Yesterday marked parliamentary elections for the Russian Federation. It was a big event, for sure, that I encourage everyone to follow (check out some cool pics from the election
here). As much as I enjoy analyzing Russian politics, I'm going to refrain from regaling you with details about the election, including the decline in United Russia and it's implications for the Putin/Medvedev regime. And don't get me started on the election fraud. It's very easy to get caught up in all the political drama and think about the elite powers and how the election affects the rule of Russia and policy, and that is where my mind has been for the past few days. I hadn't been thinking as much about how the elections are affecting people on the individual level. But tonight I learned that a friend from Smolny was arrested at a protest and is being detained without communication to wait for her court date. This news was completely sobering and brought my attention back to the many people, who like Katya, are being persecuted every single day for trying to build another Russia. During my time in Russia and in Belarus, I heard many stories of friends and friends of friends who were arrested or detained unfairly, and there was absolutely nothing that they could do about it. These practices are disgusting and completely unjust. They make me very angry, yet very grateful for my citizenship and my country. America is not without its problems, but despite these problems, we have liberties, and we have rights. Never, never take that for granted.
While in St. Petersburg I attended a few protests probably very similar to the one at which Katya was arrested (no one freak out) and was able to see first-hand the fight for change. I wrote about the experience but never posted because I wasn't able to write something that satisfied my desire to accurately express my feelings about the Russian political climate. I'm still very dissatisfied, but all the same I'm going to post some of the things that I was writing in an attempt to help just a few more people understand the frustration that I feel towards Russian politics, the corruption, Katya's arrest, and the lack of solution that I see to the many problems in Russia today.
**March 31, 2011
So I have to confess. I did something that was probably stupid today (but absolutely worth the risk). I went to a protest. On the 31st of every month a group of citizens who are dissatisfied with the state of Russia and St. Petersburg gather in front of Gostiny Dvor. They gather on this date because Article 31 of the constitution is the right to freedom of assembly, a right that they feel is threatened. Before anyone gets worried, let me just say that I was very careful, and the protest was very calm. When we approached the crowds I was taken aback by the amount of law enforcement that surrounded the area. Helicopters flew overhead, the equivalent of the SWAT team stood ready to pounce, and the paddy wagons were parked just in case they needed to haul of mass numbers of protesters. But all of these precaution measures were unnecessary, as the protest was really chill. In the first fifteen minutes of being there, the guy who seemed to have been the leader was taken away, so things were a bit unorganized after that. People would stand around for a while, something would happen, then everyone would stand around again until the next round of action. The most exciting events included a dude repelling down the side of Gostiny Dvor with a sign calling for Khodorkovsky (imprisoned Yukos oligarch) to be freed and a pigeon/penguin that was arrested. I was empowered to see people out making a statement for change. I’m not going to share with you any elaborate analysis of Russian politics (To be honest, I’m not really sure what my analysis would be). I will, however, share the question that has been floating around my mind, a question to which I don’t have an answer: What is right for Russia politically? There are clearly some things about this country that need to change. Not everyone’s voice is heard, rule of law is almost non-existent, and corruption is rampant. Life is hard (though not impossible) for most people, and there is a sense of hopeless political apathy that pervades the population. Despite all this corruption, Russia is probably as stable as it has been in the recent past. So it makes me wonder, at what point do you sacrifice stability in the pursuit of ideals, regardless of their value? How far do you go in pursuit of democracy? In pursuit of change and choice? And is real change even possible? Is there hope for another Russia? These are hard questions to answer, but things that I fruitlessly think about often. No matter how much thought I devote to them, I always come back to the fact that I really don’t know what is right for Russia or what is even possible.
