On returning to a country that did not exist when I left it

It was May, 1999, nine years after I left Russia, and I was on my way back to visit my mother and the city where I grew up and held dear. I planned the trip months in advance, but I was preparing myself for this return for a lot longer, perhaps soon after settling in New York. When I meet new people I am always asked this question “why did you leave Russia?” Every time before giving an answer I hesitate, as if frantically looking for the right explanation, and then retrieve the prepared formula and say “I felt that I did not have a future in Russia, I wanted to do more with my life than Russia would allow.” Behind this answer, true in essence, lies a personal tale, with some chapters devoid of words, and instead brushed over with pain, fear, and despair. Every immigrant has a story, on one hand containing facts and actions, past and present, and on the other, the unspoken personal narrative that we hold close to our chest, like the most precious possession we take with us as we leave our native country and move to another. Why did I leave Russia? My life was not in any danger, and the country was what it was, a ship anchored close to a barren coast, degenerating in the stagnating waters, as the blinded passengers were made to believe they were moving towards happy and plentiful shores. It is possible to live like that for a long time. What made me leave was …. And I pause again even though I am asking this question only myself. I tell myself that I had a good childhood, with many happy moments brought by my indulgent grandmother. I patiently tolerated school, until the University revealed a bigger world to me, sparking my curiosity and emboldening my imagination. I loved St. Petersburg. It instilled in me a sense of beauty and harmony, and offered an escape from crudeness of the reality. In the uniform society that I lived in, some people managed to be happy, but the majority lived their lives out of necessity, just to make it to the end, no matter how. And that way of living created a particular gloom and sense of hopelessness that manifested in everything: lines for food, crowded and semi-functional buses, clothes that looked as if the whole country was dressed in workers’ uniforms, and most importantly submissiveness to hopelessness that I saw on people’s faces every day. But I had my own hopelessness. It was of a different kind and known to no one I knew, and it was concrete and heartbreaking. It was my mother’s mental illness. That hopelessness grew very slowly, but by the time I left Russia it became enormous and dominated every waking minute of my life. It dictated not only my present life, but the future one as well.

Everyone’s life in Russia was clearly mapped with borders and perimeters, roads to follow and not. I knew that the paths on my map would always end at mental hospitals where my mother was a regular patient. I followed them diligently for many years, and was on the verge of giving up on myself, resigned to this future of being a dutiful daughter following the ups and downs of my mother’s mental health. But a seeker in me, perhaps the rebellious and restless child that I was born, desired a leap into the unknown, a chance for new life experiences, and a life that was not possible in Russia. Emboldened by opportunities, I followed my natural impulses, and landed in New York city. There I found the challenge, the unknown, and the thrill, energizing me and electrifying every cell in my body.

And now I was going back for the first time after nine years of living in the US. Over this time Russia changed dramatically. The city I was born in was renamed from Leningrad to St. Petersburg, the country shrank from the Soviet Union to Russia, and the ruling Communist Party was abolished. Privatization reforms led to corruption, and the country had its first nouveau riche, shamelessly flaunting their wealth as the rest faced depravation and deterioration of their living conditions. My parents and everyone I knew in St. Petersburg were struggling financially, while Russian TV advertised new expensive products and luxury trips to exotic places. The country I left, despite its governmental tight control and rigid ideology, promulgated equality and everyone had free housing, education and medicine, with affordable food and assurance that this would never be disrupted.

From New York I flew to Amsterdam, and from there to St. Petersburg. As we descended to land, the landscape changed from green geometrical forms to blurry stretches of gray barren land that suddenly became very familiar and evoked a certain sadness which had lain dormant for many years. My reentry began. From there every step was both familiar and alien at the same time. In the line for passport control people were openly smoking. Indoors! I had not seen this for many years, but of course smoking was almost bonded into the national character. Like the gray land I saw from the airplane, the line of people was also gray and homogeneous, dotted with the colors of a Russian version of Western fashion. The passport control officers wore military uniforms. Approaching my turn, I panicked that for some irrational reason they might detain me and not let me go back to the US. But soon I was outside breathing the Petersburg air in May, infused with a scent of spring and the Neva River, damp, and sweet, but largely appropriated by the smell of cigarettes and car exhausts.

