Observations on life in Russia

 

Two months of travelling around the western half of Russia and talking to people gave me an insight into life ignored by the news coverage, with a few surprises and some surprisingly normal aspects.

If you’re old enough to retain images of Russia from the forlorn queues of the latter days of the Soviet Union or the grim economic distress of the 90s, modern Russia is going to come as a bit of a shock. Finding even a hint of those days gone by looks to be an impossibility, if my two months of travelling around the country are anything to go by. I certainly managed to get well away from the tourist sites and well developed city centres on a number of occasions and had plenty of opportunities to watch the world go by as I sat on trains and buses.

Beyond architectural styles there’s little to distinguish your surroundings from much of northern Europe and even then the differences are rarely of note, except to those with an interest in the subject. The tsarist period was intimately linked with European culture on many levels and as my previous post on the Moscow metro showed, even under Stalin there was no great rejection of European design.

The streets are immaculately clean and you have to get well away from areas of importance before you see any kind of mess, not that any great degradation of civic duties was ever apparent. Roads are well maintained, except once you get well out into the countryside but given the vast size of the country it would be overly optimistic to expect every last kilometre of road to be perfect. Public transport is efficient, regular and above all very reasonably priced. It’s only once you get to less important routes that you see buses showing their age somewhat but clearly none were in danger of grinding to a halt at any point. A local bus or tram never cost me more than 40c and $20 usually gets you several hours worth of train journey. Due to trams often having automated payment systems and my credit card rendered inoperative by Western sanctions I ended up not being able to pay on a few occasions, not that anyone appeared particularly perturbed by this. I did try offering a driver some cash but he gave me that, “nothing I can do about it mate” kind of shrug. In the cities, with a Yandex maps app you only had to click on any bus stop icon to get live bus times and elsewhere you at least get a timetable. Evidently Russia is well integrated into the modern internet era and even ahead of some places, as the delivery robots happily trundling around Moscow are testament to.

Beggars were few and far between. I can honestly say I see far more on the streets of my hometown in England. Of those I did see, none were aggressive or bothersome in any way. Not once did I see a dog turd, so I can only assume that Russian dog owners are extremely public spirited. The big cities may well be busy places but never madly hectic, I was never fighting through the masses to get anywhere. All in all, strolling around the streets was about as pleasant an experience as you could ever hope for.

The first behavioural difference many Europeans will notice is both the pedestrians and drivers obedience to traffic lights. Most people will calmly wait for the flashing green man signal, even when there’s no vehicle in sight, before crossing the road. Even those that did ignore the red man never seemed to undertake any risky manoeuvres with the traffic. Although jaywalking is technically illegal, the chance of anyone ever getting in trouble for it is almost zero, a friend assured me, having not encountered a single example in her lifetime. At pedestrian crossings without lights, vehicles stopped without fail to let people cross. The standard of driving was what you’d expect in any northern European country: the odd idiot driving a bit too fast but most were fairly considerate drivers. On the metro you rarely see anyone rushing, very few will walk up a moving escalator. The London Underground is a riot of impatience in comparison.

It was all remarkably civilised. Quite what all this says about the Russian psyche I’m really not sure but it certainly makes visiting a very agreeable experience.

One disappointing aspect to the culture was a similarity to that found at home in Southern England. Smiling or greeting strangers in the street is the sure sign of a complete lunatic, probably even more so than back home. I look upon northerners, the Welsh and Scottish far more favourably in this respect, along with many other cultures around the world, where a cheery, “good morning”, is far more likely to end in a conversation than an unplanned visit to the fractures ward. Unfortunately this practice often extended into hostels, which tended to remain places of quiet introspection, with little interaction. Sometimes my cheery, “good morning”, was greeted with stony silence. There were a few exceptions of course but I did struggle with the awkward silences. This needs to be understood as one of those differences in cultural practice rather than any innate antisocial behaviour. Once you get the chance to build up a rapport, people can really open up and several encounters ended with a big hug.

Additionally, it needs to be said that with some kind of connection, you can experience the most wonderful hospitality that you could ever wish for. On a few occasions a Russian friend put me in contact with people and they went out of their way to make me feel welcome, some even taking a whole day out to show me around their city, on the basis of nothing more than a message from our mutual friend. On other occasions I was plied with inordinate quantities of vodka by people I’d only been introduced to on the same day. Hearing that Russians are susceptible to downing the odd glass or five of its national drink won’t come as a surprise to anyone but the grim alcoholic excesses of the 90s have moderated substantially in recent years with the improved standard of living. On a similar note, if you remember tales of the awful drug crocodile, so named for the green scaly patches it created on the skin of its abusers, mercifully it has faded into obscurity.

