The Foreign Service Journal, December 2016

38 DECEMBER 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL ers of private property and individual success; and only about 1 percent we can call ‘neo-Russian’—those with a balanced view of the external world and a desire to live and function in a progressive society.” Yurevich, another friend, has lived and worked in Moscow since completing his studies at the end of the 1980s. He puts the same idea another way, pointing out how long it takes for any society to free itself of the slave mentality: “About 150 years ago, Russia formally ended serfdom—the same time as the abolition of slavery in the United States. See how long the echo of distrust and low self-esteem lasts in both countries? And the slave belief that a man is unable to influence his fate has remained an element of the Russian soul since then. It helped the czars and the communists maintain power after emancipation…and is a big factor in the government’s popu- larity now. “Periods of oppression followed one after the other,” con- tinues Yurevich. “In 1917, the Communists destroyed the thin layer of society whose members had begun to raise their heads after the emancipation of 1861—the kulaki (wealthy farmers), the new intelligentsia and leading engineers. They were killed or compelled to emigrate, so the West got Sikorsky, Bunin and many others.” “It’s in the Homo rusicus genes to count not on himself, but on someone from above,” Yurevich says. “He has had few opportunities to express his intellect and talents. As the poet Nikolay Nekrasov wrote, ‘The master will come and the master will solve the problem.’” An engineer by training, Yurevich sees the lack of personal accountabil- ity as an explanation for the fact that Russian innovation rarely makes it to market thanks to a Russian. It takes determination born of a sense of ownership and responsibility to turn an idea into a product. Perestroika , the effort to restruc- ture the political and economic life of the country initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s, gave people a chance to open their eyes and start thinking for themselves. “But the only way to incubate a mentality of accountability and free-thinking is via the education system; and it’s not visible yet,” Yurevich adds. “Still, many people have learned to overcome the infantilism of the USSR and become responsible for their own fate.” The More Things Change The wave of capitalism rolled eastward in the 1990s, and the landscape changed forever. Fanatic consumerism is now unabated, as are the traffic jams—which often reach maximum density around shopping centers. But many average Russians were washed overboard in the torrent. Even those who find success and happiness in post- Soviet Russia are nostalgic. Beyond getting used to the new perceived reality of poor-quality, high-priced “public” education and health care, there are changes in the very fabric of soci- ety. Gaping sinkholes in the mental landscape have appeared. Beloved traditions have disappeared out of reach forever. Friend- ships are harder to form—there is less interdependence and less time. Discourse at the kitchen table has been replaced by a mind-numbing flat-screen TV and “googling” for answers. Druzhba narodov (the friendship of peoples), which described respectful interaction between Russia’s ethnic groups in the Soviet era, took a nosedive as migrants began to compete with locals for jobs and social services. Tensions, real and imag- People line up to purchase milk at a store in Syktyvkar, Russia, in 1989. At right, an August 1989 ration voucher for tea. SHAWNDORMAN