There's a French film called 'The diving bell and the butterfly'. It's about a man who has a stroke and when he is revived develops 'locked in syndrome'- a condition where he is totally paralyzed and unable to communicate- only his eyes still working, but his mind totally healthy. Understandably at first he is totally horrified by this total inability to do anything, but soon learns to cope with it. He begins to use his imagination to escape from his condition. In this world he spends time with his love, relishing life and experiencing as many beautiful moments as possible- the instances that people remember for the rest of their lives for their total perfection.
I feel like I'm in a diving bell too at the moment. There is so much about Russia that I would change. I'm not adopting some kind of British colonial attitude of 'our culture is better than theirs', but there is intrinsically a lot wrong with how people treat each other here. For example the mindset of businessmen and entrepreneurs in this country. They seem to base their whole aspirations for wealth around the outlook that the exploitation of anyone they possibly can is not only acceptable, but the only way to really achieve their ultimate goal. Everyone tries to fuck everyone over out here. Being a country that is relatively new to capitalism- not even a full generation through- the general population has absolutely no concept of 'value for money'. The result is that the type of rip offs being attempted are pathetic beyond belief. You order a portion of chips for £2, and half an hour later you get a portion that wouldn't fill a child. You buy a six-pack of eggs and half of them have gone off, etc. These are obviously very petty examples, but I'm using them to show a mindset rather than as individual examples. Once you buy something 'it's your problem', and nobody is going to give a shit unless you're some sort of big deal that could hurt them. There exists a strong hierarchy here, in which money is at the top and human decency is at the bottom. People are still not used to the idea that the individual's concerns are important in a democracy.
This lack of voice is at least bearable if the oppressed are able bodied people who can somehow scratch a living, but the whole situation is amplified when one considers the pensioners of the country. I am absolutely disgusted and horrified to see old men and women sleeping on park benches, walking around begging or selling small bundles of flowers or something similar. They are unable to work and the government routinely tears the pittance they get in pension from their withered old hands. Landlords exploit them- telling them to pay for an apartment that they had bought decades before, or refusing to do simple and routine maintenance to the building that they pay for simply because they know there's no one they could turn to for help.
It is these people's position that is most prominent in my head, and I can't begin to explain how horrible it feels when you've just eaten a big meal at a restaurant, enjoying your after meal cigarette when you see an old woman shuffle by with a bunch of flowers for sale- half bent and withered. I was so close earlier to walking up to an old lady who was sleeping on the bench in the park on a pile of rags and asking her how I could help and try to sort something out for her when I realised how totally insensitive it would be for me, a person who can't really help her, to get her hopes up that her situation could possibly ever change and that there could be more for her than what she currently has. I could get her an apartment and give her a decent amount of money, but what then? The minute I'm gone and that money is dried up she is back in the same situation sooner or later. Unfortunately charity needs to start from home, and there's no use in trying to keep someone afloat if you drown yourself. So I kept walking, and it made me feel awful. There's not been much else in my mind since apart from this stupid impotent anger and frustration at these sorts of situations.
It reminded me of my grandmother in Ukraine. Before this summer when both me and my dad started making enough money for more than just a hand to mouth existence, this frustration was even more accute and stiffling. It threw me into depression seeing them struggle the way they did, trying to live on a total of about £80 a month. Before this summer when dad ordered some new ones to be delivered to their house, they had slept on the same mattresses for 38 years because they couldn't afford to replace them. My grandmother worked two jobs and my grandfather did 16 hour shifts. Last summer when I was at theirs she said some of the most horrifying words I could ever hear from her: 'I have worked and struggled for 74 years. When am I going to start living?'. This example is the norm here, and if anything they get by at least better than a lot of other pensioners. They have my aunty and uncle to look after them financially and physically, whereas most don't even have that.
There is no support for the down and out here. If there's nothing to gain from them, they are abbandonned. People have developed this parasitic, animalistic attitude where those who are no use to furthering their own agenda are not even considered as the same order of human as them.
To bring this back to my introduction, I feel like I'm in a diving bell now. I want to shake up this whole fucking system. I want to stop every single black car with tinted windows, pull out the people inside, feed them to the stray dogs and give their belongings to the tramps. But I can't. And I never will be able to. I am a nobody with no voice in this system as much as anyone else. The only difference is I am only dipping my toes into this shit, not lying in it.
I read a book called 'The death of Ivan Illyich' by Tolstoy not long ago. The main character was a terminally ill judge. Throughout his life he did things that were considered proper for a person of his position and ability. He married into a good family, worked well on his career and bought himself a nice house and took pride in decorating it. He maintained work friends and occassionaly played cards. His relationship with his children and wife grew colder and colder throughout this whole process until his illness. Finding there to be no cure for it, he began to have to deal with the idea of his mortality. As he looked back at his own life he realised that he had completely wasted all of it on his reputation and material gain, and that what really mattered was to be a compassionate and selfless human being. He died happy in the knowledge that he had realised this, and full of pity for those around his deathbed who didn't know what he now knew. The clock has begun ticking, Russia's deathbed flashes through the collective mindset more and more.
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