Although it is fashionable to analyze one nation compared to another, especially in terms of quantity, GDP, population, resources, mountains, forests, agricultural fields, etc., any geopolitical analysis should start from the analysis of people, cultural norms of the analyzed population, of the historical heritages, of the values, of the priorities, of the way they conceive what is good and what is bad, what is beautiful and what is ugly. So I suggest you take a look at what I felt living for almost 3 years in Russia.
Whoever arrives in Moscow for the first time, the main gateway to Russia, and looks at the eastern urban landscape with predominant block dwellings, the blonde European-type faces of people, the way they behave and dress can draw a single conclusion: Russia is an Eastern European country, with the peculiarity of the communist heritage and the Soviet Union seen and felt at every step from the first subway station to the walls of the Kremlin.
But Russia is more than that. The first time a traveler meets Asia in Moscow on the street, where you can see men and women with obvious Asian looks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Turkmen, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Azeris, Buryats, Mongols, Chinese and more.
77% of the territory of the Russian Federation is in Asia, although over 70% of the population lives in Europe.
Russia surprises you the most when you live here for more than 6 months and you start to notice various patterns of social behavior, a little different from the ones you are used to. In fact, when Russians talk about them in relation to European countries, they express themselves as if there is a Russian world and a European world that are separate and different. They don’t see themselves as Europeans, they are Russians – as if they want to emphasize the differences rather than the similarities with European civilization. A Russian will always express himself with the phrase “to you in Europe” including here all the EU countries. It is very fashionable for a Russian to explain to you that in Russia things are “different” and “here we do things our way”, as if to emphasize every time that there is a difference in thinking, behavior and social or moral values between Russia and Europe. And this is actually very true.
In fact, Russia is as European in civilization and moral values as it is Asian in the same respects.
The Turkish-Mongolian influence extends from vocabulary to the way an ordinary Russian views life in its deepest meanings. Words Turkish-Mongolian and амбар, алтын, баклажан, балык ( «рыба» по-турецки) башмак, булат, болван (памятник или идол) боярин, диван, жемчуг, изюм, ишак, кадык, казан, карандаш, караван, караул, кобура, кафтан, кушак, лошадь, нагайка, сарай, табун, таракан, телега, тулуп, халат, чемодан, штаны, фарфор, ярлык (barn, eggplant, salmon, shoe, damask, fool, gentleman, sofa, pearls, raisins, donkey, cauldron, pencil, heel, coat, sash, whip, horse, herd, beetle, bag, coat, robe, porcelain, label) entered the Russian-Mongolian chain and are frequently used today.
The words that express the northeast-west cardinal points are Slavic words, and the word that expresses the South-юг (yug) direction is derived from the Mongolian Juke-Juku, which means the main direction in the Mongolian notion of the world. The Mongolian inn was facing south.
The Mongol nomads subtly influenced the Russian world, and left their mark on the Russian soul.
A distinct dominant feature of nomadic populations is the collective ownership of the landscape. For a nomad it is impossible for a piece of land to belong to him. A nomad does not think in terms of ownership over a finished piece of land. For a nomad, the earth is the mother. That’s why the Mongolian shoes had their toes up. On the one hand they did not want to accidentally hurt the earth with the sharp tips of their boots, on the other hand – as a symbol of social class belonging to heaven, as a symbol of belonging to a different social class of farmers (a lower social class in culture Mongolian).
When the Magna Carta was published in England, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (1185 – 1252, one of the first Europeans at the court of the Mongol inn) wrote in his travel diary at the court of the Grand Inn: “Everything is in the hands of the Grand Inn (in some translations – emperor) that no one dares to say that this is mine, and that’s because everything belongs to the inn. All the lands, all the goods, including the herds of animals and all the people. ”
When Gennady Zyuganov said that the mother earth is not for sale, he almost certainly had in mind this image of the earth as a mother, which belongs to no one but the Emperor or Tsar.
This is exactly the impression that the Russians have. They live in fear that tomorrow they may lose everything they have because a force stronger than them can take in an instant and without any effort whatsoever, that this force can dispose of everything at its discretion. This force is personified in the state, tsar, governor or any symbol of power.
A very important feature of the nomadic economy is that its profile is that of an economy of exploitation of natural resources / landscape that nomads live at a given time in a culture where time is cyclical, according to the seasons. Unlike European culture, nomads do not invest in the development / change of the landscape, which they use only extensively.
In the nomadic environment, nature does not change. The increase of profit can only be extensive, the increase of agricultural production can be done only by increasing the cultivated area, etc. This is the Mongolian culture that slides along the landscape without changing it, but only uses its fruits.
