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310 Russia Conclusions SUMMARY "Life in Russia is shit !, but the people have a good time".. quote from a novel .. it's true it seems like people have seen a lot of tough things in life so they are able to have fun with little resources. And this kind of contradiction is typical of many things in Russian culture. Also there is an air of tension rather than an air of freedom a hangover from soviet times when the authorities controlled everything and everyone. In fact I would decribe CIS as nation with post-traumatic stress after 80 years of Soviet ways. People seem afraid and unable to challenge authority, but in otherways they have been pulled to the other extreme : instead of caring about the whole society people are out for themselves. Everyone seems to do everything they can to avoid paying taxes. Rich people instead of paying taxes so that the roads can be maintained rich people buy big 4X4s so that they can drive over the potholes. Cos the nation is now being reborn, things are not certain so it seems like a young country like the US so the values are not certain. It's not the best country to visit : Other countries are cheaper and easier to travel in, but it is a very different experience
Although generally Russia looks like a scruffy council estate: there are also beautiful hisoric wooden architecture, nice river beaches, huge area of nature and countryside.
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 zabailkalsk2 CULTURE Council Estate From the begining CIS seemed liked one big "council house estate" Decaying streets and buildings, usually rows of grey concrete tower blocks The roads are un or badly paved and there are decayed old Russian cars outside. There is a lot of broken glass on wasteground. There are often people huddled on the floor drunk. The public area like lifts of apartment buildings often smell of piss or have grafitti. Shops are small and poky full of people buying beer and vodka in the morning. Women who are dressed up and should look elegant, but they don't get it quite right and endup looking tacky. Most people seem to smoke as it's only 60c/pack. Generally quite a contrast to China where everything looks new. It was a big surprise to see people in houses often collecting water from hand pumps in the street, very uncommon in other countries. Life in Russia looks tough. There aren't so many beggars, but money seems to be split between two classes : normal people who have to scrimp and save, an upper class of Mafia and big businessmen who have serious money, drive big big black cars and eat at expensive restaurants. There seems to be an awful lot of designer label shops to cater to them. Actually I do see a new middle class of young professionals emerging and I saw many people with quite a high standard of living : computers in their house etc, but I can see less advantaged people like pensioners being left behind. One thing is tho the poor ride on old bikes almost everyone has a dacha simple house and garden in the countryside.
Mother and Grandmother Families Since so many of the men succome to alcoholism and other things that kill them or they leave their wives it seems that many families end up being the the Mother and Grandmother Boring Villages/Scenary : I found Russian villages are more rundown than quaint. Actually generally scenary was a bit boring. The common tree was silver birch. From the train track I never saw any thick trees. I guess the big ones had been logged anywhere near the railway, but someone told me it was too cold to ever get really big trees.
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2 new European Unions
My visa says Russia on it, but I would say Russia is the area 400 Km around Moscow. China and Russia are the most colonial and imperialist countries in the world. Wheras Western European countries colonised by sea and have given up most of their colonies Russia moved overland East and South and China West and North. The vast majority of land controlled from Moscow or Beijing isn't traditionally ethnic Russian or Chinese at all. Siberia is to Moscow, what the wild west and Alaska are to the UK if America hadn't been given independence. Siberia is like Europe with a whole array of different nations, but I was surprised to find many nations exist with a few hundred Kilometres of Moscow like Tatarstan or Chuvasia. You could say that Siberia is one EU and European Russia is another comprising 15-20 nations each.
(Tribes sit on oil) In the named republics with their own governments their own people and languages were better protected, but it wasn't balanced as ethnic Russians weren't so badly off. It seems probable to me that the reason Moscow allows the republics is that they sit on oil and if there is danger that without concessions they would separate from CIS and keep all their own oil money. Racism : I really never expected to see Chinese and Turkish looking people in CIS, but I did of course cos the society is made up of many cultures, but what is apparent is that Russia is deeply racist ..non ethnic-Russian people are referred to as "blacks". In construction sites you only ever see "blacks" working , cos 1.Russians look down on such work and 2. Russians are not sober reliable enough to be good at this work...ethnic-Russians seem to have an advantage.
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Very Long Daylight hours - Cos Malaysia is near the equator it has 12 hours sunlight a day. In Siberia and Russia in June it would often stay light until after 11pm and the sun would rise before 3am. So you have days 20 hours long, which makes it easy to travel. This means that in summer the land is getting a lot of sunlight so the even though the agriculture season is short it's very productive.
