5 Reasons MAGAs are Wrong to Idealize Russia

That's not the title I wanted to use, but you clicked, didn't you?

Moscow, 2004. Photo by me.

Whenever I come across someone, usually a right-wing person, who praises Putin and thinks Russia is great, I think, “You would not last five minutes there.”

I’ve visited Russia twice. My first trip was a summer exchange program with American Field Service in 2001 when I was 17. I returned three years later as a college student at the Russian State University of the Humanities in Moscow. As one of my classmates observed during the fall semester of 2004, the academic world of people who study Russian is small, which often means when I speak to people who’ve been to Russia, they’ve had the tourist experience. Their perspective is quite different from mine.

When describing the general hostility of Muscovites to a friend who’d been to Russia once to pick up his adopted daughter, he told me he thought people were friendly. Except for the language -- the language makes everyone sound angry, he said.

If you speak Russian, you know there’s nothing inherently angry-sounding about it. I suspect the people my friend heard were, in fact, angry. After all, as someone who didn’t speak the language, he couldn’t know that they weren’t.

And in Russia, there’s an awful lot to be angry about.

Everything’s broken

My Russian language skills are rusty, I haven’t set foot in the country in over 20 years, and I’m by no means an expert, so take what I say with a few grains of salt. But one of the things I observed in Russia, which I’m sure is even truer today than it was then, was that a lot of shit in that country just doesn’t work.

In 2001, I traveled with a group of exchange students to Moscow, where we spent a few days sightseeing before piling into a van and driving six hours east to a town called Nizhny Novgorod. During the Soviet period, Nizhny Novgorod was a “closed city,” meaning foreigners couldn’t visit it. Military equipment was manufactured there, and the Kremlin didn’t want its secrets getting out. Wikipedia says street maps of the city weren’t even available for purchase until the 1970s. The city’s closed status ended in 1990, and it became a popular stop for Volga River tour boats.

When we arrived in Nizhny Novgorod, we met the families we’d be staying with, and also learned a key phrase: “It’s Russia.” Russians use this phrase to explain dysfunction when it arises. In this case, they were referring to hot water. In the cluster of Soviet tower blocks we were to stay in, the water heaters were on the blink.

For days.

Our host families boiled water on the stove so we could bathe. People who’ve only experienced Russia through 19th-century literature tend to romanticize it. I wonder how many of them would see charm in sponge baths. (They say scent is one of the most powerful memory triggers; there’s a reason B.O. makes me flashback to Russia. B.O. and dill.)

The building also had a slow, coffin-sized elevator that reeked of cigarettes, and a window in the bedroom that turned into a magnifying glass when the sun hit it, transforming the room into a kiln.

When I returned to Russia in 2004, the Moscow building I lived in with my khozyaika, Elena Mikhailovna, and her family was convenient in the sense that it was just one stop from the main subway line but presented its own set of functional challenges.

Like the building in Nizhny Novgorod, it also had a claustrophobia-inducing elevator, but it was out of order for most of the semester. A four-digit code granted residents access to the building, but those particular buttons on the keypad were so worn, they gave off an obvious shine. Anyone who cared to try cracking the code would’ve known exactly where to start. Construction on one of the apartments went on, with teeth-rattling drilling, well past a reasonable hour -- I remember it going on until 9 p.m., or perhaps even later. One afternoon, the rukovoditil of the Middlebury program through which I was studying came to the apartment with me, intending to have tea with Elena Mikhailovna and me, but the noise annoyed him so much that he left before she came home.

The starkest example, though, was men who’d returned from war. It wasn’t uncommon to see men who’d lost legs in war, rolling through metro stations on what could only be described as square skateboards. Perhaps there’s no military, or government, that adequately rewards the sacrifices soldiers make in war, but when you don’t even provide wheelchairs to the men you’ve conscripted to fight in wars against your neighbors, something is clearly not working.

