News from Russia

It’s a weird feeling waking up to get my news from the net. I have been used to a world where dissent is open and governments’ job is to make sure that things go along smoothly enough to satisfy the majority of people.

In the west are used to complaining. If we feel strongly enough about something we can voice it and if we are right or if it taps into an underling seam of dissent it raises questions which a government tries to address.

It is a clunky, messy process that completely satisfies no one except as an intellectual exercise in political and personal freedom. The view is that if we are proud of our country, and if we live in it, we really want it to be the best it can possibly be and self-serving as most of our motives might be, when we take to the streets or speak out publicly it is the direct result of a deep sense of indignation coming to a head.

Although not everyone of our actions is governed by a strong sense of public spirit, the very fact that what we do will be available to all and will be scrutinized by the world serves as a Darwinian principle of self-selection (or at least self-governance) – there is little point taking to the streets unless we feel we can rationally defend what we are doing and point out how what we are protesting against is either illogical or unfair or both.

Not so in Russia.

Despite if being labeled a ‘democracy’ the normal rules and laws do not apply. Before you smirk and nod your head think why this should be so first. It came from a world where for over 50 years repression was a way of life, where survival meant blending in and where the spirit of togetherness was fostered on an ideal that was underpinned by the collective efforts of the KGB.

When the Berlin wall came crashing down and we all welcomed the new spirit of openness and ever so naively though that’s all it took to foster democracy Russia sunk into a mire of debt, lawlessness and a collective loss of identity. As a people they no longer feel they know exactly who they are or what they are striving for.

There is no sense of the Great Russian Dream, no white picket fences or a house with a garden like you’d get in the UK. The great, non-descript projects-like block of flats still dominate the city’s skyline. People wear drab colours, no one smiles, everyone drinks as a way of letting off steam and there is a sense of directionless energy that has nowhere to go.

In this Russia the rich are very rich and the poor are unemployed or trapped in low-paying jobs they need to hold two at a time in order to pay the rent.

With average life expectancy for men being 60 and women 65 there is the constant sense that time is running out, though running out for what no one really seems to know. In this environment there are those who seek to escape. Men drink (and smoke). A bottle of vodka is just four dollars, a bottle Russian champagne is just four dollars too. Shops stopped selling high-alcohol drinks after 11.00pm at night just this January. Men go about the streets at 10.00am carrying bottle of Russian champagne or beer and drinking them.

Women use their looks.

Those who can’t find someone rich locally look abroad.

And then there are those few who want to protest. Living in the city I knew nothing about the protest, the TV channels did not cover it and the newspapers wrote nothing about it. This is not an open society and its democracy is only so as long as you do as you are told and do not question anybody.

In a country where there is a constitution and supposedly a law, protesters marching in St Petersburg against the incumbent president (Vladimir Putin) were attacked by police in full riot gear, arrested before they go to their demonstration and labeled as the modern day equivalent of dissidents the police here are thugs.

They are chronically underpaid and badly trained and those not in the direct pay of the Mafia use their position of authority to supplement a meager income with grafts. They stop motorists and impose on the spot ‘fines’ they check your papers to see if you are an illegal immigrant (and extort money if you are).

What is amazing is that no one does anything about it. Everyone quietly accepts it.

That Russia is not yet a democracy could hardly be surprising. I think, in the 21st century, running a very real danger of turning American and UK societies into police states under the kneejerk anti-terrorist laws we ran, it’s only the mentally feeble who still hope that democracy spouts like a shoot and grows into a mighty tree. And those who believe that it can be imposed from the top down have spent the last two hundred years living in a barrel at the bottom of the sea.

The rest know it’s a constant dynamic struggle between State and populace – beliefs and practicality. In the end logic and pragmatism have to win. Which, sadly, might be what’s happening in Russia where these two principles make it easier to keep your head down, forget to smile and hope no one notices you than to actually try and change a system so archaic, inert and entrenched that nothing short of a miracle can make it change any time soon.

So I get my news on the net and count down the days when I will no longer have to live here. The thing is I strongly suspect I am not alone.

For me leaving is an option. For many others it is not.