Michael Idov’s “The Hibernation” has received cheers and jeers from SRB readers. One of the issues Idov’s article raises is the difficultly in reporting on Russia. In Idov’s view the real challenge is to talk about Russia without using the “heap of memes” handed down by decades of Cold War. I couldn’t agree more. Here is Idov’s take on the matter (You can also follow his Live Journal):
“Avoiding this heap of memes”
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”I’ve heard it claimed that this is particularly the case with respect to vocabulary, for example, “lapa” for “pa” (an animal’s foot, not my dad). Is this true?”
Lapa IS paw in Irish! Amazing!
”Oh Jesus, I haven’t a clue”
Neither do I:-) I just looked it up in my Irish schoolkids dictionary, issued to all of us scruffy kids way back by the Irish Dept. of Education when the IMF were about to take over the country in the 1980s!
”What are the odds of coming across two people speaking Welsh in a bar in Novie Cheremushki?”
Truth is stranger than fiction. I was walking through Kitai Gorod pyani one night about 5 years ago and saw a sign on a wall near the Polytechnical Museum that said ‘Bealtaine’(‘may’, or ‘summertime’) in Irish script. I was shocked and delighted. Underneath it in Irish and Russian was advertising for an Irish music festival. Amazing. I was so delighted to see our old script, so far from home! And you can study Irish at MGU apparently. There’s a huge drive here in Ireland at the moment to get us all speaking it as the language really is dying.
Mike, your days of faux-punditry are numbered. Troll Patrol has started its own Operation Kick Ass 2008, and it has your name written all over it. You’re going down baby. Troll Patrol, otherwise known as Team Troll, is ready to bring you to your knees (in the previously mentioned above cited aforesaid manner). There’s a new TT in town, and it ain’t the Tiraspol Times (which by the way has no print edition).
Troll Patrol Assemble!
“Truth is stranger than fiction. I was walking through Kitai Gorod pyani one night about 5 years ago and saw a sign on a wall near the Polytechnical Museum that said ‘Bealtaine’(‘may’, or ’summertime’) in Irish script.”
When my mom heard people speaking her native Low German dialect on the streets of San Diego, she almost fainted from shock. Small world.
I was told about the Celtic-Russian similarities by a young Russian-Irish (mother Irish, dad Russian) woman several years ago. Like I said I have no idea if it is true or not.
Troll Patrol Ireland Present and Correct!!:-)
whats the day job Mike?
”I was told about the Celtic-Russian similarities ”
Absolutely. As a Russian man I heard once said ”the Irish and Russians are very similar in many ways. Both are prone to melancholy, and yet both love partying”:-)
Troll Patrol Moscow Here and Ready for Battle!
Trolls, Roll Out!
Misha,
“The “very few actual Russophobes” play relatively influential roles, when compared to their opposites.”
This sounds vaguely scary. Who are you talking about, specifically?
Talking about vague feelings, I remain vaguely troubled by any manifestation of Russian nationalism. Because even if Putinists are right and Russia does need to go through a phase of ‘enforced national unity’ (which is a code word for Fascism as it was practiced in Portugal, for example), then the danger of Nationalistic outbreaks becomes very serious indeed. National Unity (i.e. Fascism) may only work with complete suppression of any ideological excesses. We know what National Unity coupled with Xenophobia leads to.
I don’t see Idov as a Russophobe at all, even under Jesse’s more benign undertanding of the word. However, if we are going to view Russophobia the way Jesse see’s it, then we have to say that Ameriphobia is more widespread and more of a problem than Russophobia.
In any event, I certainly dislike both terms (Russophobia and the thankfully little used Ameriphobia) and find that their use is unhelpful and distortive.
“Talking about vague feelings, I remain vaguely troubled by any manifestation of Russian nationalism. Because even if Putinists are right and Russia does need to go through a phase of ‘enforced national unity’ (which is a code word for Fascism as it was practiced in Portugal, for example),”
I dunno. It sounds to me like De Gaulle would count as a fascist according to this definition. It means more than just enforced national unity, IMO, although it is admittedly a vague concept.
Do you mean great power nationalism or ethnic nationalism?
There are several incredibly strange correlations that can hardly be coincident. Ukrainian word for minute is хвiлина (not sure of exact spelling). The English “while” used to be “hwile” – like the famous “hwan that April”.
