Christ has risen!

On the holy day of the Orthodox Easter, Sunday, 5 May, indeed as the situation required, I thought of God. Then I thought of the seventy years of the soviet times when the Mighty Position had been secured by Vladimir Lenin with a twenty-year interim intermission of the ever more almighty, loving and punishing - Stalin.
Thinking back into the history, Russians have always had an extremely grievous and hard relationship with God, which, combined with the inherent mysticism and fatalism as parts of the national character, engraved religious traits even on the all-negating stoned stance of the atheists.  

In the Orthodox religious tradition the icons - the depictions of God and the saints - were present in every house. According to the rule they were positioned in the so-called "red corner"  ("red" in the old Russian language meaning "beautiful", "honorary" - c.f. the Red Square). The icons were supposed to be in the Eastern corner of the house, as praying, sending our thoughts and talking to God we face the appearance of the sun and, thus, symbolically greet the Advent.

In the Soviet years religion becomes quite a dangerous puppet in the hands of the master - just think what a believer may do for the God. Some clever man, unfortunately the history keeps his name a secret, offered - no, no, not just to abolish God - that would be impossible for the country where religion was so tightly intertwined with the everyday life - but to replace Him. And who comes into the picture?

The decision was exceptionally smart and worked for many decades. Even the honorary red corner was kept to fit yet another deity.

The portraits of Lenin were adorning the walls of every institution, every establishment, every official room, on a frequent occasion enforced by the bronze or gypsum busts, the honest and strong look coming from the different sizes. The Bible, the Testaments and the Gospels were banned, instead we were given the Stories of Lenin - now I cannot tell what part of truth was there, but looking back I realize how much of a hagiography or menology (the lives of the saints) it reminded of and certainly served the purpose well. There was even a children's version of the Acts with pictures - just like Noah's Arch story.

Interestingly, the religious rituals were still kept going - we baptized children, painted eggs for Easter. But the pure religious meaning of them was a bit tarnished - baptism, for example, started to bear more of a pagan belief of the holy water protecting a child from the illnesses. Still, most of the children were baptized - secretly, at home, by an isolated priest. Consequently, we even had a mummified deity (whose remains are still by the way kept uncommitted to earth in the Red Square, the spirit haunting economy and politics - so far the only obvious, undeniable, unquestionable explanation of the ongoing Russian misfortunes), a religious doctrine - a successful mold of communism and spiritism, a set of rituals - books, learnings, common meetings, portraits -"icons", in other words, even when we didn't have it, we had it all.

Nowadays, the busts are on the dump, the pictures faded in the cellars. With the life so cruel and grim, fiercely grinding people by its millstones, people are seeking for the alleviation and looking for God once again...

In Russia on the holy day of Easter we greet each other with the traditional words: "Christ has risen!" and for many He has finally risen indeed.




Copyright © 2013 by Olga Johannesson

And then he asked "Why?"

And then he asked "Why? Why do people long for the old times? Wasn't it just for the better that these turbulent 90s brought freedoms of all sorts, democracy, goods to the shops, money to the wallet, free thinking, free press, new economy, private enterprises, private property, travel, the hoards of brokers, shoppers, marketologists, merchandisers, business advisers, analysts and agents with endless possibilities and what not...?" 
A shining fluorescent neon word "globalization" sparked above yet another "window to Europe" instantaneously finishing the decades of GULAGs, Stalin, oppression and stagnation. So, why haven't we just been jumping in the highest exaltation possible on this new glistening trampoline of freedoms since?

Then I started to feel that I owe an explanation.

source of the photo
My (moderately handsome) husband, having read the previous post and being a product of a completely different system, asked me this seemingly simple and logical question. The Western World for the decades of the Cold War and beyond was showing a dull, hungry and uneventful world of the Soviet State, where all of us were wearing ear-flapped grey hats with a red star on the forehead, marching in lines in the grey empty streets, eating cold potatoes with its grey skin - a sort of James Bond- or Schwarzenegger- movies with ludicrous and stupid military Russians and non-existing realia.

On the other side we were shown "the decaying capitalism", where poor decent people were dying in the streets under the cold and impersonal lights of advertisements.

Most interestingly, it worked. We were sympathizing chained Afro-Americans, exploited by the fat ugly millionaires in "that rotting America", so that even we - children - pioneers - were collecting our lunch money to send to them. And no one was stupid, no one was to blame: the propaganda worked well yet again.

