So this division between new Russians and
new Russians actually, exactly separating this
oligarchs, tycoons, flashy very rich people.
People who became rich overnight,
separating them from the rest of the country.
And these new Russians were the ones who
actually were first seen by the West but
there were also other aspects of what was
going in Russia not only the early, but later.
And not only the early periods of its history, but later.
We are talking about the period that made itself clear,
starting at the end of 90s, beginning of 2000s.
So, not only new leads.
But first, probably it is important to mention that the huge population
in rural areas that was previously known as kolkhoznik has traveled
a certain way from kolkhoznik to potato-growers and then to farmers.
In the early 90s when life was really hard and people didn't have
money to support themselves, actually not agricultural workers,
but people of other professions were supporting themselves
through their plots in the land at the dacha places,
which is a summer country house in Russia where they would grow vegetables.
Mainly, potatoes and that's why the spirit of this
part of life of a significant number of people in Russia is called potato-growers.
It supposed many families in the hard days when the economy was not working well.
And of course, it wasn't although they say that they actually
produced a significant part of what was consumed in the food markets.
Still it was not yet the new economy, but
when later we've seen such a sector of societies of farmers emerged.
That was indeed a new development and
a new social group.
And here, more than for other categories.
This change of word from kolkhoznik to potato-growers, to farmers.
Here, this change of words really means change.
Because a the moment, the agricultural sector in Russia,
which is mostly farming and big agricultural holdings,
which also so are built on another model,
produce significant portion of what this country consumes.
There was one social and political decision that some went unseen and
unmentioned or that was not paid that much attention
at the time when this political decision was made though,
it was really a tectonic change in the course of Russian history.
The law that created private property for
the land was the first one for the thousand years of Russian history.
And actually, this Issue of private property for
the land was the central issue of all the revolutions that happened in Russia and it
was the issue of much pain and sufferings in the whole of the 20th century.
At some point, this law was adopted and
Russia now has modern style laws regarding the land and
that's why actually the modern farming systems and
agricultural production could start to evolve.
Eventually, new elites were forming both in government area and
in society in general.
In society in general, absolutely new thing that also went through a certain
period of development was so-called NGOs, non-governmental organizations.
It's a new profession, but it's also a new discourse system,
a very distant discourse system.
When we talk now about NGOs, probably the buzzwords
[COUGH] would be the notorious law on so-called foreign agents,
which is related to the political situation where
very many defensive actions are taken against
Western influence on the political life in Russia.
But [COUGH] initially, NGOs and
people who were working there were associated with someone who is not so
much interested in material goods, but is working to make the history,
to create the society, to help people in need.
Because a lot of what NGOs were doing in the 90s was actually helping
people who found themselves in hard life circumstances not just to survive,
but to keep doing what they were doing.
Like teachers at schools and professors at the universities
at the moment when they were paid really low salaries,
which pushed many people out of the professions to go
outside of those successful businesses.
Start working in the markets selling things.
So to keep the people in their professions,
there was a lot [COUGH] done by [COUGH] NGOs.
At the same time, people who were working in NGOs found themselves
in the circumstances where they working for Western organisations.
In a way, they are also among those who had to acquire the new Western
organizational culture.
It's not a corporate culture, it's a western organizational
culture of the NGO sector, but it was still very new and
imposed certain standards and induced certain influences.
As I said, later, because of these political issues for many Russians now,
the word NGO is associated not with someone who is working for
high public issues, but just simply working for
another system of values and so on and so forth.
Still as I understand in the localities, in the regions where people
really feel this work by local NGOs, they do understand the difference.
Anyway, [COUGH] for this discourse community such
issues in the public discourse as development,
as human rights, as environmental issues, as protecting,
as being an interface between the person, the individual and
the state are very important and very topical.
Another issue to be covered by this new certification of
society is the regional aspect of it.
Regional disparity.
Regional disparity, of course, depends on pure economical issues.
Oil and and gas regions are of course, earn a lot of money and
a lot of taxes go from them to the federal budget, but not only this.
And we have a vast country where climate, geography,
history, the infrastructure really means a lot and
influence the life of people, Far East Daghestan and the North Caucasus.
Kaliningrad, which is the enclave or
Russian enclave separated from the main part of
Russia by the Baltic Republics is special issue.
Southern borders in Central Asia, all these regions have their own issues and
their own topics.
For instance, southern borders where the Russian regions
going to contact with the former Soviet Republics,
now the State and Central Asia.
Of course, the issues for them are the Gastarbeiter coming from these places and
also the drug trafficking and presence of the border guards.
At the same time, it is also across [COUGH] a regional
trade that goes across the borders.
And the mix of populations that were not so long ago,
just one country where a lot of connections exist
between these transregional borders.
Far East is now one of the central issues in the Russian economic politics,
because the region was very scarcely populated and
has been depopulating since the beginning of the 90s,
because life is hard there, not much infrastructure.
And when the economy was in the poor state, it was really hard to survive.
So, a lot of improvements have
been taking place recently.
A lot of effort was made not only to keep people there by
some economical issues, but also by creating this feeling
of the common space between the European part of Russia and
the Asian, Siberia and especially Far East.
It's interesting that mentality of the people there has
certain regional aspect when they talk about us and them.
They usually mean us as in the Far Eastern them, as in the western part of Russia.
And there are feelings of I hope, it's being now kind of repaired, but
the olds have this feeling that they in the West, they forgot about us.
They don't care.
Their history is not our history and so on, and so forth.
That happens in countries with large areas that feel separated from each other.
So, this is one problem for the Russian mentality.
Still with all these regional specifics,
if you ask people in Sakhalin [FOREIGN] about who they are,
they would definitely call themselves Russians.
And also if you look at certain cultural values
at certain traditions, ways of behave or
I don't know what, hospitality, food.
We'll see that this is Russia with all its specifics.
Next issue we'll talk about relates probably
more to our next big topic, but we need to touch up on it here,
because it determines the really social certification issues and
this is about so-called old Russians and old Russians.
[MUSIC]
Mira BergelsonProfessor
