But it's the same old life. With these words, Mikhail Aizenberg answered my remarking on the new dishwasher, washing machine, and kitchen light in his Moscow apartment. And there's a truth to that. I have been visiting Russia since 1986. What is most striking to me on each visit is the continuity of ordinary life from Soviet times until now, in spite of multiple revolutionary upheavals.
Ordinary people keep leading ordinary lives.
The people I hang out with are mostly the intelligentsia, which has a real class-meaning in Russian society that it doesn't have in the West. Right now, ironically, the intelligentsia, small as it is, and centered in the major cities, takes the place of what elsewhere would be a broader middle class. Children go off to school in the morning just as they always have, and come home laughing through the parks, climbing trees to knock off chestnuts while their mothers stand underneath, shouting in vain for them to come down. Very little has actually broken apart. Nevertheless, there are always visible signs of change, as in the Aizenbergs' apartment.