They do say first impressions are crucial to the perception and my first impressions weren't good at all. I was already well travelled by 1981 and had seen enough not to judge a country and its people by what I had heard or read in the papers. What I saw and experienced shocked me. I had an image of Russia (or the USSR) being one of the most advanced nations of the time. After all they had competed with the USA in the space race, they must be techno-smart.
The place I visited was admittedly a timber community in the White Sea, hardly Moscow or St. Petersburg and not even in the top 50 most populous cities of Russia. Oddly the population in 1981 was 392,000 and peaked in 1988 with around 415,000 before declining to its current population of 349,000. I'm not sure why this has happened. We arrived by ship, only possible for 8 months of the year, to load up with timber bound for St. Malo in France.
At first we didn't notice anything out of the ordinary but that changed very quickly. We had a dozen or so Russian workers on board assisting with the loading of cargo and quickly made friends with them. On breaks and lunch times we invited the Russian workers to eat and drink with us. They were very appreciative and we bonded with our hosts. Communication was quite difficult but I spoke German as did a couple of the Russians and we communicated adequately. They loved our food - and beer - and all was sweet but we soon became aware of the hardships they endured. Some were imparted to us, some we witnessed first hand.
We were told that on average, six families - usually 3 generations - lived in a 3-storey building. We also made a mistake ordering roubles to spend ashore, you could get much more for your money if you paid in pounds sterling. In addition we would have gotten a much better exchange rate if we had changed our pounds on the Black Market, which probably made sense, but the revelation the Black Market was run by the police was an eye-opener.
One thing we did object to was the armed guard at the bottom of our gangway. Initially we felt sorry for the soldiers that stood at the bottom of our gangway for hours on end. The 'changing of the guard' was full of ceremony which seemed a bit OTT for a small cargo ship, and it wasn't long before our 'humour' got the best of us. For our shame we lobbed sporadic snowballs at the soldiers on guard but felt better about it when the Russian workers did the same.
What I saw in the town centre made me wish we had put rocks in the snowballs. An armed escort saw us accompanied to the 'Seaman's Mission' and we passed a number of obviously drunk soldiers picking on citizens and demanding papers. Their demeanour was of bully boys with bellies full of vodka and a belligerent arrogance. It was small wonder we had an armed escort or there would have undoubtedly been confrontations.
On the 20 minute walk we passed a number of shops with long queues outside the doors. Glancing into the shops, we noticed that all the shelves were bare. It all began to sink in. The Mission was unlike any other I had been to, we were constantly pestered by smiling people offering us free books. The smiles didn't reach their eyes and it was hard not to be rude. Being on ships pre-internet days, we did a lot of reading and happily accepted the books we were given - all written in English. However a quick perusal showed the books to be nothing more than state organised propaganda.
It wasn't even remotely believable and insulted the intelligence. A couple of paragraphs then an anti-west rant, it was so false and transparent it was laughable. How stupid did the authorities believe us to be? I wondered if the common Russian folk were fed similar propaganda, and if they were, did they believe it?
I also found out why Russians drink so much vodka. Everything else tastes like shit! The beer was disgusting, the sparkling wine was like carbonated water and the spirits - apart from vodka - tasted more like sickly cordials. The roubles we ordered, we couldn't spend and to add insult to injury we were told we had to hand them in before we left Russia and would be given a receipt whereby we could get them back on our next visit. I never gave mine back and kept them as souvenirs (I had quite a foreign currency collection at that point).
Now things probably improved after the break-up of the USSR, or so it seemed to me as a casual observer. Communism hadn't worked for reasons laid out by George Orwell in Animal Farm and Russia seemed to be adopting a more western approach, surely not such a bad thing. The problem was the fall of communism hadn't improved the corruption situation, it exacerbated it. The people hadn't benefitted from western values - except perhaps in Moscow and St. Petersburg - the oligarchs had. The people weren't given more truth and freedom, what little they had was taken away.
Putin and his cronies stole the wealth of the people whilst leaving them to rot. Much of Russia took a step backwards as 100+ billionaires took the cream. Of course this became more and more obvious to western eyes and with social media, it was being noticed at home too. Putin's paranoia grew exponentially, pretty soon he would be rumbled and held to account. His solution? Resurrect the USSR, steal more resources, shut down the media and blame the west for anything and everything.
The conclusion is that my initial impression of Russia was 100% correct! The authorities are corrupt, the soldiers are animals and the people are oppressed.
Ukraine is doing western Europe a huge service and no expense should be spared in supporting them in their fight for democracy and freedom from oppressors. A defeat for Ukraine would be a huge setback for democracy and a civilised world. Putin is selling this as a war against NATO and it is probably true in a sense, but it is a war of aggression started by Putin. NATO could - and probably should - wipe the floor with Russia but for real change, the Russian people need to wake up and smell the coffee.
Only Russians can change Russia and change is long overdue.
