Sunday, July 17, 2005

Back in the ссср

When here, it's striking how much of modern Russia is obviously the Soviet Union. You can feel it ... all the buildings, all the social relationships, the culture, the Dostoyevsky depression, the Moscow snobbery, the Moscow/non-Moscow divide ... this is the USSR. What's different?

Less social expenditure, of course. More violent crime, certainly. More corruption too. People more extraordinarily enriching themselves at the expense of others. The death of manufacture & agriculture. A deeper distrust of people. A torn social safety net. A general reduction of happiness ... note that there's a small percentage of the Moscow population who might disagree with me. And, I'm comparing it to the 1980's of course, not Stalin's day.

These are huge changes. But the USSR is everywhere, pervasive, and it's not going away. But it's completely lost what little was left of a people's ideology.

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