Urals Federal District - здравствуйте!

Russia is a country that is very close to my heart.  I have a Russian partner, I speak Russian and lived in Moscow for two years, so I've read a lot of books about Russia, eaten loads of Russian food, watched movies and become immersed in Russian culture to the point that it will be quite a challenge to find 'new' stuff for this blog.  That's why I'm starting with the Urals - I've travelled a lot in European Russia, but the furthest east I ever got was to Tatarstan, in the Volga region.  The Urals are my natural next step in terms of learning about Russia and a region that I know very little about, as I'm sure is the case with most of you reading this blog!

One thing I learned about Russian officialdom is their love of bureaucracy.  It would seem that the more complicated the process is, the more it is perceived to be efficient.  Russia is the biggest country in the world, by land area, and all this bureaucracy stems from an effort on the part of civil government to control this massive land and bring it under the centralised control of Moscow, often thousands of miles away from where Russian citizens live. 

This intense bureaucracy is recognised in modern times by the phenomena of 'federal subjects'.  Russia is a federation, made up of a complicated array of 83 legal 'subjects' including:

21 republics
46 oblasts (or regions)
9 krai (which were historically 'border regions')
1 autonomous region, a legacy of Soviet times, this is the autonomous Jewish state in the Far East.
4 autonomous okrug (or districts) - the main difference between these and the regions is that they tend to be located in the far north, near the Arctic circle - they are nominally recognised as being the homelands of a native minority and they have less independence than republics.
2 federal cities - Moscow and St Petersburg

I think it's hard for someone in Western Europe to understand the nature of the Russian Federation, when we have a really strong concept of a unified nation, but I guess it's similar to the federal system in the United States of America, where states can make their own laws but belong, ultimately, to a greater nation.  Again, it's a wee bit more complicated in Russia. 

Something I realised when I was living in Uzbekistan was that, whereas I had been brought up to think of the Soviet Union being more or less synonymous with 'Russia', in actual fact, it was indeed a union of soviet states, which is why, when the union fell apart in the early 90's, countries like Uzbekistan suddenly found themselves independent, whether they liked it or not. 

The Soviet Socialist republics were like the top layer of bureaucracy - from a legal point of view, the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic was no more than an equal partner in this union.  Of course, the reality is that Russia did dominate the governance of the Soviet Union, although I'm sure most of my Russian friends would disagree with this assertion.  I can understand why, for most people in the West, Russia and the Soviet Union was one and the same thing. 

It also explains why the Russians fought so hard to keep Chechnya in the Russian Federation.  Bizarrely, from a Western point of view, they gave up the Baltic states and countries like Georgia and Azerbaijan, without so much as a whimper, knowing that, legally, Russia had no claim on these independent soviet states.  With Chechnya, it was a whole different ball game.  As Chechnya is a republic within the Russian Federation, letting Chechnya become independent would set a precedent for the other 20 republics in the Russian Federation (eg Taterstan, Dagestan, Karelia) and would leave the Russian Federation in danger of simply falling apart. 

The reason I've chosen to divide my blogging about Russia into federal districts, is because I believe these more or less accurately divide Russia into parts with very different historical and cultural experiences.  European Russia is made of up five federal districts:

Northwestern Federal district - centred around St Petersburg, with its history linked to Karelia and Finland, Peter the Great's window on Europe and its proximity to the Baltic states and (nowadays) the European Union.

Central Federal district - the federal subjects around Moscow.  I don't care what anyone says, to me, the Central Region and Moscow is the heart and soul of Russian identity. 

Southern Federal district - is the heartland of border tribes such as the Cossacks, but also my partner's nation, the Kalmyks.

North Caucasian Federal district - which is made up of several Caucasian republics and is mostly known in the West as the scene of conflicts - Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan etc.  This district is a real thorn in the side of the Russian authorities and continues to threaten the survival of the Russian Federation.

