Zdrast-vuts-ya!

Greetings - from St. Petersburg Russia. If you get the chance, I recommend you go. It is a big city, the most populated northern city in the world. 5 million people. The sun does not set until 11:30 ish at this time of year. I say "ish because it goes down so slowly that you could say that the dusky time until about midnight is still prior to sundown. At 10pm, the sun is still high in the sky, just as it is at 6am.

It is amazing to me what people can get by with here. The average income is $330 a month. People here place a much higher value on family and relationships than they do on possessions, but that is changing slowly as capitalism takes a firmer hold. The yin and yang of commercialism and democracy are much easier to see when you are in the middle of the transistion to a democratic state. Putin gets high marks for restoring a much needed national pride and unity among Russians, however, his centralization of power (which has a very eerie resemblance to what the Bush adminstration is doing in in America) seems to go against the principles of todays modern democratic movements.

It seems that it is a difficult balance and one can only hope that Putin has the best intentions at heart. But by putting more and more of his (former) KGB pals in positions of power and shifting more and more of the organizational structure directly under his thumb, people here are rightfully torn.

One thing is for certain, this place, at times, is one of the most beautiful places and one of the most harsh places that I have ever been.

Sting is performing here in June, at the height of the white nights. I imagine that he has been here before and that he has already come to understand that not only do the Russians love their children too, but they may love them even more than we (Americans) do. I have come to believe this by seeing what little people are able to live on. Although they face many of the same problems that we do (social security for the elderly in trouble of shrinking funding, and an educational system that is in need increased improvement and resources, etc.,) they seem to have placed more political, ideological and social value on these and other basic neccessities of life. If they can get the corruption in check and if they don't let Putin and his cronies gain too much power, I think Russia will be one of the greatest countries in the world.

Dosvedanya!!

(still looking for my socialist party card and still working on my communist manifesto. One thing is for certain, The Republic of Ann Arbor will not be the same after my return!!!)