There is also a tendency to substitute ф (and sometimes в )with хв in some parts of south-western Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (Хведор, хворобей. Keeping this in mind and consider “forest” and “хворост”.
I would suspect that some of these correlations come from the proto Urals tongue from where both Celts and Slavs come.
Chrisius Maximus,
I don’t know much about De Gaulle, but I’m fascinated by similarities between Salazar’s party of ‘União Nacional’ (National Unity) and Putin’s UR. Salazar was Prime Minister and now Putin is becoming PM too, which is almost uncanny.
Candide, I actually know practically nothing about that period in Portugese history (or any period in Portugese history). Could you point me to some sources?
This note has nothing to do with this thread. Just want to thank you Ivanov for recommending “Записки русского путешественника” at:
http://hitch-hiker.livejournal.com/
This livejournal contain the writings and photos of Artem, a young Russian hitchhiker. Although I didn’t rely on hitchhiking as much as him, when I was about Artem’s age I hitchhiked thousands of miles in three different continents. Perhaps that’s part of the reason I’m enjoying his site. But not only because of it. I’m sure many of you will find it interesting even if you did very little or no hithchiking in your lifetime.
After reading about some of Artem’s travels, I now hope to convince a friend of mine to publish online some of what she wrote during her travels in South America. She and another woman, both Americans in their twenties, hitchhiked on their own across Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile.
Chrisius Maximus,
I admit, my research is rather limited.
Mainstream source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salazar
and one a bit off the beaten path:
http://www.cripo.com.ua/?sect_id=9&aid=23643
Just want to thank you Ivanov for recommending “Записки русского путешественника”
I second Kolya’s motion on this. Artem is brilliant. He ought to consider travel writing as a career. I’m totally hooked.
Thanks again Ivanov.
FH, I’m glad you like Artem’s travel writing. I hope he gets the readership he deserves.
And my apologies to readers for injecting my own ego into my recommendation by stupidly mentioning that once upon a time I did some hitchiking.
“And my apologies to readers for injecting my own ego into my recommendation by stupidly mentioning that once upon a time I did some hitchiking.”
You’re a monster. No one else here would ever do anything like that.
Where did you hitchhike to? I’d be scared of being knifed.
…stupidly mentioning that once upon a time I did some hitchiking.
Kolya! Stop being so modest! You’ll embarrass the rest of us with our towering egos.
I used to love hitchhiking. I think I saw most parts of North America that way. (See? No modesty at all.) But that was, err, well, a very long time ago, and my guess is people don’t do it much any more. Is that correct?
I’d be scared of being knifed.
Yeah, my thought exactly.
Thanks, guys.
Well, it was a long time ago for me too, FH. In Venezuela, Western Europe and the US. I don’t know how typical my own experience was but at least back then Europe was a good place for hitchhikers. Not uniformly so, though. In Austria I had to wait for a long time between rides and in France it was even much harder. In Venezuela people readily gave rides. Not so in the US, though. The waits in the US were not as long as in France, but they were considerably longer than what I had experienced elsewhere.
Incidentally, I got really nervous when about four years ago the friend I mentioned earlier wrote about her plans to hitchhike around those Latin American countries (she was living in Ecuador). As it was, she and her companion (also a woman) had no problems. I admire them for doing that, but I certainly will not encourage my daughter to emulate them!
Was this one trip, or several, Kolya?
FH, if you are asking about the two gutsy American women in South American–that was one trip. If the question about my trips, they were several. I hitchhiked many times–I think you’re right that it was more common in the past. If I limit myself to trips that took several days to complete, I only had three such trips. One in Venezuela, one in Europe and one in the US. After a hitchhiking trip from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast and back to the Rockies, I decided that for my next trip in the US I might as well buy an old cheap clunker of a car.
Although (in my experience) the US is not the best country for hitchhikers, the people who did give me rides were usually great. I became good friends with one of them, and later I even visited and stayed in his cabin for several days (he was an outdoor survival instructor living by the Tetons in Wyoming).
How about your hitchhiking trips?
Although (in my experience) the US is not the best country for hitchhikers, the people who did give me rides were usually great.