The perception of the circular passage of time is characteristic of primitive peoples. European culture needs time, because the father built a house, the house passed to his son, the son built a fence, covered the house or built a warehouse and passed it on to his nephew. And time becomes an economic point of view.
In Mongolian culture it is clear that tomorrow will not be the same as today, and this cycle of the Mongols – winter migration, summer migration – has entered Russian culture.
Hence the specific Russian economic behavior, based mainly on the exploitation of natural resources, an extensive agriculture with small agricultural production per hectare, but huge overall, due to the expansion of an area to which only a few countries in the world have access.
You could have seen especially before the crisis in Ukraine how large groups of tourists filled the planes in winter to warm destinations in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, skiing in Austria, Italy and Switzerland, and in summer at European spas or Mediterranean beaches, from Turkey to In Spain.
In short, in Russian culture there are two components that interact and struggle to come to the surface at the expense of the other. One of them is related to the nomadic tradition, inherited from the Golden Horde and represented by the Rurik dynasty, with its best known representative of Ivan IV (or the Terrible). Secondly and inevitably, the European component, represented by the Romanov dynasty, advanced technologies, weapons science and European war skills, ocean-going ships, space satellites and missiles, ballet and Bolshoi Theater, St. Petersburg, and especially the female part of Russia.
Oprichina – that terrible secret police, famous for mass repression, public executions, confiscation of the lands of the Russian aristocracy – the creation of Ivan the Terrible is part of a nomadic value system of Mongolian inspiration. He created an army of people without families and tribes like the same guards of the Mongol Inn, whose life depended only on the good relationship with the Inn, or in the case of the Russians – with the sovereign Ivan IV.
Well, the situation is clear. Power or strength is the only and exclusive source of wealth. This is perpetuated today in Russian culture.
“Power, consolidation, mobilization, militarization – is the way forward for the rise of great people, towards a brighter future.” Do you recognize any stereotypes here?
Soviet propaganda is quite natural for Russia, in this legal context inheriting the Mongol nomadic tradition: “brotherly nations”, “great leader”, “brothers and sisters”, these ideas appeal to the simplest tribal reasons for proximity and identity specific to nomadic tribes.
Centralization – mobilization and depletion of resources in territories and people to gather these resources, in order to consolidate statehood, this is the policy that the Russians have known for hundreds of years. We also add militarization: “The people and the army are united” – a slogan quite close to that of the Golden Horde: “One military camp.”
In a country where the nomadic traditions of equality and shared responsibility still live, it is easier to organize and carry out nationalization, collectivization and communism. It is one of the main factors for which communism was successful in Russia: the nomadic legacy.
In fact, the policies of displacement of people from tsarist and especially Soviet periods also derive from the practice of nomads.
It is unlikely that Stalin imitated nomads, but he easily displaced Germans from the Volga, Poles, Greeks, Chechens, Ingush, Romanians, Ukrainians, and so on. Those who settled in Siberia during Stalin’s time did not leave voluntarily – as Stolipin did when he moved 3 million Russians from Europe, providing very strong financial support (27% of them were they returned when they had the opportunity). Stalin did so under strict government control, and return became impossible.
“Everything is in the hands of the Grand Inn, because no one dares to say that it is mine, and that’s because everything belongs to the inn. All the lands, all the goods, including the herds of animals and all the people. ”
There is, however, a very important counterweight to Asian influence. This is represented by Russian women. You can feel and see with the naked eye starting from the street a certain difference of “quality”. I was not wrong: quality between men and women, and I am referring here not only to the physical appearance. The Russian woman has a strength that you do not often meet in other nations. She is very competitive, she is educated, she is a mother, she is a grandmother, she maintains the house, she has a successful job, she raises children, she cleans, washes, irons, does the shopping, manages the family’s money sparingly, makes they will go on vacation, she is the one who takes specialized courses to learn to be a perfect wife for a westerner and many others.
Woman in Russian society is a very important motivating factor. Thanks to her, the families of rich Russians move to Vienna, London or Paris. The Russian woman is by definition a convinced European. You will see Russian men who would rather go camping on holiday in Siberia or the Volga than walk the streets of Vienna or the French Riviera. That’s because they don’t identify with the European urban landscape, they don’t feel good there. A Russian woman will always prefer the European city, civilization and culture. You will never hear that she wants to go or live in Baku, Alma Ata or Vladivostok.
One last idea: I surprisingly discovered something I had a different opinion about before I met Russia: Russians are a very emotional people; their blood boils in their veins at the first external signal, in a somewhat Latin American manner.
