As I picked up Vodka, Tears, and Lenin’s Angel, by Jennifer Gould, I thought that I was about to read a novel that would be boring with nothing but facts and statistics. As I began to read it, the novel became much more interesting. Jennifer Gould, a journalist, decided to go to Russia. She was there to research Russia and its culture. I would have never believed some of the situations and conversations she had with so many people. The topics that made me change my mind about Russia in general were the Internat, the cars and drivers, the homeless, and sexpionage.
While reading about the Internat, I started to get disgusted. One of the reasons for this is that Russia sent healthy children to orphanages with ill kids. They were not like orphanages hear in the United States, with reasonable housing conditions, education and a chance to live with a family to provide them the better things in life. Instead, as a punishment they would be beaten, or sent to a psychiatric facility and drugged or tied to their beds for months. The law will not allow foreigners adopt healthy children. In place of the healthy kids, they would find a Western doctor that would diagnose the sick children as healthy. I believe that is not far to the children or the family who is adopting the child. Also, in the summer the orphanages close down and the majority of the kids go to camp. Once the camps are filled the extra kids get sent to psychiatric facilities. A man named Vitaly Llynin told Jennifer, “Some children are sent to the orphanages because they are too hot-tempered and get into too many fights.” The children say that they do not understand why they go to these hospitals. An administrator believes that the children deny the fact that they are there because they are ashamed. None of the children receive counseling. Instead they are given antidepressants and tranquilizers. I personally can not believe that any person would think that this kind of action is okay.
Another subject that I found a little disturbing was how the people drive and who are the drivers. To me, Moscow sounds like its road are worse then Pennsylvania. There are no traffic laws. People can make illegal anywhere they want. Streets turn from one way to two way frequently. They have many potholes.
Historically, Russia has always been a country of perplexing dualities. The reality of Dual Russia, the separation of the official culture from that of the common people, persisted after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. The Czarist Russia was at once modernized and backward: St. Petersburg and Moscow stood as the highly developed industrial centers of the country and two of the capitals of Europe, yet the overwhelming majority of the population were subsistent farms who lived on mir; French was the official language and the elites were highly literate, yet 82% of the populati...
No war is fought without the struggle for resources, and with Russia still rapidly lagging behind in the international industrialisation race by the turn of the 20th century, the stage was set for social unrest and uprising against its already uncoordinated and temporally displaced government. With inconceivable demands for soldiers, cavalry and warfare paraphernalia, Russia stood little chance in the face of the great powers of World War One. Shortages of basic human necessities led to countless subsistence riots and the eventual power struggle between the ruling body and its people. From the beginnings of WWI to 1916, prices of essential goods rose 131 percent in Moscow and more than 150 percent in Petrograd. Additionally, historian Walter G. Moss stated that in September 1915 that “there were 100,000 strikers in Russia; in October 1916, there were 250,000 in Petrograd alone.” Moss continues to exemplify the increasing evidence of social unrest and connects the riots to a lack of resources when he goes on to point out that “subsistence riots protesting high prices and shortages… also increased.” ...
Sarah Davies*2(P11) observes that “there was little notion of what Russianness meant for ordinary workers and peasants.”(P23) What was missing from most Russian people was their sense of heritage, the pride in knowing where they came from and where they were going. They needed history a...
“Nevsky Prospect” gives us a view of the city of St. Petersburg. The majority of the story takes place on Nevsky Prospect, which appears to be a central place in St. Petersburg. This location gives readers insight into the daily lives and different types of people of the city. Being the center of the commercial and cultural life of the city, it attracts people from different classes and countries. People from all walks of life convene there to go about their daily activities, and immigrants find themselves there for like reasons. A view of Nevsky Prospect becomes provides a window into a miniature version of St. Petersburg.
Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin received the John Newbery Honor in 2012. Narrated by ten-year-old Sasha Zaichik, this novel depicts life for children growing up during the peak of Joseph Stalin’s reign over the Soviet Union. Within this text, themes such as injustice, corruption, and Communism are discussed through a child’s lens.