History is a fickle mistress, who willingly changes its stories by the wish of the client: time, age, geography, events, attitudes, relationships, anything. I realize that, but having lived there I have the right to tell my story.

I was born in 1979 in the depth of the soviet stagnation (this story of a Russian girl could easily be mine, as well as of millions of other soviet children). These were the last years of Brezhnev and the General Secretaries started to fall like leaves on a windy day, being too old to rule for more than a couple of years, until Gorbachev started in 1985 and finished the Great Soviet Epoch as the first and the last President of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Understand me right - I do not thoughtlessly applaud to the good old days, but I certainly miss them. The life itself was simple, uncomplicated, non-criminal, non-chaotic, with no hatred, no fuss and stress, no unpredictability. In short, it was a strictly organized society built by a majority of simple uncomplicated honest people who worked all their lives.

Yes, we were deprived of the freedom of expression - everything had to be approved by special committees. Instead, we had free education, which was one of the best in the world, free kindergartens, free swimming pools, free after-school activities.
We were (relatively) deprived of the freedom of speech - we couldn't praise the life abroad or criticize Soviet routines. Still my father had self-made copies - the so-called samizdat - of the famous soviet exiles: Brodsky, Solzhenitsyn, Dovlatov.
We were short of the products in the shops. But the quality of what we had was impeccable - no chemistry in the food, no toxins in the plastic. Apples and oranges were always there with tangerines and bananas always for the New Year´s Eve, sometimes even with Pepsi.
We couldn't travel abroad. But the local flights were so cheap, my mother was taking planes from our city to Moscow going shoe shopping; we were regularly flying to the Black Sea resorts; people were coming to see us from Vladivostok. The countryside with villages and farming industry was flourishing.

I could go on with this list, but there's something which most of the Russians share today - a longing for the stability and safety - the most basic needs of a human.

Of course, it wasn't the best state in the world, as it was ringing in every song we were singing, but it was certainly the state where its people shared kindness, compassion, honesty, hard work and eternal humane values, most of which are conveniently forgotten now.

So we didn't have a freedom of speech... but we were happy and, therefore, free.







links with photos about the soviet times which you may find interesting to see:
http://offline.by/o-nashem-detstve-v-sovetskom-soyuze/
http://offline.by/interesnoe-puteshestvie-v-istoriyu-sovetskogo-soyuza/
http://offline.by/razval-sovetskogo-soyuza/
http://offline.by/deti-sssr/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHW0zL9dSMM


Copyright © 2013 by Olga Johannesson

Magnificent. Depressing. Ugly. Most Beautiful - all rolled into one

Yesterday a two-minute reference to the social situation in Greenland in a Danish popular series pushed me into thinking about the present-day Russia.

In the above-mentioned episode a Danish Prime Minister was visiting Greenland following a US-influenced internal conflict. After some emotional conversations Greenlandic Premier took the representative of a dominion oppressor to face the evidence of the indelible political wrongs accumulated by centuries by meeting Greenlanders. On the background of the benumbed and frosted graveyard stubbed by numerous white impersonal crosses on the most breathtaking landscape of snowy and mountainous Greenland, the following conversation evolved:

"Our biggest problem that we are going to die out as people. The birth rate is dropping. Our young people leave Greenland. But the worst thing is skyrocketing suicide rate - all the young men are killing themselves."

"What have you done about it?"

"We have tried almost everything: suicide hotlines, psychologists, anti-depressants, but it's just getting worse. 20% of Greenlandic youths have tried to commit suicide. It's a tragic world record." 

"Why is this, do you think?" 

"Suicide have always been a part of our culture. People threw themselves off a mountain, which was called "the place where you fall down". But they were old people who had become a burden to their families. Back then a suicide was an act of pride. Maybe our young commit suicide because they take pride in nothing. Why do Greenlanders drink? Why our children are abused? People have forgotten who they are." 

Right there, thunderstruck by these words my mind instantaneously beamed out a parallel to the realities of my life:

In Russia, the turbulent 90s swept away seventy years of stability and unyielding routines with the last decades of pure stagnation. If we think of the country and political decisions in terms of its people, one can easily imagine what a personal catastrophe of enormous proportions almost everyone was undergoing: my grandmother, my parents, we, children at that time, who could not understand why mother was taking heart drops and father was lying in bed for days.