I never hitched outside N. America, so I can’t compare. But I did like the overwhelming majority of people who picked me up. They were almost invariably kind and flatteringly curious about where I’d been, where I was going, what I was doing, etc. I say “almost” because of course some were just bored. Truckers were seldom good company because they wanted you to keep them awake. I liked farmers the most, though their rides were always short. Surprisingly often they’d offer food and a room for the night.
I travelled like that through my late teens and my early 20s, any chance I got, and even well after I bought a car.
Years later, doing a teaching gig in NYC, I used to commute home to DC on weekends, and for a time made it a practice to pick up hitchers. But they were generally a bit scarey and ultimately my wife persuaded me to stop.
I mustn’t romanticize all this. It was a cheap means of long-distance transport. But it was a lot more interesting than a discount airline today.
With regard to your American friends and their South American trip — my daughter sometimes threatens something similar. I well understand how you feel about it. Unfortunately, my kid’s old enough not to have to pay much attention to my misgivings.
Thanks for note, FH.
Yes, you often end up meeting very generous people when you are sort of roughing it when traveling. When I lived in Colorado in the early 1980s, I became good friends with a guy from Switzerland. He was driving an old Volvo across the US. He would stay and work (illegally) in a place he liked and then, after a few weeks or a couple of months, will continue on. Well, he left Colorado for California. On the way, though, his radiator died in a little town in Wyoming (forgot the name). He ended up staying at the home of the town’s mechanic and his family. After more than a week the radiator arrived and the mechanic installed it. The car was ready to go. There was one major hitch, though. My Swiss friend had no money left with him. It turned out that before leaving Colorado he arranged a wire transfer from Switzerland to San Francisco, which he thought he’ll reach in a couple of days. (Remember that in those days it was much more cumbersome to deal with money when traveling.) So he was stuck in Wyoming and had no funds, not even to pay for the radiator. No problem. The mechanic gave him a couple of hundred bucks so he could make it to San Francisco. As soon as he arrived, he sent the mechanic all the money he owed him–for the car repair and the borrowed money. The memory of such generosity stayed with him forever.
I also try to pick up hitchhikers if there is room in the vehicle. Once I had an odd experience–sort of funny and sad at the same time. I was driving through the Navajo Reservation and saw two hitchhiking teen-age Native Americans. I stopped the car and they ran with excitement toward the car. When they got in, though, I noticed that they looked at me with surprise. Their destination was about fifty miles away on the same route I was following. After a few words they clamped down. It’s not that they were quiet or shy. It was obvious that for some reason they were extremely uncomfortable or even scared. After only about twenty miles or so, at a lonely crossroad, they asked me to stop. They came up with some excuse. After a quick attempt to convince them to keep on going, I desisted and dropped them off. Frankly, I don’t know what that was all about. For some reason I scared them. Perhaps they never got a ride from a white guy before, especially one with a somewhat strange accent. Maybe it was something else. I don’t know.
All right. Time for dinner. Sorry about these non-Russia stories, Sean.
Sorry about these non-Russia stories, Sean.
No need to apologize. It doesn’t bother me in the least. The comments section is mostly for you guys anyway.
Perhaps they never got a ride from a white guy before, especially one with a somewhat strange accent.
Yes, I think fear, on both sides — some maybe justified, most not — is what’s killed off hitching in many parts of the world. Just like flagging down a private car is gradually dying out in Moscow, although the rise of the commercial taxi industry has probably played a role in that.
”Just like flagging down a private car is gradually dying out in Moscow..etc”
Is it? I havent been for two years. What a great pity if thats the case! Its great fun. I was always getting lifts from Tatars, Armenians, Georgians, Chechens etc…was always very funny, even with my bad Russian, to hear their take on Moscow and Russia. And almost invariably they liked the Russians, but considered them a bit dumb:-)
I see on bbc.co.uk/news that Smirnov and Voronin had talks.
Ger – The mayor and others have been trying to stop it. I’m not exactly sure whether they’ve actually had much impact. Seemed like business as usual to me last time, but friends say it’s getting harder to get drivers to stop.
Interesting re Trans-Dniester. Will it work?
