As an attentive reader always on the look-out for some kind of text to stuff myself with so as to aquiere new, often wholly and fully useless, information I love free magazines. And that’s one of the pluses of living right now, in a time and place where journalism is in crisis and free magazines, thus meaning free information, are to be found everywhere. Supported by hideous amounts of adveritisements, nevertheless, but most of the time it’s okay because, hey, they’re free! So also in Russia. In Yekaterinburg, where I am leading an extremely fabulous life as a Master student of Russian Literature living in a small dorm room with a Korean and a guinea pig, there are a few such gratis magazines, some of which are trash, and some of which are not, but surprisingly interesting. One of the ‘interesting’ ones came out today, «Большойгород» [Big City], and I read it while spending my 40 minute lunch break in the most glamorous of ways – in true and pure Russian-style, I’d say – waiting in a bank while a friend tackled bureaucracy there. One of the many articles especially caught my attention, and at first just because of its name – «Тагилнадвоих» [“Tagil for two”]. (НижнийТагил [‘Lower’ Tagil] is located two hours north of Yekaterinburg, and I’ve visited it a couple of times). Though the article didn’t turn out anything like I had hoped – there were only about two sentences about Tagil, and that was at the very end of it; but it was all about the life of an American expat in Russia these days. From the look of it, it seems that its author, Яша Левин, has his own monthly column in this paper by the name of «РоссиясЯшейЛевиным» [“Russia with Yasha Levine”] (now what wouldn’t I give for a column with such a name!), but he is also working for a Moscow-based English-language magazine called “The Exile”. It seems like an appealing, though rather predisposed publication, and it is complete news to me. Has anyone heard anything about it before?

To some expats in Russia it is unclear – and steadily becoming even less clear in our «смутноевремя» [‘time of troubles’] today – what country they are actually living in. I try to be an exception to this rule, and on the picture above, taken in a museum in Tobolsk January 2007, I was only kidding. Прикалывалась, as a Russian would put it.

Times are changing. I believe it is one of the best metaphors for history – change, that is. Change for Yasha Levin, however, is not good, at least not this kind of change and the way it affects him, an American expat living in Moscow, struggling to make ends meet as a journalist. And I feel for him, I really do, but I can’t agree with his view on things (and yes, I understand that for an article to be good reading it sometimes has to stretch into the extreme, and so no, his humor was not completely lost on me) that a foreigner in Russia should remain ‘above’ or ‘outside’ Russian society, as he portrays the way he wishes his position here would be in this article. I am a firm believer in integration, even here. He complains:

«Когда-то иностранец в России был желанным объектом – при нём были деньги и правильное гражданство.»  [Once upon a time a foreigner in Russia was a desired object – he had money and the right citizenship].

And draws the following conclusion about Nizhny Tagil, since Moscow has become far too expensive for foreigners:

«Вчера я смотрел на цены на недвижимость в Нижнем Тагиле. Что ж, они нам вполне по карману.» [Yesterday I looked at prices on real estate in Nizhny Tagil. And what do you know; they’re pretty much what we can afford.]

Also, despite having a girlfriend, he thinks it will be easier for him to find girls in the Urals than in the capital. I don’t really know what I myself think of this article. On one hand I know the situation for foreigners in Russia is becoming more difficult with every year, but on the other hand I think every expat here needs to wake up and ask him/herself why they’re here and if they really need or want to be here. Russia is addictive and lovely, I know. But she can also be a pain in the ass. Complaining about a country that’s not yours, which you can leave as easily as taking the next flight home (but not with Aeroflot!), is not correct. Not in any way. I wish I could say – if you want to live here, then stop complaining and adjust! But that’s not the right way either. I have no answers, I’m afraid; all I have are questions, very many questions. When I grow up I think I should become a philosopher…

Anyway, enough about me – what do you think?

P.S. Since expat-life in Russia has turned cold, then maybe I should move somewhere else, somewhere really exotic and become a foreign ‘observer’ for one of their free magazines. How about «КазахстансДжозефиной» [“Kazakhstan with Josefina”]?