Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
States, over Russian objections, has an air base in Kyrgyzstan that it uses to move troops
into Afghanistan), they still look to Russia—in an almost paternal way—to come to the
rescue. Indeed, Kyrgyzstan's president asked Moscow to send peacekeeping forces to quell
the violence in 2010.
The terrible ethnic conflict came to mind when Sergei and I made the stop in Baikalsk,
when Taisiya, the local activist, grabbed the Stalin biography from her bookcase and said
he
is the kind of leader Russia needs today. She's not alone. Especially among older Rus-
sians—and as Taisiya demonstrated, even among those who criticize the government and
push for change—Stalin nostalgia is growing.
Andrei, in Sagra, looks at socialist countries today with envy. Ivan, the young man with
the meteor pebbles, says if he'd lost both his parents in Soviet times, the government would
have done so much more to help him. For seventy years this was a country where the gov-
ernment could come to your rescue. But rescue from what? Maybe that was Stalin's magic.
He created the feeling of chaos, fear, and confusion so people—from Central Asia to the
streets of Moscow—needed him, needed government. They had no other choice.
And today people
do
speak of a sense of loss. When Sergei and I rode the train in 2011,
we stopped briefly on the train platform in the Siberian city of Amazar and met a sixty-two-
year-old woman named Inna Khariv. She was receiving a small government pension—three
hundred dollars a month—after working on a mink farm in the Soviet Union. She looks
back fondly to Soviet times, when she felt cared for by a government that provided educa-
tion, jobs, and health care, and also felt a sense of national purpose.
“You can argue with me, but this is what we had—we lived with it—we had one faith,
one goal,” she said, adding that in today's Russia “nothing holds us together.”
Now she is no fan of Putin. But she hasn't seen anyone come forward since Soviet times
showing promise to take the country in a positive direction: “I lost my faith in this govern-
ment, and I lost my faith in our youth. We do not have a replacement, [there's] no worthy
replacement for us.”
After the Soviet Union fell, Boris Yeltsin took a stab at more Western-style democracy,
and Russians saw nothing but economic disaster. Putin came to power and amassed huge
support. Russians saw a strong leader who could restore order, end the chaos. And for a
time he succeeded. Putin made many Russians wealthy and gave the economy a huge boost,
using the country's vast energy resources. But now the forward march of Russia—wherever
it was going—seems to have stalled. Putin has slowly been losing support, and something is
stirring—the protests in December 2011 showed there are people, a minority, ready to take
to the streets and fight for broad change. In reaction Putin clamped down on dissent, tar-
geted human rights organizations, and brought more fear back into society. So what now?
People are frustrated, angry, and not satisfied with life. But that isn't driving all that
many people to the streets with protest banners. For many the reaction is to turn inward,
Search WWH ::
Custom Search