more fantastic than reality.

"Coming up to the Neva, I stopped for a minute and cast a searching glance down the river, into the murky distance thick with frost, which suddenly had flushed with the last purple of sunset, burning itself out on the misty horizon.  Night settled down over the city, and with the sun's last gleam, all the boundless expanse of the Neva's glade, which had swollen out of the frozen snow, crumbled apart in infinite myriads of sparks emitting from the needle-pointed rime.  It turned to frost at 20 degrees... The frozen vapor fell in clouds from the tired horses, from the running people.  The close air vibrated at the tiniest sound, and columns of smoke from all the roofs on both banks arose like giants, and were carried upward through the cold heaven, intertwining and unwinding on their way so that, it seemed, new buildings were rising over the old ones, and a new city was being assembled in the air... It seemed, in the end, that all this world, with all its inhabitants, both the strong and the weak, with all their inhabitations, whether beggars' shelters or gilded palaces, at this hour of twilight resembled a fantastic, enchanted vision, a dream which in its turn would instantly vanish and waste away as vapor in the dark blue heaven.  Suddenly a certain strange thought began to stir inside me.  I started and my heart was as if flooded in that instant by a hot jet of blood which had suddenly boiled up from the influx of a mighty sensation which up until now had been unknown to me.  In that moment, as it were, I understood something which up to that time had only stirred in me, but had not as of yet been fully comprehended.  I saw clearly, as it were, into something new, a completely new world, unfamiliar to me and known only through some obscure hearsay, through a certain mysterious sign.  I think that in those precise minutes, my real existence began... Tell me, gentlemen, have I not been a fantast, have I not been a mystic since my very childhood?  Nothing, nothing whatever, one sensation..."

-Fyodor Dostoevsky, Petersburg Dreams in Verse and Prose

forward.

"Where is the one who in the native language of the Russian soul could pronounce for us the mighty word 'forward'?  Century after century passes, and a half a million stay-at-homes, sluggards, and blockheads are immersed in deep slumber, but rarely is a man born in Rus who is able to pronounce this mighty word..."

—Nikolai Gogol 

Тоска.

It's nice to know that even when I can't find the words to describe Russia, there are great Russian writers who can articulate them for me and friends (like Emily) to point me to them.  There are lots of words in Russian that simply do not have an English equivalent.  Some words, like тоска (toska) represent an idea, a state of mind, the essence of the Russian soul.  

"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska.  At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause.  At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning.  In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness.  At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom."  -V. Nabokov

I miss Russia a lot today.  

Another Russia?

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 31^st 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.  

A call for Mayor Matvyienko to resign. 

Politically-minded baba.  

Dude repelled off the roof of Gostiny Dvor with a sign calling for Khodorkovsky to be freed.

Pigeon/penguin (true identity disputed) who, I later learned via the news, was arrested.

Police surrounding the crowds. 

SWAT Team equivalent.

Another Russia?

невский проспект.

"why did i go to nevsky?  i have no idea.  but i was simply drawn there at every opportunity."

-notes from underground.

let's do it together...

Putin's/United Russia's new campaign ad.  I wish I could be more surprised, but...  As my friend Emily points out, we should really be more concerned that two people are in the voting booth together, not that they are getting hot and heavy.  True words, friend. 

one foot in and one foot back.
but it don’t pay to live like that.
so i cut the ties and i jumped the track.
for never to return.