Being English proved to be of no problem whatsoever. On learning of my nationality I only ever received a positive response and no one required any kind of justification for my government’s actions, a luxury sometimes denied Russian travellers abroad. Perhaps the surprising profusion of the English language has something to do with it. Numerous shops and businesses have English names, written in our alphabet rather than the Russian one. While that might not come as a surprise in downtown Moscow, you can see examples almost anywhere. Even the small industrial town, where I stayed with a friend, has some English shop names and I doubt that they’ve ever seen a tourist there, English or otherwise.

Our language and other cultural aspects have long been seen as cool on some level. Although obviously the American influence on popular culture is bigger, the British contribution is definitely there. Harry Potter and our period dramas are known and one group I met said how much they enjoyed some of our comedies, such as The Office. Quite how well that translates into Russian I’ve no idea but it clearly works for some. Older readers will no doubt be overjoyed to hear that previous generations of Russians were greatly entertained by Benny Hill, who’s DVD’s I’ve seen at markets. To the uninitiated, or too young to have endured the 1970s, Benny Hill wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of intellectual comedy programmes, who’s humour largely revolved around buxom ladies in states of partial undress.

Our influence extends further however and the Englishman abroad can always be sure that you’re never too far from a shop selling English Breakfast tea.

In fact there are numerous examples of food packaging that employ English to add an air of prestige, even if the average Russian consumer is oblivious to the meaning of expressions such as, Premium Quality. Even our very own Spar supermarket is a common sight. However, whilst back home it’s known as a lowest common denominator supplier of cheap processed garbage, the Russian version is full of delightful goodies, with a delicatessen counter that would shame many a middle class shopper’s preferred supermarket and a superabundance of coffee and chocolate varieties to tempt the gourmand. If there’s any attempt to reclaim the Russian language, marketing departments certainly haven’t got the message.

That’s not to say Russians are out of touch with their own culture, far from it. In the last decade there’s been an ever increasing interest in their own history and culture, driven predominantly by the people themselves. It’s only in the last couple of years that the government has really started putting money into the movement. Limited by sanctions from travelling to Europe in particular, Russians have been holidaying at home more and more, and there’s no shortage of stuff to see. Outside of Moscow and Saint Petersburg I only ever saw Russians at historical sites. Even in September, past the main holiday season, I always found plenty of Russians enjoying their heritage. Virtually every old building I visited was well maintained or immaculately restored, the exceptions had restoration works underway. The Orthodox churches are festooned with icons and artworks to such an extent there’s often little in the way of bare wall space. With so many incredible examples to choose from you’ll inevitably reach a saturation point long before your trip ends. The simpler wooden churches offered a more decoratively restrained counterpoint, the Church of the Transfiguration on Kizhi island being the most impressive example.

Re-enactment groups have become more popular and not just the practice of recreating old battles that we are familiar with. I was lucky enough to be invited on a day out with a group who had spent two years building a replica long boat, similar to the popular Viking ones many of you will recognise. Vikings played an important role in the history of Western Russia, being the great travellers and traders they were and have a similar iconic status to that in parts of Europe. The name Russia itself comes from the word Rus, used to denote the Vikings and similar tribes. As it was only the second excursion for the boat, my ineptitude at rowing didn’t stand out too much and wisely they put me at the back where I was less likely to cause a problem. As is so often the case, the entire day out was fueled by copious quantities of meat, vodka and pickled gherkins, with the rowing getting unsurprisingly more erratic as the day progressed. A few hours up and down the Volga river was a thoroughly enjoyable, if exhausting experience and was rightly celebrated afterwards with yet more vodka and beer. I barely moved from the sofa the following day, at least content in the knowledge that I hadn’t proved an embarrassment to king and country in the vodka consumption stakes.

The more recent history of the Communist period is certainly still on display, mostly in the form of statues and sculptures but as far as I could tell public opinion was relatively ambivalent on the subject. Neither any great pride or shame. Some works have been lost to development but most sit there, well maintained but part of the background. You can’t say that the horrors of the period are ignored though. The Gulag museum in Moscow documents in fine detail the level of suffering that went on and some camps are open for visitors to see for themselves the conditions inmates endured. Various other sites around the country from the Soviet period are maintained to tell the story of much that went on.

