Russia today

[Udut, Kenneth]

Everything that I've seen printed
about the "state of Russia today"
doesn't sound any different than a
description of the United States from
various circles.

These problems that Russian is having,
is probably always had, and are not
all that different from problems in the
United States.

Big cities have crime - true in the US and
in Russia.  Buerocratic systems are
corrupt - well, that's nothing new :-)

There is a lot of positive stuff going
on in Russian, and I don't know why a
lot of non-Russian Slavists are so down
on Russia.

Churches are being rebuilt, monasteries
that had been in disrepair are getting
put back together, books are being printed
(there is a greater freedom of press now),
men and women are joining monasteries by
the hundreds - church attendence is up
dramatically... okay, as you can see,
this is the only information that I
really know about Russian situation :-)

But in any case, I don't know why there
is such a focus on the negative stuff
when talking about Russia.  Yes, the negative
stuff is there, but it's not so terribly
different from any society.

People often point to the Netherlands for
an example of a happy, functional society -
but they have the same types of problems that
are in Russia, or the United States.

It's all the color of the glasses one has on
when looking at a place.

The fly will see the dung and not the
flowers, the bee will see the flowers
growing in the dung, but not see the
dung.


           Kenneth Udut
Kenneth.Udut at SPCORP.COM

|-----Original Message-----
|From: Emily Tall [mailto:mllemily at acsu.buffalo.edu]
|Sent: Sunday, September 12, 1999 10:37 PM
|To: SEELANGS at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
|Subject: Russia today
|
|
|Can anyone teaching a Russian culture course, or planning to, tell me
|anything upbeat about Russia today? All I hear, day after day (and I
|subscribe to Johnson's Russia list, which makes it even worse) is
|corruption and fraud, crime, no respect for the law, health crises,
|ecological crises, and so on and on. I have not been to Russia
|since 1994
|and so am dependent on published reports, travellers, emigres, and
|visitors. Does one have to go back to the past to find
|anything worthy of
|admiration? I have a feeling a lot of good things must be
|happening but we
|don't hear about them because no one finds them newsworthy.
|Thanks! Emily
|Tall
|