Concrete tinted spectacles

Eventually it strikes you just how much you have seen from this place. Big single things like 911 happened to me here. I watched the planes crash into the towers with a Russian talking over it, it was Russians calling to ask if I was seeing what was happening. As a result it all meant something different than what it meant to the Americans or the Europeans. It all reached me via a Russian filter. The same with Bush and Iraq and Obama and Blair: none of it meant what it meant to the people back home: when I got there to England I realized that their understanding was different in a thousand little ways, and I didn’t see what they were seeing.  Though at the same time I wasn’t Russian so couldn’t feel it all as they did, for their lack of understanding concerning the west was just as great as mine had been concerning Russia. Not that this provided any great insight, I was just less sure of it all that people on either side of the divide. They all read and understood it in wildly contradictory ways, but what they had, and have in common, is conviction that they have it right.

 Vast changes in the world happened in Russia and in Russian too: the internet took off while I was here and, while it meant that suddenly where you were didn’t matter so much, it still meant that in a Russian way because everyone around, experiencing the same shift was Russian, and all the software was free too.

 Likewise with mobile phones and mobile connectivity more generally: all of it happened in the half lawless context of Russia and so meant different things. All of this is obvious, but that doesn’t make it any less significant. When Russian friends ask about how this works in England I don’t really know. Ebay and amazon and property websites would appear to be what it meant to my English friends, whereas here it meant someone delivering a washing machine to the flat door, installing it and then taking the money for it all, and an access to information that was not there before.

 Putinism too all happened here, and this meant that while I could see how utterly the west had failed to grasp what he meant to the Russians, still I had the same instincts as those in the west. I shared the same dream of a sane and free Russia driving out corruption and obstructive officialdom. But, I remembered Yeltsin’s time and knew that the people of the “Free world” would have voted exactly as the Russians did in 99.

In the end by seeing more aspects you end up being less sure of everything, and it would be easier if the Russians or the Wesistanis each had one nice clear opinion, but in each camp there are as many certainties as there are possible interpretations.

Elsewhere leaves you bewildered and it can get exhausting.