The Bureaucracy of Collectivization

You may be thinking that this is a strange blog post title, but as I've been living here in Russia, I've noticed a few things that are either left over from the Soviets or that still mimic Soviet life.



The first of these realizations came last night as I was walking to the dorm. I was gazing at the MSU Stalinist skyscraper (shown above) when I thought "man, it is so cool that all the students live under one roof in a school this big" at that moment I saw the hammer and sickle which still adorns the top of the tower. I suddenly realized that this was the exact thing that the Soviet government was going for. I had a horrible flash to the really depressing novel "The Foundation Pit" by Platonov, who wrote about this very subject of building one huge structure to house all the "proliteriates" or workers and the terrible things that happened to these people because of the collectivization of their farms.

The next one of these moments happened today when I was a the super store called Ашан pronounced as a-shawn, but because its French it's spelled as Auchan. Well as I was there today I bought a чайник or chai'nik, I don't know what to call this in English but you plug it in and it boils water. Anyways, I bought this thing and the lady tells me I need to go around to another place after I pay. But of course she said it all so fast, I just couldn't follow her at all. Plus the idea of paying for something then returning to the store was completely foreign to me. So, I decided to just leave. But they stopped me naturally and made me return to this "technology" desk which was just a table near the exit. Here a lady took my chai'nik, opened it, plugged it in and turned it on to make sure it worked. After it turned on, she pulled out a piece of paper from the box and started to fill it out. Once she was done she grabbed a huge stamp and stamped the paper. From there she passed the paper to me and made me sign as well verifying that the 10$, plastic, cheapest thing I could find, American made chai'nik worked and I had one week to return it. Ugh. It was so much work just to make tea.

The second thing that happened which was ridiculous was when I wanted to buy an 30 ruble (99 cent) ice cream bar from the little convenience store in our sector. I went up to the register that I always use, with the same cute Russian girl who works there every night. But tonight was different,I had ice cream and not water. Therefore, she looked at me sadly and told me I had to go to a different register on the other side of this store the size of my bedroom and pay for the ice cream there. I still can't comprehend why certain registers can only check certain items out of 1 store, especially when I only pay in cash and spend 1$! What if I had bought water and ice cream, would I have to check out at 2 spots?

Well everyday I have questions like this to think about. But, I'm still having a blast. The people I have interacted with have been amazing. Today I went to two museums. The first was about and at the house of author, poet, painter Lermontov and the second was at the apartment and about the composer Scriabin. In both of these places they didn't speak any English which was great, and the old babushkas who worked there were all so sweet. They all spoke slowly and coherently and took me around their respective museums. They told me jokes and were asking what I was doing in Moscow. It was a great day and I would recommend anyone to make a stop by those two places.

So that's how I have been. Russian classes are still going well. I can feel slight improvements in my skills everyday which is awesome. Next week we start our Soviet history class which we're taking with a group of Russians. I'm really excited about this and the opportunity to make some good Russian friends! (plus talk to them about their opinions about the USSR and things like that). Everything occurs when it does here and there is no real organization that people live by. I've embraced this so who knows what I'll experience in the next few days!

Until then,
Пока! (poka or informal goodbye)