What is this blog?

My name is Brian Milakovsky, I'm from the United States and currently live in Vladivostok, Russia. I have had a fascination with eastern Europe, Russia and the whole "post-Soviet world" that began with an interest in my family's roots in western Belarus and Bohemia. I eventually combined this interest with my professional specialty (forestry) and began living and working in the region: Karelia and Komi, all over Ukraine, and now the Russian Far East.

A big part of my life for the past three years has been talking with friends, coworkers, neighbors, people on the train, curious landladies, etc. about Russia, Ukraine, the USA, the USSR and the myriad peoples that made up that giant country. Slavs' well-known lack of political correctness has made this a much more frank and interesting conversation than I could find at home. I have started this blog to record my impressions and bring up some questions about Russian character and ethnic identity. The title Druzhba Narodov ("Friendship of Nations") refers to the idea of ethnic harmony that was the Soviet model for running a country with 150-odd nationalities. In some ways it was a myth imposed by the authorities to shift the emphasis towards class identity, but it was also sincerely and actively practiced by millions of people, many of who long for the days before the bitter ethnic and national squabbles of contemporary eastern Europe. For me it evokes the fascinating question of how Russians (or anyone, for that matter) can live well with other peoples, be they in the "near abroad" or across the world.

These questions came into focus for me first when I was living in the city of Medvezhegorsk, Karelia during the Georgia-Ossetia war. Karelia is a long, long way from the Kavkaz, but distance did not dull the passions of my Russian neighbors about the war. A lot of people wanted to bend the ear of the only American in town, and at first the line was pretty standard: this is American perfidy, you put the Georgians up to this, we're only defending a helpless minority, isn't the West supposed to like that sort of thing? (I was simultaneously reading the American version online: rekindled Russian imperialism, unprovoked aggression towards "Rose" Georgia). But then I started getting the realpolitik version too: well, you got Kosovo so we get South Ossetia. And when the director of the local sawmill cornered me under the Kirov statue, his angry argument also included a heavy dose of doubt about the precedent Russia was setting by "liberating" a disgruntled Kavkaz ethnic group. My own feelings were strongly mixed - I was angered by the callousness of shelling apartment blocks andmoved by the memorial concert in bombed-out Skhinvali, but alarmed to hear Putin use the term "genocide" on national television and to see how carelessly the figure of 2000 siege victims was bandied about, only to be quietly downgraded to 200 a few days later.

It was deeply unsettling to be simultaneously watching war coverage on Russia's Pervi Kanal and CNN - there was no overlap in our countries' popular interpretations. We were using the same language - human rights, genocide, autonomy - to defend diametrically opposite positions. The ethical acrobatics necessary for Americans to denounce Ossetia and defend Kosovo, and Russians visa-versa, also showed me that in such affairs neither side may have a coherent ethical position.

So this blog will follow one American trying to understand Russians and their mentality, and as much as possible to assess our often competing takes on history and current affairs. I also hope to transgress frequently to other regions where tolerance and druzhba narodov are being tested: the Balkans (of which I have no expertise but plenty of interest), Europe and the United States and the tricky relationship with immigrant communities.

Enjoy, and please comment!