Volga Federal district - the Volga is the blood that runs through the body of European Russia - it's an immensely fascinating region and contains a real mixture of people, languages and cultures.

Asian Russia is made up of three federal districts, each of which would rank top of the list of the world's biggest countries, were they independent states.  They are:

Urals Federal district - Russians believe that Asia somehow starts at the Ural mountains - it's a region which is famous for its natural resources and it is the source of a lot of Russia's wealth.

Siberian Federal district - Siberia has an incredibly strong identity within the Russian federation and, out of all the federal districts, it's the only one that could properly be identified as a 'nation' in its own right.  Certainly most people in the West have a greater sense of Siberia as a place, than they would do of most of the other federal districts.

Far Eastern Federal district - by all accounts, the landscape around Vladivostok is more like that of Japan or China than that of European Russia.  This is another massive district, nine time zones from Moscow, with places like Anadyr being on the same longitude as Auckland, New Zealand (170* East). 

It's a challenge, blogging about the world's biggest country, but I'm going to take it one step at a time, the first step being the Urals!

Image credits:

The map of the Russian Federal Districts is from Wikimedia Commons and is a derivative work by wikiuser SeNeKa - you can see more information on this file at it's information page. 

Oklahoma - The Outsiders

I've probably spent far too long on Oklahoma but, it's my starting point for the US and, in terms of the wealth of information that is easily accessible, books, music, news, radio - I have a lot more options compared to smaller cultures like Kiribati or Lesotho. Plus, everything is accessible to me in English.

I've often thought it would be a good idea to set up a publishing company that would translate books from English into smaller languages (like i-Kiribati and Sesotho) and vice versa. Living in Uzbekistan, although a lot of foreign books had a Russian edition, there was a dearth of new novels being published in Uzbek or Tajik. I think there is a danger of creating a cultural elite in the world, for those who speak world languages. It also undermines lesser-spoken languages to have such intense competition from the major world languages.

English readers also lose out in return - in each of the countries I've mentioned, you'd be hard pushed to get your hands on any recent novels from their most famous writers. Before you say it, I think it's patronising to assume that people in the Third World don't have time to read. Also, being a well-known writer should never be a perk of growing up in the West.

Anyway, back to Oklahoma. I've read so many American novels in the past that you would think it would be difficult to find something new to read. But, of course, this isn't the case, there are still so many books out there, like S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, that remain undiscovered by anyone outside that specific context (either in time or geographical).

Published in 1967, when Hinton was just seventeen, it tells the story of gang warfare in Tulsa, between the (working class) Greasers and the (middle class) Socs. What surprised me most about this novel is that it was about the differences in social class and, with my European pre- conceptions of the US, I didn't think this would be as relevant to an American audience, as it is to a European one.

Like many female authors writing about male dominated worlds (JK Rowling is another good example), Hinton masculinised her name by using initials, so male readers wouldn't be put off. The fact that women still feel the need to do this merits a while seperate blog in itself, having said that, I did think the emotional voice coming through the narration of the novel was both young and female. Some of the scenes are a bit too weepy, although overall it's a good story.

You easily emphasise with the main character, Ponyboy, the plot flows quite smoothly and I like the way it ends, coming round in a circle (I'm particularly fond of circular or spiral plots in literature). It reminded me, inevitably, on West Side Story, which pre-dated this book and Grease, which came later, as a musical and then a film, in the 70's. The novel seems to have been a sensation at the time and Hinton was somewhat of a prodigy, I wouldn't be surprised if the musical Grease borrowed some elements of The Outsiders' plot.

SE Hinton still lives in Oklahoma and still writes. You can visit her website at http://www.sehinton.com/


Image credits

The Image of the original(?) book cover for The Outsiders is from http://www.openlibrary.org/

The image of the book covers (of books I have read in reference to Oklahoma) was taken by me. 

