Hi there!
Frankly speaking I am not used to writing English letters to Russian ladies staying in Italy. It seems that each part of this statement contradicts the other two. But I’ve always taken special pride in my exceptional ability to make extremes meet, so why shouldn’t I this time?
As you may know I’ve never been abroad and with every passing year I feel that I’ll never leave Moscow let alone go to France or Italy. It’s not only some weird hidden fears that gnaw most former Soviet law-abiding citizens and bully them into keeping to their miserable, lifeless and fly-blown households. As I take it, my whole rebellious nature is unwilling to accept any kind of Western order even in its mild Mediterranean form. Despite all our deeply-rooted helter-skelter which always misleads us from proper standard of living, we are still in possession of the most unique phenomenon - the Russian everlasting chaos. Some may say that it’s our perdition we are consigned to for our eternal sins, others assume that they are the only conditions the Russians are destined to live in. As practice shows the truth lies somewhere in between. Convince a Russian to think about his work duties, have him discover the pleasures of consumer society and in a couple of weeks/months/years he’ll start hating his compatriots for complete idiotism and nothingness. No wonder, with the flow of time you’ll see him in Germany, Israel or America. He’ll start his own business there, buy a house, marry a local girl and start a decent Western family. And only on May 9th or February 23rd he’ll buy a bottle of Stoli and drink it at one go to the horror of his civilized family members. But stop shedding your tears over one of the prodigal sons that Russia has lost. He was born at the wrong time in the wrong place and simply failed to hear scraps of that marvellous melody disguised by the notorious chaos.
I can’t prove it but I am dead certain that most Russian souls are tuned to it from dusk till dawn. And every attempt to adjust them to some other modes is doomed to failure. Unpredictability is the motto of our life i.e. white turns black and black is sure to turn red. A close relative can betray you and a stranger can bring you back to life. Yet when Russian people happen to be abroad, they prefer to keep apart. Not only because we hate each other (most other nations hate us even more and live happily all the same). In my opinion we are all equally charged, and the similar electric charges tend to part at the highest speed (provided that old Newton wasn’t an impostor of course and knew something else besides apple-growing).
Like it or not, nobody knows what he or she is in this world for. And Russians who never made a point of money making are always ready to change their ‘useless’ lives drastically for the sake of some Universal Idea (1917 proved that it can cause serious trouble). Anyway their passionate eagerness to rush anywhere headlong is a virtue rather than a vice for a human being is not a mechanical device programmed to figure out all its actions and operations. We ought to be somewhat different and thank God we are!
So if we take the liberty and imagine the whole world as a kind of Zoo with nice and exotic pets where America is a proud eagle, Germany a hardworking beaver, Japan a clever monkey with lots of useful gimmicks up in its sleeve, Russia will be a strange formless creature without a plate on its front but with plenty of labels all over like: ‘Dangerous’, ‘Keep off’, ‘Look out’, ‘Do not feed’ and the like. Nobody knows what kind of beast it is, even the creature itself. Maybe it’s half-awake, many think it’s half-dead and the Zoo Manager starts looking for a smart undertaker to bury it properly when the need may be. But gosh, you’d better take care of yourselves, ladies and gents because the Green Tornado is already on its way crushing bastions of former prosperity and approaching you with every minute. And when that Night of Mourn comes all these human resembling pets will turn out absolutely useless since they are taught to obey Perfect Order and have no manuals for a Complete Disorder (Disorder from capital D). That’s where our knack for survival is handy.