13.07.05 Wednesday N 26 2005

Overcoming Distances

Cultural gaps can be funny or tragic. In any case, most of them make for a good story. The Moscow News has heard of a billion mishaps occurring to foreigners who try to adapt to the Russian mentality. We hear these from our readers and colleagues every day. Now, you can share your cultural experience too. Send your stories or observations to gap@mn.ru. Today all of the stories concern in one way or another distances: geographical distances, distances between media image and reality. Actually, what is distance? It is just another way of saying gap, isn't it? (To jump to Jerome's comments, click here)

Jackie Ramosh, Ireland
When I traveled to Russia for the first time, certainly I knew it was far away from my home, farther then I'd ever been before. But what I didn't expect was that the distances in Russia are so tremendous. To escape from Moscow is more than enough time to get from Paris to Amsterdam, for instance. Sure, rush hours are typical of a megalopolis, but Moscow beats everything I've experienced before. Then, when my friends come to visit me in Moscow, they normally ask me to arrange for us trips around Russia. And if I say it's impossible to manage all they want to see, say, in one week, nobody believes me! But it takes hours and hours, days and nights to come from Moscow to other cities, especially over the Ural mountains. I believe the biggest cultural gap for Europeans is to realize the scale of Russian territory not on the map, but as it is in reality. How can a Russian live knowing he will never be able to see all places in his native country even if he spends most of his life traveling around?
And imagine someone, a normal average European, I dare say, for whom two hours is often enough to get to his nearest neighbour country, seven hours is enough to travel the length and breadth of his own country, and when one comes to Russia... that's an impression.

Adam Brown, USA
My misunderstanding, or cultural shock, call it as you like, is to see the contrast between the image I got about Russia and Moscow in particular from media, especially TV reports, and what I saw when I came here.
What we usually see on the blue screen? Poor villages, people, deeply concerned with their problems, reports about police injustice, chaotic elections, corrupted governors, about Chechnya war and Russian mafia (now less than it used to be, but the certain image is appearing unconsciously).
Then, when you come to Moscow... I was speechless! Red Square looks stunning, as you never see it on TV. Huge spaces, bright cupolas, neat red bricks of the wall. Manezh square, shining with marble and fountains, is perfect for a summer walk, the wide street up to Pushkin monument is packed with fashionable places and stores. Young people look as if they've just been participating in a fashion show. How can you explain this? Why is it never talked about? There are poor old ladies selling flowers, there are beggars in the subway, but Russia is no way a poor country we're often taught to take it as.
Well, on the other hand, I shall admit that there's a distance between Moscow and other Russian cities and towns. Distance both in a literal and metaphoric way: without mentioning that it takes hours to get somewhere (only here I realized why trains are so important in Russian literature and for Russian mind as general, and why the symbolism of the road itself too is extremely significant).
Moscow is posh, and other cities are less pretentious, less Western, they have less reconstructed buildings and less ads and billboards, and less high-tech. But, again, there's nothing to do with that extreme level of poverty I used to think of.

Dear Jackie and Adam,
17 mln km2: that is the size of Russia. It is almost twice the USA and about 250 times Ireland! In Russia, size matters.
The territory always played a distinctive role in Russia's culture and identity. Since the creation of the country, expansion has been a historical constant. Russians often associate their identity with vastness, and the loss of territory is taken as a tragedy.

Distance means power - it is impossible to ignore the world's largest country; distance means security - acting as a buffer zone against foreign enemies; distance means also freedom where one may live a life-time unnoticed (such as the Lykov family discovered after decades of complete isolation); distance means opportunities in a country with a fertile soil and underground resources; but distance can mean danger with penal colonies or wilderness.

Compared with other countries, the development of Russia was quick and recent (not so different from the USA). Many big towns were just big villages a few centuries ago. Moscow appeared 850 years ago, Samara 400, Vladivostok about 150... Subsequently, cities throughout Russia, despite gigantic distances between them, are relatively similar in shape, architecture and atmosphere. Also, compared with "smaller" countries such as UK or Spain, Russia has very mild language differences.

Managing such a territory has always been a challenge for the rulers who combined strong centralisation with some independence as long as it was not against their own interests. No wonder many reforms today are linked to the organisation of the "subjects" of the Federation.

Furthermore, distance played a crucial role in history: a handicap in the Crimean war but a protection during WWII.

Distance was, and is, the first determinant of the Russian culture; it is always astonishing for the foreign eye: welcome to the land of Gigantism...

Comment by Jerome Dumetz, teaching cross-cultural communication at the REA Plekhanov in Moscow, and independent consultant.