Hitlers birthday

It's Russian Orthodox Easter on Sunday. I haven't been out today but S tells me that when she went out earlier the queues around the churches stretched for miles mainly babushkas waiting to get their Kulich,Pashka and painted eggs blessed. It's an ordinary day for us Ganna doesn't do religion so we're having a peaceful Saturday in.

I have another reason to stay in.Hitlers birthday is on Monday so it's best to stay close to home this weekend . I'll definitely be staying in on Monday .It is an obscenity that fascist thugs manage to terrorise foreigners like this. Just as frightening is the fact that it's well known that worrying numbers of Russian police force share their views about foreigners in general and immigrants in particular. Therefore ,if anything happened you have to hope and pray that the policeman who comes to your aid is one of the few good ones. That said, even if the others did begrudgingly come to your aid you might have to wait a while. I've never been anywhere with more seriously overweight police than there are here in Moscow. I don't know what the application policy is for the police is here but i seriously doubt that fitness is a criterion given some of the evidence that I've seen.Add to that the fact the smoking is still a big thing here and you've got Keystone cops Russian style.

I feel really sad. This is a country whose language i fell in love with when i was 11 years old. I never dreamed that i would ever get the chance to study not only the language but it's history and culture. Sometimes as i go about my daily business here i almost want to pinch myself because i can't believe that I'm here..in Russia. It's easy to forget that there is tremendous beauty in this country when when your eyes are assaulted by industrial grime and filth everyday.It would be too easy to write off Russia as a nation of fascist thugs but i refuse to because, setting aside the amoebas, i believe that underneath the fear there are essentially good people here. Russia has long been and will always be a country of anomalies. Explain a country where you have amoebas and yet within the Russian education no child will ever leave school without having studied something by Pushkin.A man whose maternal great-grand-father was a black man.He is considered to have been Russia's greatest poet and the founder of modern Russian literature.

The first 'Russian' to write using the language of the mass of Russian people and not the elite.The need by the elite to base their cultural aspirations in Europe meant that many spoke French and to a lesser extent German better than Russian. Therefore, what Pushkin achieved in using the language of the 'people' is an achievement ,researched ,discussed and written about by literary scholars the world over then as now. Alexander Pushkin has iconic status here and abroad and not just for students of Russian.

His family were minor nobility but that didn't always protect him from the obvious slings and arrows of racism because of his heritage. He was well aware of what some in Russian society thought of 'blackness. Read his , unfinished but beautifully poignant story,'Peter the Greats Negro'.However, he never denied his blood .His literary legacy has been too powerful to erase.Goodness knows, how often his name has been used in officialdom .Trust in good people, such is the nature of Russian history that I'm sure had there been command to do so his legacy could have been 'erased'.It wasn't , it hasn't been and will never be because good people somewhere made sure of it. Theirs is the energy we must all help build on when the fear stops.

Anyway, i been spending sometime today reading across the blogosphere.I been reading some 'big people' blogs.It'sgood to go outside your norm.Setting aside the big people stories I read a whole new youth vocabulary that has emerged Stateside. You have to keep upwith these things. On the plus side i thought that i lead a very sheltered life until i read one blog where with a blogger with a superstud size size ego was telling his 'homeboys' to google to find out where out where a womans c**t***s is !!!!! Well us grown folks can find it without googles help. My street-cred is in tact !

Obama Love

Like millions of people around the world i followed Obamas' campaign and subsequent inauguration . More specifically at the outset of the campaign i watched with interest (as the mother of mixed heritage children) as to how some in the black community would perceive his 'blackness' since he has never hidden the fact that he is dual heritage.This notion of who has the right to be called 'black' is vividly displayed in Marshall Currys excellent Academy Award nominated documentary 'StreetFight' about the 2002 mayoral campaign in Newark ,New Jersey between the incubent mayor Sharpe James and the then pretender to the throne Cory Booker.There is some interesting commentary on the documentary from Sekou, Dickerson and Cose with the opposing view on Afronetizen. Do make sure that you read the comments that follow the article.

I mention Obama now because I'm often asked about him and until thursday the deep significance of his election for all people worldwide and not just black people had never struck me as fully as it did on then.I was in a 'gypsy' cab and a more busted beaten up car you couldn't imagine. I thought that the taxis that i had used in Freetown were awful but looking back now they were a luxury compared to what i sometimes travel in now. I go to the same Metro station regularly and all the drivers there know me now and I'm safe.

Anyway, thursdays journey was in a rust bucket Lada, covered in mud and with a beautiful crack across the windscreen . Inside thick dust covers every available surface and there are some cords
wrapped worryingly around paces you'd rather not see them ! My driver scoots along ,swerving in and out of driving lanes i assume he finds an inconvenience. So does the rest of Moscow. I have my foot on the imaginary foot brake more or less permanently. When he takes a break form cursing everybody else's driving , he suddenly says 'And what about Obama then ?He's a good man isn't he?'

'I hope so.Alot of people believe in him .'

'Oh yes don't you worry about him. He's at the G-20 summit now and then he's going to Turkey.'

I couldn't help but smile . I hadn't checked up on the news for a couple of days and i had no idea Obama was due to go to Turkey and there i was being told by someone who looked the antithesis
of a newshound.

'Yes Obama is a good man. He's земляк (zyemlyak)'

I recognised the origin of the word- земля (zyemlya)- which means earth, land, so i had a vague idea of what he meant but i asked him to explain.

'He's one of us. Imagine a black man ,the President of USA sitting at the table with all those whites. '
He laughed out loud and said joyfully 'Now those whites will listen to us.'

He used the word черный ( chornii) which means 'black' and i have translated it as such.However, in today's Russian society it is a very loaded word because out on the streets and in the homes of the amoebas -and lets face it Russia has some magnificent examples- the word черный,черная ( chornaya) for a female means 'nigger'.

It is a offensive word used to describe people from the Caucasus and indeed the CIS- who, if we believe some of the remarkable right -wingers that are allowed on to Russian TV-are no better than animals, who have taken all the jobs from Russians and should be forced back home.The fact that the men and women from the Caucasus are generally doing jobs that no Russian would dream of doing in the boom years seems to pass them by.This is a story that has played out in the history every 'first' world country and still does so Russia is now different . However, you'd have to go a long way to match the venom here .

So,in Russia, you won't see 'Caucasian' being used by 'white' people to describe their ethnic identity because over here the word is so loaded with historic tensions that go back years and also because that would mean being a identified as a 'nigger' and you can't get any lower than that.

My taxi driver is from Azerbaijan.I have been asked about Obama by Azeris, Georgians,Uzbeks, Dagestanis, and a rather lovely stately looking Moldovan gentleman on the Metro.No Russian ever asks me about him and i realize (admittedly somewhat belatedly) now that for all those who ask me Obama is земляк.... a fellow country-man.. he's family. His victory is theirs and when he sits in the big house and at big tables around the world so do they, they couldn't be prouder.This is Obama love.