Mongolia - Cynophobia and Ger-tiquette

Apart from being landlocked countries, I was trying to find something else that Mongolia and Lesotho have in common and I came up with this:


they have similar levels of population.


Hard to imagine this would be the case with Lesotho being the size of Belgium (or a little bit bigger than Massachusetts, for our friends in the US), whereas Mongolia is the 19th biggest country in the world, right after Iran. It's also the least densely populated independent state in the world, with only 1% of Mongolia's territory being classified as urban.

I can't even begin to comprehend a 'space' like that. It must influence everything about Mongolia, from their love of horses, the bird dancing rituals before wrestling, the timelessness of a landscape barely altered by man.


If claustrophobia is a fear of enclosed spaces, then what is a fear of open spaces called? I've looked on the Internet, but no one seems to know the answer to this. Officially it should be 'agoraphobia' which is the fear of crowds (or markets), but can also imply the fear of an empty market, of being alone in a landscape.


By all accounts Chingis Khan had an irrational fear of dogs. Dogs seem to be all-present in Mongolian society. A common greeting is Nokhoi Khor, which is the polite thing to say on entering a ger (traditional Mongolian home, like a big tent made of poles and wrapped in felt). It literally translates as 'hold the dog'.

Being Irish, children and dogs are brought up (or is that dragged up?) together and, until I went to Uzbekistan, I'd always felt comfortable around dogs. Arriving in Samarkand, the floppy, affectionate puppies of my youth were suddenly replaced by the earless, snarling guard dogs (they chop off their ears, so that every sound will be irritating, which makes them incredibly nasty and fierce.) It certainly reminded me of their primary function and put their essential relationship with man into perspective, in a way I'd never really thought of before.


To learn more about Mongolia, I ordered a cheap second-hand copy of Lonely Planet, dating back to 2001, coincidentally the year I went to Samarkand and, much as I've learned a lot from Lonely Planet over the years, some of the advice made me giggle.


Although it's probably quite practical, the phrases they recommend learning, for when you're hiking in the Mongolian wilderness and finally stumble across civilsation are 'Where am I?' and 'Is that dog dangerous?'. I can't help thinking that if that dog were dangerous, I wouldn't get the chance to ask my question in the first place!


Okay, so I'm being a smart-alec but, to be honest, I think I would have found Lonely Planet's guide to does and don'ts, in a ger, terrifying. I loved the advice to leave your weapons outside. Who goes to Mongolia with weapons, honestly? I could just picture myself, the clumsy foreigner, walking the wrong way round the ger to avoid the dog, stumbling over ropes and people older than me, banging into poles and frantically shaking hands with everyone! Disaster!


I remember taking this kind of advice all too seriously when I went to Uzbekistan, being afraid to blow my nose in public, never knowing where to sit when invited to someone's house. I think people understand that you're a foreigner and can be very forgiving. That doesn't mean you don't make an effort to do the right thing, of course, but trying to remember lists of do's and don'ts can take away from the experience. The important thing is to interact with people and join in the laughter when you get it wrong. Stoopid foreigners don't have many uses, but at least we can be amusing, without even meaning to - oh, and it's nothing personal.


As part of my learning about Mongolia, I've been reading the blog of an American woman, Tara Munch, who is currently teaching in Ulaan Baator. It's called 'So I moved to Mongolia' and her stories about traffic and dodgy door knobs have brought a smile to my face and conjured up memories of Samarkand, the frustrations of living in a country that barely functions, the feeling of not knowing what's going on a greater part of the time, but also the sheer hospitality of the people you meet and the adventure of being somewhere so totally different from the place you grew up in. I like the way she tries to focus on the positive things, too many people end up being grouchy ex- pats! Enjoy it, Tara, while it lasts. You'll have enough time back in the West with all its rules and familiarity :-)


If you want to visit Tara's blog and wish her luck, it's

http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Tara-Munch/


Image credits

The image of the Mongolian flag is from www.33ff.com/flags

The image of the snarling dog is from flickruser misterbisson an information architect and librarian from Manchester, New Hampshire.

