More Matter Back in the U.S.S.R.

Author: Matty Van Meter

I'm writing this on a train from Nezhin, Ukraine to Kyiv. Perhaps there is no better way to understand the contemporary culture and everyday life of the former Soviet Union than to sit in a clanking suburban train for three hours, packed in with babushki and crumpled men in ratty fur hats. Among the striking characteristics of life here, which are apparent on the train or indeed, in any place which sees many people drawn together, is the informality and uncertainty of Slavic life.

Speaking with a physicist who came to visit an acquaintance in Irkutsk late one night, conversation turned to America. "I love America," he said, "But I need to be a hooligan sometimes, sometimes I need to just do what I want, and you can't do that in America." This has stayed with me because, when scrutinized, our lives reveal themselves to be very tidy and very much lived by the book. If you think they aren't, I invite you to Russia; for cultural anarchy, it has few peers. We in America generally follow rules and we plan our futures out, and pattern our lives on those plans. Particularly at a place like Middlebury, where everyone has a sense of purpose, a plan, and a goal. This is, after all, how we were raised. But in the headlong drive towards that goal, we occasionally forget to live along the way. I am not encouraging laziness, rather I am discouraging narrowness. If you spend all your time in BiHall or the library, come out more than just on Friday nights. We live in a beautiful place with a huge number of opportunities. Try them out.

Kostya, a History major at Irkutsk State University, told me that the greatest difference between us was the degree of predictability in our lives. "I am a citizen of a country of the former Soviet Union," he said, "I don't know what will happen tomorrow. That makes my life harder, but it also makes me stronger than you." Our lives, in America in general, and at Middlebury in particular, are relatively staid. A frame and a canvas are laid out for us, and we paint in the middle. The number of givens in our lives is enormous. It is what allows us to do what we do here; devote ourselves to learning at a very high level. To be reminded of those whose lives work on a very different set of preconditions, is valuable. Kostya was right, in a way, he is stronger. He is stronger because he is ready for anything, and not just politically. It is hard to overemphasize the instability of everything in Russia. Again, I can only invite disbelievers to attempt, say, going to a library and reading a book (hint: get very friendly with the surliest of the babushki who populate the darkest corners). Every day is an adventure, and not just to a foreigner. There is not the same safety net of basic certainties and luxuries of expectation which we here at Middlebury are especially blessed and cursed with.

My observations have two consequences for everyday life of students here at Middlebury College. First, we can become stronger by being more aware of how much of our lives we expect to go a certain way, and then not planning on everything working perfectly. Second, we can be more gracious and creative when things go wrong; when the shower doesn't work, when the dining hall is out of the dishes we have taken, when something is not just so.

Traveling a few days ago from Donetsk to Dnipropetrovsk, the car I was driving broke down. I was understandably frustrated, and it had been a long day and I had a train that night from Dnipropetrovsk to Kyiv, which I could not miss. The Ukrainians, however, after smoking a few cigarettes and speculating at the cause of the engine trouble, grabbed bread, vodka, tomatoes, and cucumbers, and we had ourselves a picnic and watched the sun go down. By the way, there is no Russian word for "frustration."