Какие новости?

One of the strangest parts of being in Russia has been the fact that I left America only three days after a new president was sworn in (two days if you count the mistake by chief Roberts.) Luckily, I have been able to keep on the news with the help of my overwhelmingly liberal and news-obsessed fellow travelers and the occasional ability to connect to the internet and look at the New York Times for three minutes.

Every Tuesday, I go to a Russian-American discussion group and we are given a topic that e talk about in English for 45 minutes and then Russian for 45 minutes. The title of our talk last night was titled, “Obama and Menvedev: New Presidents, New Policy?” As an admitted cynic I was curious to hear the typical Russians’ view of polities after months for enduring 24-hour news networks and watching my fellow liberals generally freaking out and embarrassing themselves.

The result was I learned that I would lose every time in a cynicism competition to pretty much any Russian. When we asked them what they thought of their new president they would shrug their shoulders and stay, “I don’t really know anything about him. Putin is still president as far as I am concerned.” Then when we tell them stories of American criticism of Putin comparing him to a new dictator they would just mutter, “Yeah, that sounds pretty true,” and then shrug once again.

This apathy was sharply juxtaposed by the outright giddiness of the Americans talking about Obama. The concept of putting so much hope and faith in a politician was completely foreign to them. Towards, the end of it I almost felt foolish as we all laughed as we talked about how we became teary-eyed while watching the inauguration. One guy flat-out asked us, “but he is still a politician… right?”

I think that the difference in attitudes might come from the fact that Russians have never really had a connection to politics as Americans have. They never really feel that they have taken part in the process. They just go on with their lives and try to get by and be happy and hope that the politicians are doing what they are supposed to be doing. When I was in America I was mystified by the emotional reaction that people had to the election of Obama, but now I understand\. Even when we elected Bush two times in a row it was a representation of what the people wanted, regardless of the outcome.