There's a constant barrage of criticism in Western media towards Russia, if you hadn't already noticed. From scathing attacks on the heavy handed authoritarian government's involvement in Central Asia to Mafia controlled corruption to the crippling effects nation-wide of alcoholism on Russian men's mortality rate, nothing seems to escape the firing line. I would be lying if I said that these things didn't exist: of course they do, they just have relatively little direct effect on my day to day life.
Nevertheless, I had been made aware of a specific issue before I came to Russia that unfortunately reared its ugly head for the first time just last week. A PR/Admissions manager has been recruited by my school and I had the extreme displeasure of being sat next to her for the full journey to the performance I refer to in A Challenger Appears and also an upcoming post. For all intents and purposes, she looked like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth: a handsome early 30s woman with a three year old son and experience in travelling across much of Western Europe. Things, however, were to take a turn for the worse when conversation strayed from children and "safe" topics.
When I lived in China, I noticed that there was always an unstated and subtle form of racism/xenophobia at work with the masses: whether it manifested itself in the arrogantly oft-touted phrase, "You don't understand-you're not Chinese", to being treated perceptibly differently due to the colour of one's skin, it didn't take a genius to comprehend that many Chinese people were not tolerant of all races or nationalities.
In a similar vein to China, my experiences in Russia have been soul-crushingly disappointing; perhaps more so, as at least China holds the equality of the sexes in high regard. One would imagine that, so close to Europe (not that we're that enlightened, but still...), Muscovites would be a little more continental in their outlook.
Not necessarily so.
Mrs. PR Manager, despite hailing from a far younger generation than the trologdytic Head of the Russian curriculum (and believe me-a troglodyte she is), couldn't have been more unashamedly racist, xenophobic, sexist and damned right stupid in the hour that it took for the mini-bus to drive from the school to the theatre, if she'd had a Nazi swastika tattooed on her massive red-haired dome, greeted everyone with a flash of the palm and a curt "Sieg Heil!" and promptly followed it up by some vigorous goose-stepping all the while extolling the glory and virtues of Der Führer. To add insult to injury, one of the Russian ESL assistants sat merely a few feet away nodding her head vigorously in agreement.
I think the reason I'm so thoroughly pissed off by this is not because I haven't encountered racism, xenophobia or sexism before (stupidity shouldn't piss me off so much as I deal with it on a daily basis), but because this woman has been hired to promote the school. I'm of the (absolutely revolutionary and shocking) belief that schools should be founded on the basis of tolerance, understanding and the promotion of critical thinking. Much can be said for the teaching of subject content (and despite what the hippies may say, content does have a place in classrooms), however if children don't have exposure to these fundamental concepts at school, they'll be doomed to forever walk the hamster wheel of isms and phobias, inflicting their own children with the malaise.
As critical as I may at first appear towards a culture whose values differ widely from my own, I don't think this is an unfair appraisal of the situation and I don't for one minute consider that I am acting like British colonialists of old, wantonly imposing my own value system upon an unsuspecting populace. It's important to remember that many of our children at the school come from far flung places, are ethnically diverse and find themselves strangers in a strange land. One young African girl, for example, cannot take the Metro for fear of ridicule and being assaulted. And here's the school hiring Mrs. Fuckwit PR Manager to promote what an inclusive and forward thinking institution we are. Yeah, good luck with that.
I'm not a religious person by any means, but that doesn't preclude me from acting from a spiritual standpoint. I ascribe to one simple (Golden) rule-"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." You would assume that a nation that has suffered at the hands of a plethora of native tyrants, dictators and the machinations of oligarchic crime-lords would understand that it's not the enemy at the gates that one should worry about, but instead the one that resides within.
_________________________________________________________________
"There are many humorous things in the world: among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages."
-D.
Nevertheless, I had been made aware of a specific issue before I came to Russia that unfortunately reared its ugly head for the first time just last week. A PR/Admissions manager has been recruited by my school and I had the extreme displeasure of being sat next to her for the full journey to the performance I refer to in A Challenger Appears and also an upcoming post. For all intents and purposes, she looked like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth: a handsome early 30s woman with a three year old son and experience in travelling across much of Western Europe. Things, however, were to take a turn for the worse when conversation strayed from children and "safe" topics.
When I lived in China, I noticed that there was always an unstated and subtle form of racism/xenophobia at work with the masses: whether it manifested itself in the arrogantly oft-touted phrase, "You don't understand-you're not Chinese", to being treated perceptibly differently due to the colour of one's skin, it didn't take a genius to comprehend that many Chinese people were not tolerant of all races or nationalities.
In a similar vein to China, my experiences in Russia have been soul-crushingly disappointing; perhaps more so, as at least China holds the equality of the sexes in high regard. One would imagine that, so close to Europe (not that we're that enlightened, but still...), Muscovites would be a little more continental in their outlook.
Not necessarily so.
Mrs. PR Manager, despite hailing from a far younger generation than the trologdytic Head of the Russian curriculum (and believe me-a troglodyte she is), couldn't have been more unashamedly racist, xenophobic, sexist and damned right stupid in the hour that it took for the mini-bus to drive from the school to the theatre, if she'd had a Nazi swastika tattooed on her massive red-haired dome, greeted everyone with a flash of the palm and a curt "Sieg Heil!" and promptly followed it up by some vigorous goose-stepping all the while extolling the glory and virtues of Der Führer. To add insult to injury, one of the Russian ESL assistants sat merely a few feet away nodding her head vigorously in agreement.
I think the reason I'm so thoroughly pissed off by this is not because I haven't encountered racism, xenophobia or sexism before (stupidity shouldn't piss me off so much as I deal with it on a daily basis), but because this woman has been hired to promote the school. I'm of the (absolutely revolutionary and shocking) belief that schools should be founded on the basis of tolerance, understanding and the promotion of critical thinking. Much can be said for the teaching of subject content (and despite what the hippies may say, content does have a place in classrooms), however if children don't have exposure to these fundamental concepts at school, they'll be doomed to forever walk the hamster wheel of isms and phobias, inflicting their own children with the malaise.
As critical as I may at first appear towards a culture whose values differ widely from my own, I don't think this is an unfair appraisal of the situation and I don't for one minute consider that I am acting like British colonialists of old, wantonly imposing my own value system upon an unsuspecting populace. It's important to remember that many of our children at the school come from far flung places, are ethnically diverse and find themselves strangers in a strange land. One young African girl, for example, cannot take the Metro for fear of ridicule and being assaulted. And here's the school hiring Mrs. Fuckwit PR Manager to promote what an inclusive and forward thinking institution we are. Yeah, good luck with that.
I'm not a religious person by any means, but that doesn't preclude me from acting from a spiritual standpoint. I ascribe to one simple (Golden) rule-"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." You would assume that a nation that has suffered at the hands of a plethora of native tyrants, dictators and the machinations of oligarchic crime-lords would understand that it's not the enemy at the gates that one should worry about, but instead the one that resides within.
_________________________________________________________________
"There are many humorous things in the world: among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages."
-D.
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