BACK TO THE CITY

Hello to all! Just to give you short update on what's going on...I'm back in Yakutsk, the capital city of the Sakha Republic, where I was in the spring. It's pretty funny coming back to the city after spending so much time in the countryside--you begin to see things in a different way. If before, I thought of Yakutsk as a small Soviet city, now I see it as a big Sakha metropolis. It is the center of this region and carries itself like a center--people come from all over the republic and are awed by the glamour of the big city. It is a young person's paradise--movie theaters, restaurants, cafes, discotecs, shopping centers, parks. The city is a strange mix of old old wooden houses, Soviet block apartment buildings, and flashy "postmodern" architecture--or at least the Siberian interpretation of postmodern. This includes bright purple facades, orange arches and pseudo-Arabian minuets. In the center of the city, stands the "old town": a reconstructed version of what Yakutsk was supposedly like 100 years ago. The "authenticity" of this reconstruction, however, is hotly debated, such that people jokingly call it the new old town. The streets are paved with stone and lined with lamps. There are newly refurbished and rebuilt wooden buildings, all finished to a shine. The names of the restaurants and shops that now fill the buildings are advertised in giant red letters. It's pleasant to walk around the two blocks that it occupies but gives you the feeling of being outside time somehow.

I'm living in the dormitory here, as I was in the spring, on the floor with all the international students and teachers. This time I got put on the side with the teachers, fortunately, as the student side is a bit raucous, filled with 16 Koreans, 3 Austrians, a Finn and a Swede. They are all here studying Russian (an interesting choice of place to study Russian, you might be thinking, and you would be right--but it is an adventure and they are enjoying themselves if the sound from their side of the hall is any indication). On my side of the hall are 4 teachers: Belgian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. They are all really nice, speak great Russian and we often cook together (or they teach me how to cook).


A NEW PRESIDENT FOR THE WORLD

Many people have been curious as to what the reaction to Obama's presidency was here. I definitely got an interesting international perspective on this living amongst almost the entire foreign population of Yakutsk. In the dormitory, they were ecstatic. The Europeans were almost as excited as I was...but not quite--I think it would have been really difficult for anyone but an American to have achieved that level of excitement. And the Asians were all smiles and congratulations for me as well. Our cleaning lady (a local Yakut woman) didn't know what I was talking about when I told her the news, neither did the lady who sells me eggs down the street. But most everyone else I've spoken to has wanted to ask me about that, is excited, interested, curious. Just as most people were frustrated by Bush the first time I came here, most people are excited by Obama. Although, at the same time, in contrast to the Europeans in the dormitory, few people here are involved on a personal level--they see my excitement and agree that, yes, indeed, he appears to be a good candidate, and they hope that things can go in a different direction. But the most common attitude is simple curiosity. Curiosity in the American political process, surprise that we care so much, wonder that Americans think that it matters who their president is.


POLITICS, YAKUTIAN-STYLE

The political climate here is much much different than it is in the US. Where in the US, everyone pays attention to the federal elections, and no one much knows who runs for local office, in Russia everyone pays attention to local elections and no one much knows about the candidates for national office. I was in fact here, in Yakutsk, during the election of Medvedev as President of Russia. The event went by as almost unnoticeable--had I not known it was happening, I'm quite sure I wouldn't have even realized that there was a presidential election going on. Of course, part of this is due to the fact that he had no real competitors--no one was under any illusion that he wouldn't win, so there wasn't much of a need to talk about it. But, it was also eclipsed by the furor of local elections: the election of representatives to the regional parliament and to the city legislature. There were real contests as the communists, "United Russia" and "Fair Russia," as the three significant political parties battled for spots, battled for influence on a local level. Candidates promised street repair, building repair and all sort of other issues close to the real lives of residents and people paid attention. Of course, Putin and Medvedyev's party, "United Russia," as the most powerful party won the parliamentary elections with a sweeping majority of delegates, but the other two parties remain significant voices in the legislature.

