Back in Chita after a 3 year absence #5
(Written December 26, 2024)
November 28th: This afternoon I met the English students that meet for an English club at the Library No. 5 in the KSK district of Chita, 7 km from the city center. This large neighborhood is mostly a planned community (1960s-70s) of shops and apartment buildings based around large courtyards. It was built for, and is named after, a huge textiles factory (woolens) of the Soviet era that was one of the main national sources of the cloth for school uniforms. The factory, employing around 80,000 people, finally closed around 1996 or 1997. The area was very depressed for a long time, but has seen a boom in construction and population in the last 10 years.
The students were 12 – 17 years old. Their teacher, Victoria Ravko, invited me 3 years ago for the same meeting. This group had one student, Alexander, who stood out because of his many questions. His English was very good, too. He was 14. I later learned he attended the English Immersion School #49 downtown, where I met him again a few days later.
His best question was this: What stereotypes about Russians did I have and have they been changed? I was very happy to answer this question as the event I described was one of the most formative of my life.
I told them I’m a “baby boomer,” meaning my parents were young adults for World War II which saw the defeat of fascism and the rise of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union. I said I didn’t remember any lecturing from my parents as a young child about the evils of the Soviet Union or of Communism, but it ends up I didn’t need it. It was “in the air” during my childhood. Ideas about these two were, in my young mind, settled fact: the Soviet Union was evil and Communism was evil.
What I didn’t acknowledge was that as a very young child, six years old at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I was not able to distinguish between an economic/political system and the people who lived in it, could not recognize that the leadership of a country and the people of it are not the same. I simply assumed that if a country or system is bad, then, then the people themselves must also be evil or bad, or at least terribly oppressed and forced to live diminished lives, and so must be a little bit stupid. I only say this last sentence now—or rather, noticed my ignorance when I was 33 in 1988 and meeting the Chinese contacts for concerts and then the Russian trade representatives on the Chinese train—because at age six such thoughts never made it to consciousness. And being quite apolitically minded until recently, such notions were never contemplated or challenged and so took on the semblance of being bedrock to my approach to the world.
So, when I travelled to China in December 1988 to arrange piano concerts, I was terrified in a deep, pre-conscious way. On the surface, as a 33-year-old, I was calm and even “courageous.” But under all that was this trepidation. And then I met my Chinese guide and the people at the hotel and then the administrators at the concert venues and their translators—and my fears evaporated: they were friendly, cheerful, wanting to cooperate. My 33-year-old self understood that, but the unexamined little boy brain got a big, cleansing shock! They weren’t mean, or stupid, or whatever else. They weren’t evil! It was wonderful and also embarrassing.
Well, the same thing happened to me when I met the six trade representatives from Chita on a train headed to northeast China that December 1988. I was put in a compartment with these six men, and again that inchoate and deeply entrenched fear of Russians was exploded almost immediately after we met. They were so excited for their city to be opened after 50 years being closed, and also that the border between China and the Soviet Union was opened, considering that the two countries were close to war only 30 years before. They enthusiastically welcomed me to come and play in their city, so I gave them my cassette demo tape and publicity, and I’ve been coming to Chita regularly since August 1989. I was seduced by the interest, the warmth, the hospitality. My previous stereotypes never allowed even consideration of their humanity.
November 29th: Elena Pishcherskaia and Irene Duranczyk have run a long-standing monthly “Movie Club” for students in Minnesota and Chita. NOTE: anyone interested in joining the Club please contact us! The November Club meet-up happened to fall during my visit. Elena took advantage of this to make sure the movie was a Russian one with English subtitles, and also one that was child-friendly. This second requirement apparently greatly limited the easily found choices, but the one we watched was very interesting. It was “Prince Vladimir” (2006) a big Disney quality animated film, a mix of mostly hand-drawn with some computer animation, and it is very beautiful.
The movie, being aimed at children, was less about the history than a morality tale about good versus evil. At the same time it was not a simplistic presentation. I most enjoyed seeing a complex tale told from another cultural viewpoint. I look forward to viewing it again!
The movie was viewed and discussed via Zoom with three Americans attending from Minnesota (midnight-2:30am Central Time!) and, in Chita, with about 30 college high school students plus four youngsters. It was held in a very comfortable public space in the back of a pastry shop occupying the corner ground floor commercial space of the Chita Institute.
That evening I moved from the Dauria Hotel to Elena Pishcherskaia’s home for a few days, spending more time with Vitaly, her husband and their two sons, Pasha, 16, and Sasha 9. And also their dog, Mira. I’ve mentioned her already. She’s a sweetie, and she was very glad to have another friend around. I could tell I was an accepted adjunct to the family when she kept wanting to hump my leg!
