A Post-Script to my previous entry, July 5, 2006
Traversing the city a great deal more in the past few days and discussing my outlook on Russian apartments with a few counterparts has led me to reassess my previous position.
When I look out over the landscape of apartments in Novgorod, I see Bogotá; I see the backstreets of Venice; I see the outskirts of Toronto; I see every city. Novgorod’s apartment buildings to me are a metonym for a society that has better things to do than make an unremarkable wall look pretty.
This is a contrast with the United States, of course. Perhaps, in other parts of Russia there is more superficial battles to “keep up with the Joneses” raging just outside the confines of people’s living rooms, but I don’t see it here. I see people living—getting by. It’s not even a consequence of modesty, really; it’s just life. This what apartment buildings look like in areas of the world where it makes no sense to clean up a building’s exterior, when no one has a clean one to begin with, and it is not going to improve your quality of life or mine.
“It’s Russian Pragmatism,” as my Russian Politics professor would say.
But while people aren’t really decorating or even cleaning their apartment building exteriors, they are doing something else—and that’s watching television. I know my host mother and father turn the colorful box on as soon as they come home. And the shiny happy people selling you everything you need are right there waiting to break up your soap opera episode or your morning cartoons.
Like any good capitalistic country, post-communist or not, I am in a land of consumers. I really have yet to fully comprehend the penetration of the global phenomenon as it stands, here in Novgorod. But I am well aware that if I ever need a good Russian brew while I’m waiting for the bus, there are at least three brand names I would quickly recognize.
When I look out over the landscape of apartments in Novgorod, I see Bogotá; I see the backstreets of Venice; I see the outskirts of Toronto; I see every city. Novgorod’s apartment buildings to me are a metonym for a society that has better things to do than make an unremarkable wall look pretty.
This is a contrast with the United States, of course. Perhaps, in other parts of Russia there is more superficial battles to “keep up with the Joneses” raging just outside the confines of people’s living rooms, but I don’t see it here. I see people living—getting by. It’s not even a consequence of modesty, really; it’s just life. This what apartment buildings look like in areas of the world where it makes no sense to clean up a building’s exterior, when no one has a clean one to begin with, and it is not going to improve your quality of life or mine.
“It’s Russian Pragmatism,” as my Russian Politics professor would say.
But while people aren’t really decorating or even cleaning their apartment building exteriors, they are doing something else—and that’s watching television. I know my host mother and father turn the colorful box on as soon as they come home. And the shiny happy people selling you everything you need are right there waiting to break up your soap opera episode or your morning cartoons.
Like any good capitalistic country, post-communist or not, I am in a land of consumers. I really have yet to fully comprehend the penetration of the global phenomenon as it stands, here in Novgorod. But I am well aware that if I ever need a good Russian brew while I’m waiting for the bus, there are at least three brand names I would quickly recognize.
posted by Erhardt at 8:23 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home