The image of the Ger is by flickruser jrubinic

Mongolia - Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus

Mongolia is a country I've been fascinated by for a very long time. When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with learning languages, attempting Greek, Danish, Breton . . the more obscure the better. I think attempting to learn Mongolian in my first year of college was about as obscure as it got (and I'm pretty sure I didn't get past the first unit in the book).

Apart from this first foray into Mongolian culture, I might have ended up living in Mongolia. After my two years with the Soros Foundation in Uzbekistan, I had the option of doing a year in Mongolia, but chose the easier option and ended up in Thailand instead.

I'm sure that Mongolia and Thailand are worlds apart, but one thing they have in common is that they are both Buddhist nations. From my preliminary reading about Mongolia, one thing that has really struck me as a national 'psyche crisis' was the loss of religion. (I'm not sure what else to call it - in Kiribati it was the rising sea levels, Jamaica was a strong awareness of the past, Lesotho the tragically high levels of HIV infection).

My first experiences with Buddhism were in Thailand, a country that takes religion very seriously. Thailand follows the Theravada form of Buddhism prevalent in South Asia and this was the form of Buddhism that I became most familiar with. Despite not being religious myself, I used to love visiting the temples and sitting in contemplation of the Buddhist statues and the smells of incense. The temples were always open on all sides and sanctuaries of cool stone and shade in the sweltering heat of Bangkok.

Mongolia follows the Mahayana (the Great Wheel) form of Buddhism, due to its close links with Tibet. Even the meaning seems to be different from Theravada Buddhism, the turning of the great wheel of time suggesting something more forceful than the languid contemplation of the steamy tropics. My partner is from a Western Mongolian tribe called the Kalmyks and I have visited their 'Khurul' or temple and begun to understand the differences in the Mahayana tradition with its prayer flags, monks wrapped up in robes, enclosed temples and more than a hint of shamanism in the background.

Mongolia and Tibet share a lot of traditions and, although seemingly quite distant from each other, are culturally close, no doubt helped by the continuum of Tibetan people through the Chinese province of Qinghai, reaching towards the Mongolian border.

In fact, the 'Dalai' bit of 'Dalai Lama' is from the Mongolian word for 'ocean' - a common theme in Mongolia, Chingis Khan is also thought to mean 'Great Oceanic Khan' - I guess the Ocean was the edge of the Earth for a medieval Mongolian. Mongolians used to make once in a life-time trips to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, the fourth Dalai Lama was Mongolian and, when the British (no blog would be complete without them) invaded Tibet in 1903, the Dalai Lama fled to Mongolia for safety.

By all accounts the Chinese were relieved when the Mongolians finally adopted Buddhism, as it chilled them out and stopped them constantly invading China! When the Soviets came to power in the 1920's, an estimated 1/3 of the adult male population in the capital Ulaan Baator were monks. With such large numbers and incredible influence, the revolution didn't dare tackle Buddhism straight away but waited until the 1930's under the Stalinist Choibalsan (a former Buddhist monk!) to purge the Buddhist population, murdering an estimated 17,000 lamas and religious leaders. It would seem that having 1/3 of your male population remaining celibate, and contemplative, flew in the face of Soviet policies of increasing the number of workers available for five-year plans and the exploration of Siberia's wealth of natural resources.

Reading about Mongolia, it's this great loss of the 1930's that strikes me most. I guess every country has its 'psyche crisis' (the Irish equivalent would be the Great Famine), when the very essence of the nation is challenged and changed irrevocably.

Image Credits:

The image of the Mongolian flag is from the website www.33ff.com/flags.

The two photographic images were both taken by me. The first one is Buddha and the Wheel of Law, which I took in Thailand. The second one is the biggest Buddhist statue in Europe, which is in the Great Khurul (Temple) in Elista, Kalmykia.