Now my grandmother warmly remembers the hardest years of her life, which include no less than famine, war and the death of children. My parents, as well as the whole generation at the time being in their forties, have never really adapted and recovered in their new life. As a child I spent all my free time outside, running and playing in the streets of a big city, nowadays very few parents will let their children or even teenagers out alone after six.

The birth and death rates have just broke even in 2012 after plummeting down for years, the average life expectancy is 67 years: 76 for women and 63 for men. Almost world's lowest population growth. Almost all of my students left to the capitals or abroad after their graduation. "But the worst is the skyrocketing suicide rate - the young people are killing themselves" - just to rephrase the Greenlandic fictional character's grave words. I am not mentioning alcoholism, drugs and abuse just to keep a live analogy.

The change as rapid and fast could not fail to provoke fatal repercussions, damaging the whole generation, which could not withstand its magnitude and force, irreversibly changing the future of once a great country. Therefore, we are where we are: old values have been washed away, the new valor impositus and freedoms have grown as mutants. Hence, drugs, drinking, abuse, mortality, suicides, in other words: "we take pride in nothing, we have forgotten who we are".

As I was watching the episode on, the hope glimpsed for a short moment:

"I have a plan for my country. If I am to succeed, we must give our people back their self-respect. I want suicide rate to drop. Let Greenlanders have a say in the major issues." 

"Political security matters and foreign affairs?"

"But you cannot let us, can you?"... 
...

When the Danish PM returned home, she talked to her husband:

"How was Greenland?" 

"It was magnificent. It was depressing  Ugly. I think it's the most beautiful place I have ever seen. All rolled into one." 

And within that brief moment I realised - that's exactly how I feel about my country: Magnificent. Depressing. Ugly. Most Beautiful - all rolled into one.

Hi, I am Olga and I am a barbarian!

This Friday, the 8th of March, in the northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk, an atrocity of the prehistoric range happened in the open daylight as a pack of stray dogs tore apart to death a 7-year-old boy.
(for the Russians and other interested here's the link to the news).

    Source of photo
The boy was torn apart in minutes, as witnesses (obviously standing and watching, but who would easily dive into a hellball of swirling mad dogs, and a screaming little fellow, really, guys?) claim, the head was bitten out, the ambulance, which came later, had nothing more to do as to pick up together the blooded remains from the ground. The dogs disappeared. And, oh, Dear God Almighty, I have not made this story up.

Being a long-time dog-lover and having been following the news ever since it happened, I still cannot decide what I am shocked by the most: by the fact of an unbelievably monstrous, brute and nonsensical death of a child, by the horrors which actually happen on the streets of a more-or-less european city in the broad daylight, by the fact that it actually happened in the twenty-first century, by fact that the animals are still in the open, by the reaction of the witnesses, by the reaction of the authorities, by the reaction of the people, or by the mentality of my tribe in general.

For several days by now the discussion has been going on, and the dogs are still there, only two of them having been found and shot. As the mayor still sleeps peacefully undisturbed by the events, the society divides now into radicals and more radicals, who now raid the streets with air guns and deadly rat poisons, giving no chance to any animal, dog, cat, rat or armadillo, if they find any. Add up here slightly and not-so-slightly mentally disturbed people and possible dangers coming from them holding guns and rat poisons. Add up also numerous wounded dogs and dogs dying from the poison in the worst possible agony, hiding their corpses which no one attends. On the other side of the trench there are poor bullied animal protectors, who, within a night, have become the scapegoats.

A bit more educated people have dipped themselves into homey coziness of the vasts of the Internet and deliver aggressive or not-so-aggressive comments into the Universe, taking part in numerous polls and voting for "taking poor animals into the animal shelter".
Here, I would like to make a small diversion: of course there is a dog shelter in a 300 thousand city. The shelter with 180 dogs (currently) is going on despite everything due to the persistence and good-will of several volunteers. Minimally it costs 150 rubles (5 USD) per dog per day, and it is not financed by the city at all. On the other hand, there is no proper service for capturing stray animals as well. No one wants to take a stray home, very few want to seem brutal and unfair to the animals. So we have a full circle and an eaten boy.

