Wednesday, August 10, 2005
The More Things Change...
...the more they stay the same.
As I prepare to leave St. Petersburg in just a few hours, I am forced to reflect on what has not changed. It is overwhelming in both its apparentness and its pervasiveness. That is the bureaucratic mindset and the consequent inefficiency. The motto here is never employ one person when three will do. I presume this to be a holdover from communist days when everyone had to have a job of some sort, but I wonder if there is not a cultural component as well?
Two examples. The first example is clearing immigration. The process is virtually unchanged from the Soviet days, the one difference being the absence of armed guards at ever turn. The inspectors still look you over like a proven smuggler, and the paper work would choke a horse.
The seccond example would be the operation of "State Museums." Every room has a "babushka" -- what we would call a docent -- sitting there. She is invariably female, usually quite aged. Her sole role appears to be to scowl, and appear generally unhappy, as if you had just spilled tea on her recently completed lace doily. She answers no questions, as you have a guide to do that. Your guide does not work for the museum, but rather for a tourist agency. You would think the babushka could at least clean up a little, but no, they have people for that as well.
Then you must exmigrate -- a process entirely reminiscent of immigrating.
These things are undoubtedly dragging down their new capitalist economy, and will likely disappear sooner rather than later, but for me, they cause a smile -- a little bit of the Russia I remember. It peeks through now and then, the occassional hammer and sickle on an abandoned building. The last remaining statue of Lenin looking to a bright socialist future. Yet another of the seemingly endless memorials to the "Great Patriotic War" festooned with USSR symbols. Even if the GPW is now called WWII here as in the rest of the world, since they feel little or no patriotism to the country that fought in that war.
I am glad I returned here, and sad that I am leaving. So much to see and do that remains undone. So much I wish to show my lovely wife, who grows lovlier with each passing day -- perhaps another time -- alas.
Now on to Helsinki, and the "real" seminars with Hugh Hewitt and David Allen White begin. Who knows where Ralphie may show up in the next few days?
As I prepare to leave St. Petersburg in just a few hours, I am forced to reflect on what has not changed. It is overwhelming in both its apparentness and its pervasiveness. That is the bureaucratic mindset and the consequent inefficiency. The motto here is never employ one person when three will do. I presume this to be a holdover from communist days when everyone had to have a job of some sort, but I wonder if there is not a cultural component as well?
Two examples. The first example is clearing immigration. The process is virtually unchanged from the Soviet days, the one difference being the absence of armed guards at ever turn. The inspectors still look you over like a proven smuggler, and the paper work would choke a horse.
The seccond example would be the operation of "State Museums." Every room has a "babushka" -- what we would call a docent -- sitting there. She is invariably female, usually quite aged. Her sole role appears to be to scowl, and appear generally unhappy, as if you had just spilled tea on her recently completed lace doily. She answers no questions, as you have a guide to do that. Your guide does not work for the museum, but rather for a tourist agency. You would think the babushka could at least clean up a little, but no, they have people for that as well.
Then you must exmigrate -- a process entirely reminiscent of immigrating.
These things are undoubtedly dragging down their new capitalist economy, and will likely disappear sooner rather than later, but for me, they cause a smile -- a little bit of the Russia I remember. It peeks through now and then, the occassional hammer and sickle on an abandoned building. The last remaining statue of Lenin looking to a bright socialist future. Yet another of the seemingly endless memorials to the "Great Patriotic War" festooned with USSR symbols. Even if the GPW is now called WWII here as in the rest of the world, since they feel little or no patriotism to the country that fought in that war.
I am glad I returned here, and sad that I am leaving. So much to see and do that remains undone. So much I wish to show my lovely wife, who grows lovlier with each passing day -- perhaps another time -- alas.
Now on to Helsinki, and the "real" seminars with Hugh Hewitt and David Allen White begin. Who knows where Ralphie may show up in the next few days?
