The Perils of Putin and all the things I didn't know

No one likes admitting ignorance, and there probably isn't a worse place to make such an admission than the weird, wild, wonderful interwebs, but here goes. [I have no political ambitions, so this probably won't someday destroy me in a debate. I've been watching too much House of Cards...]

Once upon a time when I should have known better, I followed the news in a light way and found Vladimir Putin to be an interesting character, was pleased at his commitment to saving tigers, was appalled at his violations of human rights... and didn't know or think much else about it. I even got a little bit of a laugh out of videos like this one:

 

But a number of books, among them Masha Gessen's The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin and Angus Roxburg's The Strongman and the insightful words of a wonderful colleague have helped me to gain a more nuanced understanding of Russia, Russian culture, and Putin (I still do laugh at the memes though; I'm sorry!).

Probably an actual evil quote.

In order to keep learning, I recently read A Russian Diary. If there is such a thing as a literary equivalent of a migraine - this book is it. It is physically painful to read... and all the more necessary because it is so frightening and awful. I had to keep putting it down on the lunch table. Then I would look up, blink, see painful spots, and want to scream, "Why isn't anyone doing anything about this?" Then I would have that post-migraine-storm hangover feeling for awhile... and then I would keep reading and repeating the cycle: pain, astonishment, blinking, wondering, exhausted.


Politkovskaya documents people being kidnapped off of the streets. And nothing happens. Commerce doesn't stop. There is no news report. The government can just snatch people up, kill them, and maybe return the bodies. Or not. How is this reality and not some example of the dystopian fiction that we're currently so fond of?

So now I know more about Russia. More about Putin. And I'm saddened by my earlier naivete - and saddened more by the fact that events like those described in this book are probably still happening and no one here at home even hears about it.

Around the same time I was beating my brain against the black tides contained in A Russian Diary, I tried to flesh out my knowledge of the Ukraine by borrowing a colleague's copy of Borderland. This is a very friendly book in terms of its organization (it structures the history as a journey) and it seems ideal for use in a college classroom, for example. It quickly covers vast amounts of history and connects back to people living in different areas of the Ukraine right now. My favorite section focused on a group of miners, "shakhytor - in Russian the word still has a faint heroic ring," because they reminded me so much of my pap and my uncles who had experienced working in (and suffering in) the mines in my state (Reid 47). I've included one of my favorite passages below:

Does such a passage not seem like it could apply equally well to these gentlemen?

I couldn't find a date for this photograph; my apologies!

[I usually try to avoid political commentary, too, because I'm afraid it will "spill over into rage" in the words of Neil Peart, but I think that our coal miners are at present being lied to in a way that Vladimir Putin would approve of.]

  

So, at the end of this post I can say that I better understand the perils of Putin, though I still have a lot to learn. I'll be continuing my reading with the following titles, and I welcome any additions/ advice!: