I just downloaded the New Yorker article on Gary Kasparov. I haven’t looked at it yet (that’s for when I’m off line at home), but it should make for interesting and timely reading. He’s been on my mind a lot here even if his name is suspiciously absent from most news outlets, and especially the television news channels. I’m curious what the stations were showing during the dissident marches last spring, I know they mentioned them, but according to most western sources the scale and coherence of the movement were minimalized, to say nothing of the somewhat extreme reaction by the government and pro-Kremlin youth groups. This latter element, by the way, is for me the most alarming element of the situation here, although to be honest I haven’t seen anything from them first hand.

Yesterday I asked one of my teachers about Kasparov and she explained that he and his “Other Russia” movement (briefly: a coalition of the various disenfranchised political parties who really only share common ground in the fact their opposition to the current regime, check out the article for more here, I guess) are sympathetic to educated, informed Russians because of his criticism of the fact that in Russia today there is capitalism but no real democracy. Nevertheless, from her point of view he lacks any meaningful program for changing Russia and in this lies his, and his movement’s weakness. This is nothing new, of course, and again I haven’t read the article yet so maybe this is better hashed out there. All the same, even without a substantive plan for Russia’s feature, the very fact of resistance is meaningful, and, from my limited perspective, essential to the future of this country. It’s for this reason that the coalition includes radical groups like Edward Limonov’s National Bolsheviks, who, I must admit, make me just as nervous as the United Russia youth and the folks spraying pro-Putin graffiti all over the place.

But I’m still trying to figure out where Kasparov et al fit into the minds of those less educated, severely less informed Russians. People like my Ivan, below.

Also my Babushka. It’s been quite awkward for me that we’ve had a number of critical, substantive conversation about politics in the United States, but next to nothing about Russia. We watch the news religiously, but all that really comes out of the Russia stories are her praise for Putin, and now Zubkov. Ои, какой молодец, наш президент! She’s certainly an intelligent, well-educated woman with strong, laudable values, and I wouldn’t say she’s simply parroting her beloved news broadcasts; but there is an extent to which these exclamations feel automatic, thoughtless. Ripe for manipulation. It bothers me a great deal.

But, it must be said, it’s near impossible for me to really look at the current situation from her perspective, or from the point of view of anyone who’s lived through the last two decades. But then, of course, working towards understanding that perspective is part of why I’m here.