TRAC
Interview Transcript

Kirill Razlogov   (cont)

On the other hand, the moment--we could also remember that there are many more precise examples of these linkages.  For example, in some newspapers, Boris Berezovsky was called Rasputin and in a way he played a role which is similar to Rasputin's role in the present royal family--Yeltsin's family.  It's not exactly the same, but I'm speaking about cultural functions and how they influence social life.  Also, a stable tradition was a profound divorce between the population and the political class.  And this also is not only part of Russian history.  If something is interesting and funny about the Monica Lewinsky story, it is that it demonstrated the basic differences of approach and the basic differences in judgment that existed between the media and the political class on the one side, and the population on the other.  It's not exactly as pronounced as in Russia, because in Russia the divorce between the political class and the masses is much more present.  And in this way, I am saying that Russia gives the example to other countries, that shows what is really going on more clearly, more openly, more frankly, without thinking about being polite or politically correct.

 But if we look with attention at what's going on in different countries, we find out that the same things are going on, but in a slightly different way.  As far as corruption is concerned--we spoke about corruption here--as you know now, corruption is an overall part of the world economic and political life.  The basic difference between the Russian situation and the situation in Japan, in South Korea, and the United States of America is that, in these countries, corruption starts at one million dollars and higher.  In Russia, corruption starts at 5 kopecks, and goes on.  So it's visible; everybody knows about it.  As far as the Western type of corruption or the Southeastern Asian type of corruption, it has to be found out, has to be detected, has to be judged, and has to be put in the open.  And that also becomes more as a part of the worldwide economic and political life.

 One of the things that are important to understand when we compare the American and the Russian approach to what's happening to Russia is, of course, the feeling of despair in some of our topics and the feeling of optimism and pessimism (many jokes about optimists and pessimists have been said already, so I won't repeat that).  But I have the feeling we're still more optimistic about what's going on than the recent articles in the press that we read about the situation in Russia, because we had the feeling that there was a general astonishment about what was going on, and how it all ended.  And, as far as we are concerned, it was clear that it will end that way; the problem was only when and how.

 And, as I told them the first day that the source of optimism is that the population manages to survive even in this difficult situation.  It has its own ways of reacting to different kinds of movements that are made by the political class, by the parliament, by the president, by the degrees, and by the conflicts that are inside this political class.  In a way, the population doesn't care about it and goes on as it is, just changing some patterns, but not changing basic cultural traditions and basic cultural manners of behavior.  That's why if we overestimate the importance of the Bolshevik Revolution, of course we overestimate the changes that have been going on for the last 15 years.

 In fact, there is still this same tradition that goes on, with minor changes, but not yet involving the population as a whole.  And this is very important to understand, because the changes are visible.  You go through Moscow and see how it was built out and how wonderfully--it's like Western or Eastern Megapolis, not better--sometimes better, sometimes worse; but what is important for Russians to understand is that this way of rebuilding the Megapolis is linked to two traditions; one tradition of the Russian traders involved in culture, because the esthetic approaches of the Moscow mayor who might become the Russian president or the prime minister, and I gave as an example that it's quite possible, the same type of let's say in a French sense, bourgeois culture that means this trading class which doesn't have any real esthetic sense.  And from this point of view, everything that is done by Rushkov in Moscow which is wonderful is combated firstly by the intellectuals, art critics, art historians, artists, who feel that it's not exactly high art they wanted to develop, but it's something very different.  And the same thing happened during Stalin's period, when Stalin's aesthetic ideas and aesthetic feelings were linked to much further back in history, and especially in the Ancient East and Oriental pre-Egyptian history.  And for him, this tradition, the high buildings in Moscow, the Moscow metro, was more important than the ideas of the artists who surrounded him.

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