The former Saint Petersburg squat, the Pushkinskaya Art Centre, has exhibitions on non-conformist art, literature and music from the period. Other apolitical museums such as the Museum of Socialist life in Kazan or the museums of Soviet Arcade Games in Moscow and Saint Petersburg display the more day to day and pleasant aspects of Soviet life and culture.

Despite claims to the contrary on some travel forums I had a few great discussions about politics and quite a few brief chats or passing comments about various issues were thrown into conversations. Needless to say, you don’t wade into discussions about the war within a minute of meeting someone but that’s good practice in most places. I let people speak and didn’t judge them or demand they defend their position in order to allow them to say what they believed. Whilst I can only regard the feedback I got as a snapshot of public opinion, I certainly got a wide variety of responses, so it’s definitely worth documenting. Apart from a bit of contextualising, I’ve done my best to just convey what people told me, as analysing all the issues is far beyond the scope of this piece.

What both critics and supporters of the government could seem to agree on was the problem of propaganda, which suggests to me that it was easily recognised as such. A friend said that some media are even fairly open about the fact and justified it with something along the lines of, “we’re at war, the country needs to come together”. One lady who complained about the propaganda and had made some highly critical statements about the government and freedom of speech, went on to say that she used to believe the government when they said that the Western media reporting on Russia was propaganda. However having travelled and encountered Western media for herself she now realised that what the Western media pushed was indeed anti Russian propaganda!

One aspect of Western propaganda that three people specifically criticised was pro LGBT issues. I didn’t get the impression that any of them were particularly religious or extremely conservative, more that they disliked being lectured on their societal values. I’ve certainly seen similar comments from Russians online where anger was rarely directed at LGBT people themselves but at the “decadent” West or similar for pushing such views on others. Putin himself has echoed these ideas, saying what Western societies do is up to them but we have a different culture. Clearly gay pride marches and other such public displays of different sexual identity are not going to be seen as publicly acceptable in anything like the near future.

There seemed to be a correlation between negative views about the government and those who had some particular affinity or connection with the West, which is probably not surprising. The primary focus seemingly being that Western sanctions deprived them of the connections they had enjoyed and blamed the government rather than the West for this. Given that I was mostly relying on those who spoke English, I’d assume that I was getting more of an anti, rather than pro government picture. In reality much of what people had to complain about though was much like anywhere else in the world: on some matters they were critical and on others they were supportive. Even when they got onto more serious criticisms, relating to freedom of speech or censorship that didn’t mean they weren’t broadly supportive of the government or that they wouldn’t necessarily vote for the ruling party in elections. The few that I asked if they voted said they did, at least sometimes. One guy after saying this then said, “but it isn’t a democracy”. You must have at least some faith in the system if you vote though. In a recent global survey that asked people if they thought they lived in a democracy, Russia came in at a similar level to the US at just under 50%, noting that some Western countries were even lower.

While I was there both YouTube and Discord were added to the list of social media sites blocked by the government. Somewhat ironic given that simultaneously YouTube deleted a load of Western channels for having the audacity to offer a more balanced opinion of Russia. Given that the blocks are simply evaded with a VPN and Russians are just as au fait with the internet as anyone else, it’s hard to see this aspect of censorship having much effect. Also while I was there the BRICS summit was on, where we could see Western journalists’ relentless criticism of Russia, who’s own journalists are banned from working in the West.

Possibly the biggest factor in the general level of support for the government and Putin in particular is the obvious improvement in the standard of living, as I saw for myself and related above. This is especially true of older people who lived through the gruelling 90s, with not only the problems it created for people personally, in terms of employment, health etc but how it diminished Russia’s standing in the world. It’s undeniable that Putin led the country out of the suffering of that period and made it a power to be reckoned with again. The respected Levada polling agency, that receives funding from the US, has consistently put public support for Putin in the 75-80% range in recent years. No doubt many responders have caveats to that support but there’s good reason for it as people were happy to explain to me.

Whilst no one doubts Putin’s importance, most Russians see him as part of a team. They may have differing opinions about individual politicians but anyone broadly supportive of the government doesn’t see all the other key figures as simple yes men or women. I asked a couple of people what their response was to the claim often seen in Western media that Putin was a dictator. One guy just laughed as he thought it was ridiculous and a woman said the idea had never occurred to her. Both had expressed criticisms of the government whilst being broadly in favour.

