Ukraine, Crimea and Russia

Over the past few weeks I've been asked, by Russians and Americans, family and acquaintances, what I think about Ukraine and Crimea, and I've tried really hard not to answer. Why? Because despite a large amount of news coverage and popular opinion, I don't feel like I really understand the situation. I know enough about Russian history (and just history in general) to know that this is oversimplifying things:

But that explaining recent actions as "fixing the mistakes of the past" leads to the heroification of Putin's administration. Plus, as an American living in Russia, spending half of my days playing games and doing crafts with kids (and learning grammar and vocab...but mostly games and crafts), how can I speak about what Russians think and Russians feel?

But tonight, in lieu of our normal lesson talking about "was/were" and the past simple of regular verbs, I had a long conversation with a student. We talked about many things, including life in America, and the fact that both of us have had people assume there are bears where we live (apparently rural Massachusetts and Russia are equally wild and dangerous...or at least equally misunderstood). We also talked about current politics.

I asked him what he thought about Crimea, and he told me that what the world sees today is not the whole picture. And I agree that looking at this region only in the present is a mistake. He said that Russian leaders like Kruschev and Yeltsin made a lot of mistakes in their time, and it's only now 20 years later (or more) that some of these mistakes are starting to be fixed. What should have happened, he said, is Crimea becoming part of Russia at the fall of the Soviet Union, but with everything that happened, it was forgotten about. Now, I think there must be more to the story than this, too. After all, the idea of Putin with a to-do list of mistakes to fix, that have been put off, but now that the Olympics are over he finally has time for it just doesn't work. Of course, there's been a lot going on in Ukraine recently, with the EU and political unrest and much more. So maybe I still don't really understand the situation. And maybe I'm still loathe to tell all you readers what Russians think, or even what I think, but I will say when it comes to the news coverage around the world of events like Crimea, "правда лежит где-то посередине" (the truth lies somewhere in the middle).

Have no fear, though, when we started talking about escalating sanctions between countries, my student told me a war between Ukraine and Russia would be like "a war between Boston and New York". Clearly he has never been to a Sox-Yankees game.

In other news, the past week has seen this weather:

 

 But also possibly the nicest day since I've been here, 65F (19C) and sunny. I went for a walk and found a little bit of nature not far from where I live.