Things are primitive

If you’ve seen collections of photos from Russian dating sites, you’ve been bewildered by images of women posing next to sturgeon, in front of puddles on the street, and kneeling next to toilets stuffed with bouquets of roses. What possible reason could a person have for doing that, but to show off that they have a toilet?

In 2001, our group spent part of our stay at a scout camp along the Vetluga River. The unspoiled wilderness was stunning. Long prairie flowers blossomed near a sparkling river bend. Outside of our camp, there was no civilization for miles. The campers built the latrine, and from an American perspective, it left a lot to be desired. It offered almost no privacy, and squares in the floor we were meant to squat over.

“So far, I’ve been constipated,” said one of the boys in our group. When our chaperone offered him a laxative, he said, “No, I want it like that. I don’t want to use that bathroom!”

Such bathrooms are not uncommon in Russia, however. If you’re looking for a public facility in Russia, you’re likely to encounter something that will strain your dignity, and the further you are from the center of a large city, the likelier you are to have to bend your knees and hope you can finish before anyone else comes in.

In Cafe Europa, Slavenka Drakulic wrote, “Coming from a former communist country myself, for a long time, I readily explained the phenomenon of stinking, decrepit toilets throughout the communist world in the most obvious way. The primary cause was the dysfunctional communist system itself and its failure to recognize and fulfill people’s basic needs, from milk to toilet paper. The second reason also fell into the ‘what-communism-did-to-us’ category, and had to do with the collective-property mentality. Since everything was collectively owned, no one was really responsible; no one was in charge, no one cared. Every individual was absolved of responsibility because he or she delegated it to a higher level, that of an institution. Someone up there had to make a decision for a chain to be repaired on a public toilet. And was a cleaning woman to be sacked from her job because she didn’t sweep the floor? Of course not!”

I do not enjoy writing about this. But I wonder whether the people who idealize Russia, who find the images of shirtless Putin on horseback appealing as a representation of strength, would be capable of adapting to these inconveniences.

Capitalism didn’t fix all their problems

Did capitalism fix all of Russia’s problems? No, but it did fix some of them, and, as Drakulic noted, many of their problems stem from being communist in the first place.

My professors at the Russian State University for the Humanities talked about how, during the Soviet era, grocery store shelves were often empty. They would work a full day, and then run around the city “like a crazy person” looking for something to make for dinner that night. They told us they appreciated the Western-style grocery store near the university, where they could shop easily and head home, saving both time and sanity. (Earlier this year, crackdowns on migrants caused supply chain problems, which resulted in grocery store shelves that looked more like they did during the Soviet period.)

Not everyone was appreciative of the changes. Elena Mikhailovna’s mother sometimes visited the apartment, and when she did she’d tell me how much better things were during the Soviet era. I got the feeling that she saved up these anecdotes just for me; I was a student, after all, and it was my job to listen and learn.

On Revolution Day, she told me about how people used to gather to sing songs and lamented that there wasn’t any more music. I took a train to the center of the city and saw a group of people waving hammer-and-sickle flags, along with signs protesting the mafia and oligarchs who were extorting regular citizens and hoarding wealth.

Capitalism in Russia substituted one form of corruption for another. But simply saying capitalism didn’t fix things is oversimplifying the issue. Capitalism picks winners and losers, and you can’t expect many people to be winners when they’ve never had any practice with competition.

Across from my Moscow apartment, there was a large mesh cage full of watermelons, and a few paces from that was a small pink store. One afternoon, I stopped in there to buy a soda and misheard the cashier when she told me it cost 20 rubles. I handed her 12, and she shrieked, “20 rubles, girl!” I handed her the balance with a trembling hand and she threw the receipt at me.

At that moment, I longed for home, where at even the shittiest convenience store, clerks would not dream of flinging paper at me, at least not without expecting a reprimand. Customer service skills are a cornerstone of successful capitalism, and one of the reasons capitalism didn’t fix all of Russia’s problems is because the mindset Drakulic describes was still very much alive there. As much as we complain about customer service in the U.S. -- from both sides of it -- it is a powerful and underappreciated force that helps keep our society functioning. Caring about the happiness of the people you serve, whether you’re a clerk, a server, a politician or even a baseball player, is why things work. When everyone stops caring, what you get is Russia. You get a refusal to sweep floors. You get receipt-flinging.