And I am no better - in the homely Internet, typing out my shock of what has happened and the frustration of why it has happened. Why there are so many stray animals in my city and in every city in my country? Why we learned to brush teeth in the morning and use the toilet, but not to take the responsibility for an animal? Why is it possible that teenagers put a fireworks detonator into the dogs muzzle and blow it "just to see what happens"? Or burn a kitten, or throw the dog from the top floor onto the tarmac? What has gone wrong with people? Why no one is responsible for the death of a child?

It is deeply sad and hurtful to write all this about my people. Or we are just a tribe and under the cover of the night we all have become barbarians...



Copyright © 2013 by Olga Johannesson

On the experience of touching burning issues or why I am never going to make a politician

Yesterday for the first and the last time in my life I joined a discussion in a social network.
The topic was strange to me (Racism in Iceland), immigrant people´s comments seemed overly angry and unfair (in my subjective opinion, of course) and so I pressed a "post" button and jumped.

Source of photo

My point was that I don´t see it as a problem in Iceland (seriously, compare that to the rest of the Old Europe or even the rest of Scandinavia). And that basically everyone is responsible for his/her own choices, therefore, for the consequences and their personal welfare. Basically it was it:
"I really don´t understand this, but maybe I am meeting "wrong" people here - I have been in Iceland since August and there was not a case/situation when I felt discriminated. Russian origin has its drawbacks in Europe, but I never felt it here. Yes, it is a closed society as anywhere else in Scandinavia, but isn´t it like coming to the other people´s house to live? I mean, you can expect support, but don´t you have to do something in return? Like at least try to learn culture and traditions and language before coming here and not whine about them not giving money for your language classes or not hugging you straight away? After all, it´s we who made the choice of leaving our home and coming to live in theirs."

In about two hours several people (understandably not of an Icelandic origin) lashed at me, accusing me of everything starting from xenophobia to not having a slightest idea that a racism actually was.

Previously a guy from France complained of being refused to take a loan as he called himself in the post "being a dirty foreigner". Another one from Spain said that he´s paying his rent, taxes and living expenses and still being racially discriminated, as "racism is Iceland is subtle but all over the place".

Particularly fascinating comment came from Mongolian-origin (am I being a racist or just descriptive here?) woman from Kazakhstan, previously in her comment claiming of being constantly harassed on the streets of Reykjavik, who said that she "with her Slavonic soul regarding Iceland her home".. "went somewhere wrong"... apparently, as people like me still exist.

And then I stopped and thought why is it so difficult to take a responsibility for your own life and not to blame parents, society, fate, the more lucky neighbour, anything else?

I come from the country which had most of its calamities and revolutions coming from the mouths of shouting petty people, and inheritantly, unconsiously  I fear deeply all sorts of shouting on the corners in the streets - shouting for "democracy", "equality", all sorts of "freedoms", because generally nothing good comes out of anger, jealousy and hate.

Someone may argue that it´s not these three, but then can I ask you, if it´s possible that a good-natured, kind, talented, and giving person could be willingly involved into something like that? Did Bunin, Nabokov, Brodsky, Stravinsky, Azimov, Dovlatov and many others bother themselves of this unproductive, self-degrading time-consuming shouting in their most miserable years of immigration?

I am not saying you have to shut up, but then again if you conveniently start to call a foreign country your home and, therefore, consider it proper to make your own rules there, putting a hiking tent in the place where a dining table stood for centuries, and if, in this case, being politely refused, start to shout about bleeding wound of immigration consciousness, then I call it plain manipulation.

And then again what happened with a good old constructive dialogue? What happened with respect for your counterparts and, first and foremost, respect for yourself? What happened with the universal values of honest work, respect for the world around you, benefiting and learning from the target culture, combining that with the source culture? I guess opportunities for this are enormous in Iceland.

I felt confused and disappointed about wasting time to being involved into such unproductive exchange of thoughts. So, I read a book, and called a friend, and sent a small present to my other friend, and had a small talk in Icelandic with a post woman, and smiled to the cashier in Bonus, and finished sawing a skirt, and cooked supper, and learned some Icelandic.
Tomorrow I will try to do something else for peace and balance, if not in the lives of the humanity and in the name of fight against racism, but to built a little bit more of my small life here in Iceland, as this was my decision and, therefore, my primary responsibility.


Copyright © 2012 by Olga Johannesson