So, I'm having the quintessential California day, biking in the foothills in the morning, reading at a sunny sidewalk cafe in the afternoon, swimming in the evening at an outdoor pool. Paradise. When I get out of the pool, a man and his young son are getting into the pool. The man has a thick Russian accent. He asks me, "Vat time does ze pool close?" I answer him "Pol syedmovo" (6:30), thinking that speaking in Russian might make him feel good, more comfortable. (I've done this a hundred times with Russians here in the states, and the reaction is almost always positive.) Instead, his tan face went white and his muscles went rigid.
"Why are you speaking Russian to me?" he asked, in English. "Are you with the KGB?"
"No," I answered, "but I did live in Siberia for a few years."
He asked the usual question: "Why?"
I told him the short version of my Siberian years. He was nonplused. Nobody he knew had ever gone to Siberia voluntarily. He told me that he had learned to fear the KGB a long time ago. He gave me vague details of being 'interviewed', but said that the memory of the experience still gives him the shivers. His crime: going to Latvia to advocate for human rights.
Because most (certainly not all) of my experiences in Siberia have been, and continue to be, invigorating, I occasionally forget that for some people, Siberia will always be as dreaded a word as Dachau is for Jews and Gypsies. For some people, the Russian language, even if it is their native tongue, will always sound fearsome.
Posted by Xander at July 20, 2003 07:31 PM | TrackBackIt's a generational thing. You'd never get that sort of reaction from someon under 30. They never lived through that stuff.
Posted by: chess on November 9, 2003 08:28 PM