Paris,
Rome, Prague. When travelers talk about their love for these and
other famous cities, it always seems that they fell in love with them
at first sight, as effortlessly as being struck by lightening.
Beautiful architecture, vibrant artistic and literary cultures that
are at once intellectually stimulating and somewhat easy to
understand, delicious food, and relative hospitality towards
travelers draw people in from the moment they step off the plane.
These places are as easy to love as if they were created for the
single purpose of being loved. At the mere mention of crepes, gelato,
or romantic pseudonyms like “the City of Lights”, one can hardly
control a racing heart, flushed face, and sweaty palms. When I was
still under the impression that France was my “one and only”, I
could barely help embodying the same blabbering idiot that emerges
when talking about a childhood crush, whenever the topic came up in
conversation.While Russia is not an easy place to fall in love with,
once you find love for the country and the people, that love is
unbelievably deep and strong, and makes fairytale lost-shoe and
crowded-ballroom love seem superficial and insignificant.
Upon
first impression, Russia is about as warm and fuzzy as a cactus. The
climate in most of the country is severe for most of the year, it's
enormity creates a sense of cultural disconnect, even its capital is
nearly impossible to navigate, the people are not always outwardly
kind or helpful, and its beauty is not always as evident as that of
the Eiffel Tower or Venetian canals. A love of Russia does not sweep
you off your feet, it slowly swells within you as you come to realize
the impossibility of ever truly understanding a country that is still
so far from understanding itself, work yourself into the hearts and
minds of those around you in order to witness the deepest and most
genuine expressions of emotion, and learn to find beauty in the most
unexpected places.
Although
I have dealt with very little homesickness during my time here, one
of the few things that made me miss home was the mind-numbing
ugliness of my neighborhood in Kazan. Trees are scarce and scraggly,
and the tall apartment buildings turn the streets into a life-size
game of tetris. The amount of grey, blue-grey, and other colors that
have faded to grey, is overwhelming, especially in the wintertime
when the sky and the ground are also grey. The lack of variety in
architecture, natural beauty, and personal touch that might make
these giant cardboard boxes appear more like comfy, lived-in homes
was suffocating at first. I missed the individuality that I associate
with homes in America. A few months into my fruitless search for
window planters and garden gnomes, I realized that rather than look
for window hangings, I should have been observing the windows
themselves. Although the flats look identical from the outside,
balconies are like snowflakes--no two balconies are exactly alike.
Finally, I have found the proof that individual people with
individual lives inhabit these cubicles of sameness. Some families
still have the original wooden window frames while others have opted
to upgrade to plastic fames and plexiglass panes. However trivial
this decision may seem, the window material on the balcony of an
apartment affirms that a choice was made, that an individual person
sat down and thought about whether or not it was worth it to improve
their windows and, one way or another, came to a conclusion. Through
these embodiments of personal choice, I see everything from potted
plants, to sweet fair-weather sitting areas, to laundry drying on
taught ropes. A mother rocks her baby to sleep, and her next-door
neighbor—a flabby old man in a wife-beater—leans out of his
window to inspect the passerby as he smokes his cigarette. All the
while, I have born witness to a miniscule fraction of their life, and
although these few minutes might not seem so important when they
happen, life is nothing if not a collage of these moments.
In
the past, I have been known to discredit those who I believe place
too much value on beauty. I maintain that judgement should not be
passed based on external appearances, but I now better understand
that beauty can mean so many different things. In my case, the
Kvartl' region of Kazan is by and large void of obvious physical
beauty—natural, architectural, and otherwise—but the individual
lives of its inhabitants are as beautiful as any.