Kolya – Apropos hitch-hiking: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7344381.stm
”Ger – The mayor and others have been trying to stop it. I’m not exactly sure whether… etc”
Thanks for that fh. Thats a pity. I’d like to think health and safety was the motivation for Luzhkovs intervention, but somehow I think there must be some vested interests involved. Time was I could put my hand out in Krylatskoe and get back to my gaff in Prospekt Vernadskogo 90R, that with my flaky Russian. Mind you, there are few enough foreigners out there who could actually pass for a Russian linguistically. FH/Doss -can ye do it? I paid the Russian price in to the Polytecnical Museum once, and whilst I like to think I conned him that I was Russian, I think the reality was the guy at the desk couldnt be bothered arguing with me.
The taxi situation reminds of one of Mike Averko’s arguments one time. He put down the delay in getting Dubrovka victims to hospital being due to phenomenal economic growth causing traffic problems:-) He managed to turn an utter disaster into an opportunity to plug Russia. You’ve got to hand it to him, hilarious.
When I was a student I hitchhiked everywhere cos we drank all our grants, but thats gone now in Ireland…you never see anyone hitching these days.(the drinking however has of course continued among our bright young hopes)
”Interesting re Trans-Dniester. Will it work?”
I was reading TTT afterwards and Smirnov seems as hell-bent as ever on independence. I also read a hilarious interview with him where he put Moscow’s cutting off of funds down to ”Russian governemnt economists believing we can manage ourselves”, something he was at pains to point out was not really the case. Sounds like Moscow couldnt give a shit anymore. So much for Slavic brotherhoods and Russocentric leanings. Looks like the Motherland would rather spend the money on useless bomber missions than help feed the PMR.
Yes, it’s really sad about the Italian woman. And more than likely some people will claim that she sort of asked for it or somehow deserved what she got for being too naive or idealistic.
Things obviously got better in Russia since I the last time I was there, which was during Yeltsin’s dark age. From what I recall, back then most of the gypsy taxi drivers were ethnic Russians. Times were obviously bad, though. I remember being driven by a medical doctor, a university professor, and by a jet fighter pilot. I ended up inviting the latter to my place and we had a long conversation. He was a young officer with very wide interests and great intellectual curiosity. He was also somewhat depressed and wanted to get out of the armed forces. He hoped to work as a pilot outside of Russia. His main complaints were first, that he could not afford to live on his pay, and second, that fighter pilots were getting very little flying time and all of them were noticing that their skills were deteriorating badly by lack of practice.
”He was also somewhat depressed and wanted to get out of the armed forces.”
Kolya this was a massive issue in the nineties. I knew one girl, whose father was a general, forcibly retired. He ended up in in ‘bezumnii don’ for a while, and he was one of thousands seemingly. Very sad. One minute heroes, next minute, nobodies with no job. Terrible.
“FH/Doss -can ye do it?”
If I pretended to be mute.
“Kolya this was a massive issue in the nineties. I knew one girl, whose father was a general, forcibly retired”
My ex-girlfriend’s dad was KGB (nothing high up) and according to her he wasn’t paid for months at a time in the early 90s.
Not paying your military and intelligence people = not smart.
Italian woman?
”If I pretended to be mute.”
Dont be modest. I’d say you can do it. Maybe not in an extended chat, but throwing out stock phrases in a short exchange perhaps? Mind you, thinking of the reverse case, I dont know of one Russian speaker friend here who could con us for a split second that he/she was Irish. It is hilarious how Russians pick up our accent and slang though:-)
Chris/Kolya/all you should have a look at TTT, very funny stuff. Blatant propoganda:-)
“FH/Doss -can ye do it?”
I’m told my accent is flawless but my vocab and grammar are disgraceful, as I never took formal lessons. So I can “pass” in a car or a shop or a restaurant situation, or over the phone. But if things move beyond chit chat I get to humiliate myself fairly swiftly.
Chris – the Italian woman Kolya refers to is a peacenik hitch-hiker found murdered in Turkey. From the BBC:
An Italian woman artist who was hitch-hiking to the Middle East dressed as a bride to promote world peace has been found murdered in Turkey.
The naked body of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, 33, known as Pippa Bacca, was found in bushes near the northern city of Gebze on Friday.
She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people.
“Chris/Kolya/all you should have a look at TTT, very funny stuff. Blatant propoganda:-)”
The Team Troll Tribune is not propaganda. It speaks truth to power!
