Dale's dispatches from Kalmykia
Monday, April 3, 2006
Installment 8: Radio China, Radio Turkey, Radio Germany
Since we are hungry for news in English, Don bought a short wave radio a while ago. Switching stations and hearing so many different languages is amazing. We can't find the BBC but listen often to Radio China in English and sometimes the English stations from Turkey and Germany. It reminds us that Russia and Elista in the Kalmyk republic in South Russia are a crossroads between Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Events in all those places seem much closer than events in the U.S. - a totally different view of the world.
Putin's trip to China was covered closely. People here told us that he took the head of the Kalmyk republic with him in his delegation and emphasized that Russia has Buddhists not only in the far east but also in European Russia. Russia's oil and gas resources are strengthening its bargaining position in foreign policy both in the east and in the west. Many students here are studying not only the Kalmyk language but also Chinese. Our translator's grandmother is on a Buddhist retreat in India.
Yelena took me to a celebration of the 20th anniversary of a senior citizen Kalmyk dance and singing group. We walked into the Culture Palace late in the dark and she asked some people in good seats to move so we could sit down. When I looked to my right I saw people in very fearsome warrior-type silk outfits, and Yelena whispered it was the official delegation from Mongolia (I hadn't been quite that close to Mongolian warriors before). Then the young dancers came down from the stage and gave them and me Kalmyk tea and white welcome scarves. (Later, one of my students who was one of the dancers presenting the tea - I hadn't recognized her in the lovely traditional Kalmyk silk dress - said it had all been planned ahead, and that it is customary to save those seats for honored guests. so those who had to move probably weren't as annoyed as I feared.) Wonderful folk dancing occurs at all celebrations. That student also told me her group went to Belgium last summer for a month-long folk dancing festival - after a five-DAY bus trip (she admitted that they were exhausted when they had to dance right after arrival).
Don and I made a second visit to the research institute of law and economics. When I asked the director the question I was asked at the U.S. Embassy - Are Russians willing to actively participate in improving their country, or are they waiting for Moscow to do it for them? - she said that it will take a long time. She said (or the translator said she said, and I always wonder how much I am missing) that in the U.S. people know that freedom means within the rule of law, but unfortunately in Russia some people don't see freedom that way. The scholars who met with me study ethnic identity in Russia. One of them said he fears that globalization is undermining many nationalities' identities and also giving them bad ideas. They, like me, think it should be possible for ethnic groups (nationalities) to have two identities, feeling loyalty both to their country and to their group. There doesn't seem to be any interest in secession in Kalmykia - as one student said, it is too poor and is dependent on Moscow.
Some folks stress that they have free speech now but didn't have it in Soviet times. Some of my students say they have as much freedom as people in the U.S., others say not. I say that comparisons like that are difficult. The important thing is for each country to make progress addressing its own problems.
Everyone I've talked to agrees that Russia does not want to be told what to do by the U.S. Many see U.S. attempts to speed up democratization here and in former Soviet republics (the near abroad) as an effort to dominate Russia.
I agree with Zevelev, chief of Russian news Washington bureau, that pushing Putin too hard and returning to Cold War rhetoric will be counterproductive. I agree with the Council of Foreign Relations' recent report urging selective cooperation and selective opposition. Bush seems correct when he says it is important for him to go to the G8. It is a multi-polar world in which quiet diplomacy may be most effective.
We continue to learn about the view of the world according to those who live here - with dinner at Natalyia's apartment, another dinner at the apartment of the dean of the Kalmyk and English faculties, and conversations with university faculty, secondary teachers at their spring break workshop, and high school English classes. Last night we went to a program celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Institute of Law and Economics (where we both teach) with a long parade of government officials giving gifts and flowers followed by a banquet for 75 that ended with everyone out on the dance floor gyrating to rock music.
Now that spring is here we are looking forward to traveling to some of the other cities in South Russia and giving little talks - Astrakahn (on the Caspian Sea, the Volga, and the border with Kazakstan), Rostov on the Don, and Volgograd.
Stay tuned,
Dale Marshall
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