Elaine teamspirit11/21/2023 I spoke about LREI and what progressive education looks like in my classroom, with Sergei as my interpreter. One serendipitous event that took place while I was there was that I was invited to speak at a conference on “Alternative Education” (in Russia, “alternative” = “progressive”) organized by Sergei Mikhelson and his colleagues at a school that he helped found a few decades ago. The difference is that, now having known these friends for so many years, they are like family–I accept our differences of cultural values, I continue to try to see things from their point of view, but there are some topics I choose not to get into. I remember having the very same arguments with the very same people (friends who I met there 30 years ago who we were visiting). So when it came to discussions about justifying Putin’s annexation of Crimea, or how women are different than men and thus should be treated differently, or that immigration is a problem because it confronts one’s “natural” desire for homogeneity, I watched Olivia navigate those discussions with her rich knowledge and newly acquired language skills. Olivia aptly stated that when abroad one is not just obliged to accept another’s cultural beliefs, but to present one’s own as well. I don’t get the sense the country has yet begun looking at or atoning for their role as colonizers and the problems (immigration, economic, political) that have come with that.Īnd yet there is a balance. Our reckoning with our own shameful past has led to a national dialogue on race and systemic racism, but Russia’s shame was in the government extermination people who were not only of Russian origin, but were their intelligentsia: writers, poets, politicians. It really struck me then that the Russian people are dealing with a whole different national history and burden than we are in the U.S. It was a large cemetery, and the number of people there who died during World War II and Stalin’s purges (1930s to 1950s) was endless. One day, we walked through a beautiful old cemetery, looking at the decades- and centuries-old gravestones, and noticed how many of the people buried there died in 1935, 1937, 1938, 1939…one after another. The history of totalitarianism in Russia runs deep, and one can be easily fooled by the Gucci, H&M and Ubers–the storefronts have changed Russian ideology has not. It is hard to ignore this history, and the fact that Russia opened itself to the World Cup was more of a PR move than an indication of any real change. ![]() There was always corruption in Russia, but whereas it used to exist at all levels–young black marketeers on the streets, people running “shady” businesses, and political figures–now it all resides at the top, and is simply part of the system. It means that if the government wanted to make trouble over the fact that we were staying with them, they could–such as barring their son from certain job opportunities. What this means for my friend, for example, who is the head of the Anna Akhmatova Museum, a state-sponsored museum, is that they run the risk of having their funding cut off if they continue their partnerships with organizations from Sweden, Germany, England or the U.S. According to my Russian friends, the wave of nationalism under Putin has brought Russia back to a time in which the West is considered The Enemy and any consorting with westerners is a betrayal of the State. ![]() It now feels like most other European cities.Īnd yet, so much remains the same. No more crumbling neoclassical architecture now that foreign investment could operate freely. Petersburg that Olivia guided us through was a different city-teeming with cool cafes, exquisite cuisine from all over the world, jazz bars, stores and supermarkets stocked with goods, and…the World Cup! Fans from around the world wearing their team’s flag in the galleries of the Hermitage Museum and bringing team spirit and cheer to the city. Even when I returned in the 90s, though much had relaxed under Gorbachev, and later with Yeltsin, it was still a time of extreme corruption, causing a massive dearth of goods and services unless you had wealth or power. It was a time of covert friendships and opinions I had to code all of my friends’ phone numbers in my phonebook because Russians were not supposed to have any non-official contacts with foreigners. The city I knew was called Leningrad when I first visited, still under Soviet rule–a time when one had to use ration tickets and stand in line for hours to buy basic food: milk, sugar, meat, rice.
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