Sunday, July 18, 2010
In 1991 i was 9 years old and did not really understand what is going on in Russia. I can not tell that it was very bad , but as far as I remember my parents use some tickets to buy food, drinks and other grocery items. The leader of Russia at this time was Mikhail Gorbachev and for me he seems normal man as any other on the news.
I was already at the middle of 4th grade when in the end of December, right before my winter break, one day i wolk up and started to get dressed for school. I ate breakfast and sat down in front of TV to watch cartoons which usually was in the middle of the morning program, some kind as "Good morning America".
So I am turning on TV and instead of my cartoon I see a ballet "the swan lake". I started to change channels but this ballet was on every one. I asked my dad what is going on and he told me that our country is going through some kind of changes. I were excited, because i thought that my school will be closed that day and my winter vacations will start few days early... Unfortunately i were only my dreams.
Few days later official TV of Russian Federation at this time ( because my country change a leader and name) shows that it was revolution and our leader now is Boris Yeltsin. I did not care much except that new one did not have coffee spot on his head and as a different from all previous leader he actually was not bold, but had nice, thick blond hair.
Right now I look at all those events from very different perspective. I remember that I was asking my teachers at school what is going on and none of them did not respond me. They were scared because they did not knew which government to support and what is going on in the country. It was not sudden change or transformation from communism to "democracy", because Gorbachev started this process few years earlier, but it still was something impossible for the generation, which grow up learning that communism is the best thing in the world. I am not the one to blame TV or my teacher for the lack of information, because they act as scared humans.
So Boris Yeltsin came to the power and create or prove a stereotype of Russian person - always drunk and dancing. This is sad, but is it the truth...
i find the way to post it here.
ReplyDeleteN.B. for the teacher - i post it on time yesterday, but on my blog - you can check the time and content at:
http://secondrussianrevolution.blogspot.com/
I was only 2 in 1991 but the fact there was a ballet playing in place of broadcasts on a VERY meaningful shift in political power is really interesting. As a Russian immigrant I have very strong and biased views on everything Russian, but it scares me a bit that while government run/controlled public broadcasting CAN be more objective and broad-reaching (for example, the BBC) it can also be very limiting in an attempt to keep its citizens in a cloud of mis or lack of information especially when they have the right to know what is going on with their own political leaders. Placing that kind of control in any one system's hands frankly scares me, a lot. It seems the media coverage of Russian and global news has made leaps and bounds, but is still not where I'd like to see it, anyway, in terms of "free press."
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