“Maybe not in an extended chat, but throwing out stock phrases in a short exchange perhaps?”
Most salespeople in kiosks think I’m a Serb, so my accent is pretty obviously nonnative.
ivanov, I would like to join the chorus of thanks for the link to that hitchhiker’s guide to the post-Soviet galaxy (and beyond). His post on Transdniester is great, especially the photos (my favorite was this one).
As far as “passing” for Russian, I think the key to getting the accent down is learning the language before age 13-15 and using the language consistently. After that age it is very hard to get the accent down and be able to “pass” in any conversation involving more than a few phrases; and there are some re-pats who have issues with recognizable accents because, even though they learned Russian at an early age, they un-learned the accent at some point during their lives in a non-Russian environment.
By the way, it looks like Idov is not the only one for whom the zastoi comparison has contemporary resonance:
The gap between the rhetoric and real life is now so great that it even seems to me bigger than in the Brezhnev times, when speeches about the well-being of the Soviet people were delivered from the tribunes and people resentfully listened to all of this at empty refrigerators in Soviet kitchens.
Indeed, it is a cliche among radical liberals, like “Bush is a fascist” is among Western leftists.
Most Russians would consider equating the current period with the Brezhnev period to be a compliment to the former. It is widely considered to be a golden age.
Speaking of Leonid Ilych, I have a copy of his memoirs (actually Novaya Zemlya, Slovo o kommunistakh, and some other stuff). I wonder if he actually wrote them.
It’s ridiculous to speak of zastoi (stagnation) at a time when the Russian economy is growing faster than most in the West.
Anyone who has been to Russia recently knows that this is an absurd comparison.
Owen and others, once again, Idov makes it perfectly clear in his article that he’s not writing about economic stagnation. He actually states that Russia’s economy is booming.
You’re right, that quote was from a Jamestown article. But what does “culturally stagnant” mean??
Russia has many vibrant cultural sectors:
Music – including their own version of American Idol, political rapper Ka4
Television – Nasha Russia; Dom 2, which is the longest running “reality” show in history; Soldaty, a kind-hearted, family series
Radio – Echo Moskvy, better than many of our stations
Internet – very active blogosphere
Film – good pop movies like Zhara, Piter FM
What makes this all the more laughable is that “culturally stagnant” was written by a person who heads a hip/edgy/cutting/whatever magazine about Russian culture!!!
As I have yet to read the article
, I am speaking broadly than about this particular case, but I think that by “stagnation” what many people really mean is “the cultural consensus is not moving in the direction I want.”
Anyway I’m off to pack to catch a plane to LA in a few hours. Given that I am flying over the North Pole, if my life were an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, I would wind up transported through the immense polar aperture in the Hollow Earth to do battle with Reptile Men.
You’re just in time. After a weekend of 90 degrees, its dropped to a pleasant 70 and will remain so for the rest of the week. Just how LA should be.
I think Idov’s comparison with zastoi is not of substance but is more symbolic, more about the level of attitude. There is absolutely no question that both economically and culturally Russia is leaps and bounds beyond what zastoi was. Idov’s comments to reflected what I also have noticed in my 5 (about a month each) trips there in the last 4 years: political and social apathy. There is very little discussion of politics among people that have not made their opposition a job. And when I did encounter politics, a lot was repeating cliches from the media or rumour mills.
Another component that links current Russia to zastoi a bit is the cavalier attitude to community and social responsibility, including blatant disregard for rules (expressed or just implied socially) and even reason. On my first trip there an old friend picked me up in Pulkovo. We smoked in the car on the way and then I asked where the ashtray was. He told me to toss it out. Instead, I did find the ashtray (full of ash but no butts) and but out the cigarette there. Next thing he pulled the ashtray out and dumped it outside. Just a minor example I saw repeating over and over. Amount of trash surpasses even San Francisco’s Market Street.
No matter that lots of us were kitchen dissidents during zastoi, in general, even more advanced and critical never ventured beyond ideology of left leaning social democrats. The West used to think (and still does now) that unanimity was/is a product of ballot rigging and fraud. It was born off ideological homogeneity and to me that is the cultural zastoi I see in contemporary Russia. Pop-culture wise, Russia is so hip, Any Warhol отдыхает.