I know one reason why Elena Mikhailovna’s mother was more sentimental about the past than my professors: they had the same university jobs they would have had under communism, whereas Elena Mikhailovna’s job as a geologist died with the Soviet Union. To get by, she took in students like me and sold Mary Kay products. A step down to be sure. So, yes, I agree that capitalism (a deeply flawed system) didn’t fix all their problems. However, people were nostalgic for East Germany too, yet I don’t think anyone seriously wanted to bring back the Stasi.

By putting Putin in power, that is what the Russian people have done.

“That’s not allowed.”

In Russian, the word for “that’s not allowed” is “nelzya.” I heard that word a lot. I want to walk down a particular street? Nelzya. I want to sit in the grass? Nelzya. I want to study in the university internet cafe? Nelzya.

This last one sticks in my memory, because it was the first and only time I’d been kicked out of a place for minding my own business and studying. At the university, a small group of us kids from the Middlebury program were sitting together in the internet cafe, going over our assigned reading, when a security guard said, “This isn’t a library,” and made us leave.

Was this one of the “cultural moments” the Middlebury program director had warned us about -- a misunderstanding? Maybe. But I sensed that many people in Moscow seemed to squeeze whatever they could out of their tiny scraps of power, even if they were flexing over something as petty as people sitting quietly and reading. He knew we were foreigners and could push us around.

It was worse for Black students. On the street, cops constantly asked them to show their papers. I didn’t have to show my passport, even when I was walking with two Black classmates.

As annoying as nelzya was then, I imagine there’s even more of it now. Protest the war in Ukraine? Nelzya. When I think back to the people I knew in Moscow, I can’t imagine them supporting Putin’s war, Elena Mikhailovna least of all -- she was Ukrainian. But if they did protest, there’s a good chance they’re languishing in a prison somewhere, like a recently-freed artist who was sentenced to seven years for posting anti-war stickers in a grocery store. If you’re wondering why Russians don’t come out against the war, well, just look at how they treated the ones who did.

“It’s Russia”

In the U.S., Russia has an odd collection of fans. Members of the MAGA cult and hardcore leftists have diverging reasons for putting the country on a pedestal. But whether they’re fantasizing about wrestling with bears or the glory of Leninism, I don’t think they are prepared to deal with broken elevators, embarrassing bathrooms, nasty sales clerks or constantly being told they aren’t allowed to do things.

I’ve never been to Ukraine, and I’m sure that many of the things I’ve written about here are present in Ukraine, too. But the Ukrainians and Georgians want to look forward, and Russia is not only looking backward -- they’ve gone backward. It’s a mistake to let Russia drag their neighbors into the past, and an even bigger mistake for the U.S. to follow. Americans can’t handle it.

In Russian, “world” and “peace” are the same word

During the summer of 2001, as our stay at the scout camp on the Vetluga came to a close, our group leaders told us they were taking us to a bathhouse. Some of the other kids dreaded it, and after the latrine, who could blame them? But the Russians took us to a little patch of country land where there was a wooden banya (Russian for sauna) and a long picnic table. After relaxing in the peaceful dark of the sauna, and beating ourselves gently with birch soaked in hot water, we gathered at the table, where we ate fresh currants, and small glazed gingerbread cakes and drank tea from a silver samovar. It was a moment of timeless beauty, and I wish for the Russian people -- particularly those who gave up their freedom to protest the war in Ukraine -- a return to traditions that bring them tranquility.

Maybe, when Putin and his lust for conquest are both gone, they’ll be able to do that.

Author’s note: I plan to write more about my experiences in Russia. In the meantime, paid subscribers can access a gallery of photos I took on my trips there.