What was also interesting was being in Mirnii--a "Russian" city in Western Yakutia, where I was for a week and a half in September. At that time, there were elections being held for Mayor of the city. I was helping to teach English at the university there. The English teachers were loaded with work, a component of which was to encourage students to vote, and to vote for the candidate the university administration supported, the "United Russia" candidate. The teachers were annoyed at the extra responsibility, but grudgingly accepted it as necessary. I was myself was confused and surprised by what I interpreted as a farce of democracy. What kind of democracy is it that relies on the political machines of institutions to force their members and students to vote for certain candidates? When I expressed this attitude, the other teachers forcefully disagreed with me. One active young teacher explained that the average person doesn't know much about politics, doesn't have the discretion to support one candidate over another. And for students, what's good for the institute is good for them. The university, then, votes as a block, just as labor unions in the US tend to vote as a block. When it comes down to it, no one checks precisely who a given individual votes for, but students are encouraged to come out in mass in support of their institute's chosen candidate.

This conversation really kind of opened my eyes to the knee-jerk, very "American" reaction I had to Russian political process--the immediate assumption that a political process that proceeds differently than ours is automatically undemocratic. Its very easy to look at one particular phenomenon through the already established lens of "Russia is an authoritarian country" and see that this is the case. But if you look at the politics in the context of a deeper history and broader social structure, the process begins to make a little more sense. Public life, at least in Yakutia, is closely connected with workplace, with labor group. As a rule-by-workers political structure, the Soviet Union was originally organized in this way, where "sovets" or labor unions were the main political units. This structure remains reflected in the importance work collectives have for political and public life. Work collectives not only organize political process, they also organize public celebrations--each workplace is expected to send representatives, to take part in the festivals. Even social action is organized through workplace--this summer, I participated in a youth project to clean up an area by the river covered in litter. The leaders contacted each workplace and requested that they inform their workers. In the fall, each labor group (e.g. cultural workers, educational professionals, health care) held a large event at the local "house of culture" to give awards and to celebrate the achievements of workers in their field.


THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGING...

Of course, this type of social structure is quickly changing as unemployment, for instance, has appeared for the first time, and a less vertical political structure begins to take shape in the region. Beginning in 2009, the government will introduce a new system of worker payment, that aims toward eventual privatization of many government offices. The hardest hit by this new system will be the administration of culture--a branch of government dedicated to organizing all "cultural" activities and events, from the organization of public festivals to administering the local library. Libraries will still retain substantial public funding, but most professional artists and writers, actors and musicians are currently employed by the administration of culture, make their living as government employees and soon be set free. Government support (or control--however you want to look at it) for the arts will soon be phased out, creativity will be privatized and all these people will have to learn how to market themselves and their talents, to make them profitable or find another job.

What I think this underscores, is not necessarily the cruelty of the market, but one of the myths of capitalism--the myth of "freedom" in the idea of free markets, or even the notion of "freedom" period. Forgive my theoretical digression here but I think this is important. One of the things socialistic government are often accused of is totalitarianism. Americans are particularly afraid of "big government," of government having too much power over our money and our property and so we seek privatization, deregulation as way of increasing "freedom." When you look at the arts, in particular, people on the left and the right are equally concerned about government involvement to the extent that it might stifle freedom of expression, even if not directly, a government employee is dependent on a certain political structure for job security, etc. and we fear the indirect influence of this system. And this is absolutely a valid concern. I am foremost among those who would be wary of any government monopolization of the arts. Indeed, even in education I have my qualms.

However, seeing and hearing the fears of my friends who work in the administration of culture as they prepare for this transition made me see things in a different way. They were afraid of the constraints the market would put on freedom of expression. All of a sudden, they were forced to think about how to sell their art, how to create something for consumption, something that would appeal on a mass-scale. And this was terrifying. "I lose all my freedom," one poet friend told me, now I simply have to make things that will sell.

And here is where the myth of "freedom" falls flat. I do not pretend to say that there is any more freedom in a government structured cultural administration, just that there is not necessarily less freedom there than in a market-structured cultural environment. Either way there are constraints. And in both situations, the person not dependent on their art for money is free to do and say what he pleases.