Letters to the Editor

To the Editors:

I read with interest Dasha Demourova’s story on the Lenin statues. I have another view of this from my eight years working in Lviv, Ukraine. I arrived there in 1994, three years after Ukrainian independence. By that time, the city had managed to eradicate almost all traces of Russia, the Party and statues of Lenin. Western Ukrainians tend to have a less romantic view of Vladimir Ilyich and Communism, as they only had to endure it since the end of the war (except for two unpleasant years between the Polish partition and Barbarosa). I also wondered what happened to all the Lenin statues in Lviv and the surrounding oblasts. Then, in 1996, I had the opportunity to visit the famous bronze monument enterprise in Lviv and discovered them busily casting statues of Taras Shevchenko and other Ukrainian notables and using old bronze statues of Lenin as a source of metal. Walking around outside the casting building, one could see the discarded bases of many of the old monuments – it was sort of a epilogue of who was “out” (and laying around in the snow) and who was “in” (being cast).

In 2001, I visited Yalta (Lenin and the “old days” seem to be more popular there) and noted that there was a nice Lenin statue in the main plaza with his arm outstretched – possibly the old aim was across the Black Sea to Turkey, but now fate has intervened and the new waterfront McDonalds is the object of his interest.

O.K. Buros

Aurora, CO

To the Editors:

It seems, in publishing your article on the elections in Chechnya [Nov/Dec 03], you have opened a can of worms. I would like to thank you for opening that can of worms, and for your clear reporting through polls on the opinion of the Russian people about the conflict in Chechnya. All we ever hear of the conflict in the American media is sensational reporting about terrorist attacks, but we never get to the substance of the conflict. Of course, terrorist attacks on innocent civilians is not laudable, but in order to understand these actions, we need to know what is happening in Chechnya and why these people leave their homes to strap bombs to themselves in Nord-Ost, knowing that they are going to die. This is not the action of a person whose family has been safe, happy, or free. This is the action of a person who has been brutalized. By reporting on the stories that do not get reported in mainstream media, you are doing us a great service.

I would like to thank you for bringing the debate above and beyond “Russians vs. Chechens” and showing the world you can be both a Russo-phile and a Chechen-phile, which is the position of any true humanist. It is important to remember that both sides have had great losses, but it is imperative to take note of the difference between the actions of individuals and the actions of a state. The Chechen people as a whole cannot be held responsible for the actions of numerous rebel groups and individuals. However, since the Russian government represents the Russian people, the Russian people ARE responsible for the actions of the Russian government, the same way Americans are responsible for the actions of the United States government. In educating us about what atrocities the government has committed, you are doing us a world of good, for now we know what we will be held responsible for.

Sincerely,

Raven Healing

by email

To the Editors:

Ilya Stogoff’s flippant flip of a finger to the city of Khabarovsk (Jan/Feb 2004) fits an old stereotype that some Siberiaki and Far Eastern Russians still retain of writers from (Soviet) Leningrad and Moscow. Disdainful. He didn’t even try to know the city, but evidently huddled in the railway terminal for his overnight visit. Did you ever judge a city by life in its train station?

First, Khabarovsk is not in the “primorye” (coastal zone), not anymore than is Montreal or East Stroudsburg. You could learn that before leaving St. Petersburg. Mr. Stogoff and his editor can see on a map that the coast is roughly 200 “crow-flight” miles away, and roughly 400 miles up the Amur River from the Sea of Japan. The Primorsky Krai, of course, does include Vladivostok but not Khabarovsk (pop. 600,000+). It’s the capital of a separate Krai.

Second, for a few rubles, Stogoff could have caught a trolley or bus to midtown Khabarovsk (going right past the vibrant Central Market). If, that is, his vodka intake enabled him to walk 50 meters across the plaza to the loading place. In midtown, he would have encountered “Muraviev-Amursky St.” honoring the founder of this city, helping Stogoff to get past his fixation on the ancient marauder Khabarov. There he’d have a fair taste of the modernization of this city over the past 15-20 years. Some car owner might even have taken him north to see the new highway bridge over the mighty Amur.  A professional caricaturist first orients himself well on what he intends to caricature, but Stogoff evidently chose “scuzzy” before he knew anything about his subject.

What a pity that you paid this outsider to size up this major population center in the Russian Far East, and he totally missed the city!  But a greater pity that Russian Life laughs at such an old colonialist distortion of reality!

Regretfully,

Dale M. Heckman, Ph.D.

Davis, CA