Certainly there’s none of the cult of personality you see in other places I’ve been to that are far better qualified to be called dictatorships. I only saw Putin’s picture in a couple of businesses during my two months; there were no big posters of him making proclamations; no statues that I know of and his face isn’t on bank notes. The idea that Russians traditionally prefer strong leaders definitely has some merit though. Simply the geography of the country, with its vast distances and dozens of ethnic groups was historically speaking unsuited to a limp handed rule. Consequently there’s a greater public acceptance for a strong hand to hold the nation together, so losing some individual power isn’t always seen as a bad thing. The odd “troublemaker” getting locked up won’t get everyone upset. However there’s almost no visible sign of this enforcement in terms of a police presence. Outside of Moscow I can honestly say I often went up to two weeks between seeing a policeman and even then they were hardly obtrusive. There were security checks with scanners at every bus and train station but they never showed the slightest interest in me or my backpack beyond putting my bag through the machine. Even at the border I wasn’t asked any questions. 

Of the few conversations I had about the war, the word that best expressed opinion was, “sad”. That’s not to say they disagreed with the justifications for it. Going to war with a country of shared history and culture wasn’t something to be worthy of a bout of jubilant patriotism. Two people I spoke to had personal connections with Ukraine and Russia had the single biggest intake of refugees from the war out of any country, no doubt creating more connections.

Talking about the war or even criticising aspects of it certainly isn’t out of the question as I discovered myself but there are quite clearly limits, given the imprisonment of some critics but the dividing line isn’t clear in the slightest. Someone with a public platform making vocal criticism or disseminating falsehoods could well get into trouble but talking a bit too loudly in the local bar after a couple of vodkas would appear unlikely to get you into serious trouble. Evidently discretion is a guiding factor for many, so I didn’t want to push anyone on the subject. One guy said he was afraid to talk about the war, others less so, or recounted others discussing it publicly. Until recently there were some very vocal online Russian critics of military issues relating to the war who were dubbed the doomers for their pessimistic appraisals of the army’s efforts. However these were all clearly patriotic Russians so I can only assume they weren’t regarded as a threat. Given the obvious recent success on the battlefield they seem to have disappeared as far as I can tell.

The most obvious public evidence for the war were the numerous advertising hoardings and posters for army recruitment with the word pobeda, meaning victory usually featured prominently. They often quoted salaries which are rather generous: taking into account the cost of living, Russian soldiers are often earning more than their Western counterparts. Among more patriotic motivations it seems to be working, as about a thousand people a day are still signing up, as they have been for a long time. I caught a bit of this public mood purely by chance on a visit to the Izmaylov Kremlin in Moscow. I’d actually gone to the market there but it’s a family fun day out place dressed up as a fairytale castle. On the day I went it featured an army recruitment fair, which while perfectly normal in other circumstances looked somewhat surreal in the surroundings, with loads of excited kids running around, demanding ice cream and hotdogs. There was also an organisation promoting Russian culture, dishing out traditional snacks and herbal teas, with a live performance by ageing pop star Vika Tsiganova that prompted a lot of flag waving and cheering. They also had a stall manned by some military looking types, which added a nationalist hint to what might have been a mostly harmless affair.

Other stalls from various branches of the military were all enthusiastically attended by members of the public of all ages. On the drone operator stall a young girl was playing on some drone training software which I noted was in English! War is an international business these days. The most popular stall by far you’ll probably be surprised to learn was run by the Wagner Mercenary Group. From young girls to burly blokes, everyone was happy to get instructions on how to use an anti tank rocket launcher or an AK47. A few of the staff were disabled war veterans. I don’t have any trouble understanding why people of any nation would want to honour people who fought and paid such a price for their service but for encouraging people to sign up??? Clearly the possibility of ending up in a wheelchair is not seen as off putting, which suggests a level of dedication not found everywhere.

If the opinions I heard from Russians are anything to go by, both the pro and anti Russian camps are guilty of simplistic thinking. As in our own countries there’s a broad range of ideas and a lot more nuanced thinking that doesn’t easily fit into one particular political or social box. Everyone I engaged with was capable of intelligent discussion, some were exceptionally thoughtful or philosophical. Most of my interactions didn’t involve politics at all and I got drunk, enjoyed food and music with them just like I would with anyone else. We chatted about art, literature, travel, football and all the things that interest the rest of us. No one expressed any hatred for the West, no matter how much they disagreed with our policies. Like virtually everywhere I’ve been in the world, people don’t judge individuals by their government and are happy to take you as you are.