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Travelling in Russia is a challenge - efficiency and ease of use are not part of the culture.. still it's not like West Africa where things don't exist at all.. Russia has a lot of modern systems ..it's just frustratingly things don't work as well as they should. For example when I got bitten by a tick there was a whole system set up to have the tick analysed at a laboratory, but no one answered the phone when I tried to collect the results. In western Europe signs tend to use a clear pictorial style, bus stops have timetables .. in Russia less so. Changing money and getting a train ticket takes about 2 hours. Hotels cost $16 as opposed to $2-3 in Malaysia or Thailand. Trains are not dirt cheap, but distances are long so you can end up spending a lot of money No English : Russia is not geared up for foreign tourists: no signs in English : no tourist information centres. I was lucky to meet a some kind English speakers thro HC etc I would recommend HC and other things like workcamps (vfp.org), or visiting language schools which bring you into contact with English speaking Russians Russian culture is schizophrenic and contradictory Cos of lack of capitalist Experience - shops often seem to be secret as the signs are not big . You often have to go through 2 sets of unmarked weather-proof doors, before you realise what the shop is. no "customer is king" - service ethic. Traditionally the shop worker has been the one with power, to sell to you or not to sell to you. Queuing is part of the culture you learn to have low expectations. Of course : The constant feeling of tension.. you never know when something is going to get complicated like the Police checking your documents and hauling you off.
I found it quite difficult having the strong visa conditions like a fixed date to leave and the maximum of 3 days in a city rule. It was irritating to worry about this, and makes you rush through Russia, when it might be better to stop more time in some places. (It would be better to take a business via as this allows you 6 month in the country) Once you are in Latvia, you're in Europe nothing really crazy like this is going to happen.
You see the traffic police (The mafia in Uniform) setting up roadblocks to entrap people and collect bribes. It's OK most of the time, but you can't walk around in a relaxed way like Sweden or New Zealand as there is a sense that law and order is weak .. You see every apartment has a big strong steel front door against thieves. I guess the difference between CIS and Latvia is that they had authoriatarianism a lot longer so the fear is more deeply ingrained in society. |
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ECONOMY : Things are more expensive than in other countries and wages are lower - In general Russia is expensive, luxury shops, mafia etc. Train and bus prices are moderate, but distances are big.
I don't understand how people get by. $500/month life on a $200/month salary .
Like Cuba people have learnt to cope. Alternative Incomes : Much of peoples money doesn't come from people's salary it's black money : they steal from their jobs, they take bribes, they do extra jobs, they deal in things, they rent out their grandmothers apartment etc. One family Why did Russians always pay the extra $2 forsheets ? I always used my own. Also Russian trains always only have 2 levels of bunks whilst Chinese have 3. The Church has a lot of Money - You'd think that 80 years of communisn would have brainwashed the people against religion, but in fact it's much more popular than in other countries ..new extravagant churches are being rebuilt everywhere and the Russians are vulnerable to all kinds of false promise cults. Marriage ceremonies are extravagant and big business. The high oil price means money is pouring into the economy and some of this is trickling down to normal people like young professionals money and there are signs of economic progress new shopping strrest and attractive river promenades.
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Are Russian Women beautiful ? Yes, but they are also the most ugly. It's true in the street there are more elegant women than in the UK. In Russia men and women have different roles .. policewoman have different uniforms to police men. So women tend to wear more femine clothes like dresses and high heels, make up .. There is a huge penchant for dying their hair, but I wish they wouldn't; to me it looks awful. In the street there are also a fair number of ugly dragons, the officious women at counters and the tough ticket inspectors.
In fact the rest which is the majority of women are not attractive ..they tend to be lumpy and overweight.
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Good Architecture Actually it's interesting to see that in the centre of towns there are so many old wooden buildings preserved. Usually these are in a bad state of repair and poor people live in them. Of course in a capitalist country the pressure of city centre high land values would have meant they would have been torn down years ago to make space for new shops or banks. One benefit of communism is that a lot of old buildings have been preserved instead of being redeveloped.
.. river beaches,
new extravagant churches are being rebuilt everywhere Why do they have skyscrapers made out of brick while the rest of the world builds tall buildings out of concrete ? In Tomsk and Moscow I saw quite a few 10-15 storey buildings made of brick.. |
