Igor assured me, “From our perspective here (in Moscow) so close to Europe, we see ourselves as European. Many of the other Russians, including those in Siberia and Eastwards do not.”
Igor added, “As a matter of fact, we don’t really understand each other.”
Igor went so far as envisioning a rump Russia of sorts in his nation’s future, i.e. where the Western or European Russians split off into their own country.
I challenged Igor, “Certainly, you don’t imagine Russia peacefully giving up on its great gas- and oil reserves in the hinterland of its mammoth land empire, do you?”
Igor nodded but also countered, “In fact, this disillusionment might ultimately be possible because, in a nutshell, we all see the world so differently. That is, we in the West certainly think much differently than those in other corners of the territory of Russia.”
LAST NIGHT OUT IN MOSCOW
On the last two nights of my stay in Moscow, I ventured out into parts of the city on my own.
The first night I ran into some young people in their twenties. They were university students.
One pretty young women said she had studied fashion design and would love to leave Russian and to study fashion while working in Italy. Some of the other students had similar dreams.
None of them seemed to be satisfied with the system and were ready to move West. That is, unless the Western investors and capitalists (and democrats) would decide to move East.
I bought these younger (and poorer) students some hamburgers and these young Russians introduced me to cognac.
That’s right—not vodka but cognac!!
You see, these young people were not interested in things of Russia--or its great past.
They were only focused on the West.
I had to admit that French cognac had much more to it than either whiskey or vodka—even after eating a few tiny western hamburgers cooked a la Muscova.
Similarly, I had to admit not being impressed by what the giant people’s department store GUM (across from the Kremlin) had to offer either its citizens or foreign visiting consumers. Click here.