I did not stay with my mother, because her apartment was small, and though her mental condition had stabilized for the moment, I did not want to overwhelm her. My boyfriend and I stayed in a new hotel on Nevsky Prospect, opened in a renovated old building. Inside it looked very much like a hotel in New York or a European city. The clerks at the front desk were young and very polite. Immediately their politeness made me feel uncomfortable, I was not used to politeness in Russia. No one was ever polite in public service or elsewhere when I lived there. Customers were treated with disdain and rudeness, the service personnel often behaved as if they were giving out scraps of food to stray dogs, and both the customers and the clerks were equally angry and miserable. Now whenever I entered a store, or a restaurant I was met with a smile, and asked the same question sales people universally ask “how can I help you?” And while their lips smiled, their eyes revealed the familiar look, bringing to mind the recognizable anguish, unhappiness and personal life struggles. This was particularly true with the middle-aged clerks, still more solidly rooted in the old system. I longed for some familiar and sincere rudeness, pointing to my former home. It might seem peculiar, but that fake politeness dominated many other impressions I had on my visit and stayed on my mind for a long time. It was a new form of submission to life circumstances. If before, all the misery and frustration was in the open, it was now camouflaged by practiced hospitality, mandatory for the job. I saw it not only in expensive stores and restaurants, but also on trains, busses, and metro. Young men in their twenties and a bit older walked along the train aisle selling toothpaste, cleaning supplies, and other similar products. They were friendly and polite and spoke eloquently like they would have spoken about some intellectual topic. They belonged somewhere else, but instead they were on the train convincing the passengers to buy doodads that would help them earn some cash. They managed to engage one or two passengers in a conversation, but nobody bought anything. A few minutes after one seller went through, another one appeared, young, polite and desperate.

Meanwhile at the restaurant in Evropeyskaya Hotel, now renamed the Grand Hotel Europe, we celebrated my coming home. Newly minted ‘New Russians’ were merrily eating refined dishes and drinking Champagne, while their entourage — security men- sat at a separate table a few feet away with ear pieces not so discretely in place. Who were the special guests and why did they need protection? When I was a child, my grandmother worked in this hotel to supplement her miniscule pension. She sat at a small desk on her assigned floor and handed out room keys to the guests. In those days mostly foreign visitors stayed there. She interacted with them primarily with gestures, but often managed to learn quite a bit about their families and life in their respective countries. She loved to retell their conversations at home.

Now, many years later, I was here as a returning emigrant having dinner with my mother and my boyfriend. When I asked my mother where would she would like to celebrate our reunion, she had shyly suggested the Evropeyskaya. Before her mental illness incapacitated her, she worked as a chef at a well-known restaurant and always spoke admiringly about the cuisine at Evropeyskaya. The restaurant, recently restored, was decorated with stained glass ceiling and windows, and arching columns and moldings in Art Nouveau style. It was very beautiful, the food was good, the service impeccable, but I was uncomfortable there, sitting at a table a few feet away from the guarded group. They were laughing and talking loudly, while their guards kept a vigilant eye on their table. I thought of the young salesmen on the train, my mother’s necessary frugality due to her small pension, old people asking for money right outside this restaurant, and I knew I would rather be anywhere else. But my mother was enjoying herself and my boyfriend was kind and patient. Over the years, she learned how to live by herself and even at times when her disease got out of control, she managed to pull through and return to her simple routine. After I left, it was her sisters who visited her in the hospital when she was brought back to the same mental institution where I used to go. As for me, I learned to live without my Russian guilt for not taking care of my mother, and love her from a distance.

We walked outside. It was late, but the sun was still above the horizon. White Nights is my favorite time of the year in St. Petersburg, when the city appears in all its magnificence late at night and in the early morning hours, largely free of people, cars, and street noises. Suddenly I felt that nine years was a very long time, and I was very lucky that I had lived in this city in a different era, when Russia, though flawed and brutal, was at least authentic and genuine.