Yuri Trifonov chronicled the life of a Soviet conformist named Vadim Aleksandrovich Glebov in his novel, “The House on the Embankment.” Vadim Glebov leads a life in support of the Soviet Union’s tyranny and oppression of human rights in order to gain the high social status and power he envied beginning in childhood. The novel is a narrative that revolves around Glebov’s education and success, and it depicts what life was like as a Soviet citizen between the 1930’s and 1970’s. Through Glebov’s revealed repressed memories, we see the ultimate example of conformity.
This story may seem solely comedic, but within it is a darker tale of a Russia where, in the current times and those prior to it, social rank and position were key. ...
“Days of a Russian Noblewoman” is a translated memoir originally written by a Russian noblewoman named Anna Labzina. Anna’s memoir gives a unique perspective of the private life and gender roles of noble families in Russia. Anna sees the male and female gender as similar in nature, but not in morality and religiosity. She sees men as fundamentally different in morality and religiosity because of their capability to be freely dogmatic, outspoken, and libertine. Anna implies throughout her memoir that woman in this society have the capacity to shape and control their lives through exuding a modest, submissive, and virtuous behavior in times of torment. Through her marriage, Labzina discovers that her society is highly male centered.
Dostoevsky’s St. Petersburg is a large, uncaring city which fosters a western style of individualism. As Peter Lowe notes, “The city is crowded, but there is no communality in its crowds, no sense of being part of some greater ‘whole.’” Mrs. Raskolnikov initially notices a change in her son marked by his current state of desperate depression, but she fails to realize the full extent of these changes, even after he is convicted for the murder. The conditions and influences are also noticed by Raskolnikov’s mother who comments on the heat and the enclosed environment which is present throughout the city. When visiting Raskolnikov, she exclaims "I'm sure...
Russia’s social society as a whole is very different from that of other countries that surround it. Russia is physically the largest country in the world, and because the people are so widespread the social norms vary from place to place. Also, there are social characteristics that are evident in the cities that are drastically different than those seen in the small villages scattered throughout much of Russia’s rural countryside. The family structure and women’s roles are different in the urban areas than they are in the rural areas. Expectations and responsibilities vary so to study Russian family and gender roles one must find the similarities in rural and urban ways and also find the aspects that make them different. The same concept must also be used in looking at popular recreation in this large country.
Posadskaya, Anastasia. Women in Russia: A New Era in Russian Feminism. New York, New York: Verso, 1994. 62. Print.
The arena for this ideological contest is Petersburg, full of slums, revolutionary students and petty titular councilors. Scientifically and artificially constructed in the midst of marshland, the city itself is a symbol of the incompatibility of logical planning with humankind's natural sensibilities. The city did not grow randomly or organically, but entirely by czarist decree. Nonetheless, it is a dank and depressing place to live, at least for those in the vicinity of Haymarket Square, where the story takes place. Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky's biographer, says of ...
... power due to the installation of collectivization. Due to laws forbidding the private sale of individually produced goods, the peasantry is forced to rely on whatever is being sold at the market each day. Additionally in Volodina’s Election Day the lack of effort regarding the conditions of housing is an indicator of what is truly important to the decision-makers in the Soviet government. Couple the housing inaction with the coercive elections shown in the story and a clear picture of government influence is evident in soviet society.
known for decades: it pays to invest in Canada. There is a government commitment to attract foreign direct investment. Canada's government provides a competitive, welcoming climate for international business. It is committed to fiscal responsibility, deficit reduction and job creation.
Dostoevsky’s noteworthy literary works each contain similarities in theme, character development, and purpose when analyzed beyond face value. Dostoevsky’s early life and ideals, intertwined with life-changing events that shifted his ideologies, and critiques of fellow Russian writers during his time period lay the groundwork for Dostoevsky’s recurring arguments for the way which Russian society would be best-off, as well as ways in which the people of Russia would be suited to live the most fulfilling, non-corrupt lives.