Where Bears Roam the Streets: A Russian Journal
\n<\/i>by Jeff Parker
\nToronto, ON: HarperCollins, 2014
\n272 pp. $29.99<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery Russia story tends to fall into the stereotype of Russians are crazy!<\/i> or Russians are scary!<\/i> Once you\u2019d spent time there, you could feel that these stereotypes were inadequate, but it was harder to say what it was about the place that made it so singular, that had fascinated centuries of Westerners, that had defined us in the West by being the opposite of whatever idea we had of ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
It seems important, especially amidst the continuing violence raging in Eastern Ukraine, to understand modern Russia. This is no easy task. Russia is a constantly changing nation, both politically and culturally, and filled with contradictions. It is a country with deeply embedded traditions that have managed to weather countless changes\u2014the transition from proud empire to communist superpower to democratic federation within a single century. Throughout these decades of tremendous upheaval Russia has, paradoxically, maintained a basic national character while everything else about the country has changed shape dramatically. Trying to describe what this national character is, is of course, incredibly difficult. It\u2019s the sort of work that historians, sociologists, and political theorists exhaust themselves hoping to accomplish. Where Bears Roam the Streets: A Russian Journal<\/i> is Jeff Parker\u2019s attempt to help Western readers make sense of an ever-changing nation the only way that is possible: by focusing on its people.<\/p>\n
The autobiographical account of Parker\u2019s years of travel within Russia is anchored by the author\u2019s constant companion Igor, a man he spots drunkenly swimming the Griboyedov canal one evening in St. Petersburg and later shoots Russian billiards with. Their chance encounter forms the basis of a friendship that centres every one of Parker\u2019s returns to the nation. Through Igor\u2014a larger-than-life character whose often feels like a microcosm of the nation as a whole\u2014Parker learns Russian customs, travels the land, and watches first-hand the effect that the country\u2019s recent history has had on a single one of its citizens.<\/p>\n
The book is composed of vignettes of post-perestroika Russian life, framed by the overarching story of Parker and Igor\u2019s 2009 vacation across an unravelling nation. The global economic recession hit Russia hard and, as Where Bears Roam the Streets<\/i> traces Igor\u2019s transformation from successful cafe manager to yet another chronically underemployed adult, the reader is given glimpses into the plight of an entire generation of young Russians. Parker wisely spends as much time detailing the lack of financial opportunity plaguing modern Russia as he does in tracking the blight of endemic political corruption that is partly to blame for its severity. The book is set in the interstitial period between Vladimir Putin\u2019s presidential terms, when the nation\u2019s current leader acted as Prime Minister to his former campaign manager and First Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev. Putin and Medvedev\u2019s Russia comes off as an even more chaotic place than Boris Yeltsin\u2019s\u2014a country where the scramble for newly privatized assets has been replaced with resurgent, militant nationalism and a system of bureaucratic corruption that appears completely unable to cope with economic disaster.<\/p>\n
As Parker travels the country he spends time chronicling the victims of this era. Illuminating interviews with common people across the nation highlight the most pressing problems facing a population struggling to adjust to new government policies and old, long-enduring social issues. Where Bears Roam the Streets<\/i>\u2019 accounts of the precious few institutions dedicated to assisting men recovering from the brutality of Russia\u2019s compulsory military service give valuable context to the human cost of the country\u2019s frequent wars. Interviews with the administrators of the scarce women\u2019s centres hoping to assist those suffering from the nation\u2019s domestic abuse epidemic paint a similarly vital picture of a culture where modern law has failed to adequately address deeply rooted cultural misogyny. Parker\u2019s depictions of these issues is as compelling as it is grim, recognizing that even as Russia takes new shapes on a grander, political scale, tragedy continues on a personal level. Things are continuing to change, sure, but whether these changes will result in a positive outcome for the most badly affected of the nation is impossible to tell.
\n<\/p>\n
Each of the locations Parker and Igor travel to furthers this feeling of uncertainty. Despite the good humour of so many of the people encountered along their way, there is a constant sense of chaos and impending doom colouring their lives. Where Bears Roam the Streets<\/i> was only recently published, and Parker\u2019s knowledge that Putin will return to full power in 2012 hangs over the events of the book like a looming thunderstorm. In a chapter where the author follows the unfolding of war between Russia and Georgia there are prophetic parallels to the annexation of Crimea. When Parker writes about meeting with veterans who requested to be sent to Chechnya, now haunted by the horrors they witnessed there, it\u2019s hard not to think of the bright-eyed nationalists currently lining up to fight in the frontlines of the country\u2019s next conflict. The ultimate effect for contemporary readers is of watching a recent moment in a continuous cycle, Russia changing in some ways while the average citizen just attempts to hold on and survive through yet another wave of violence and economic desperation. It\u2019s almost surprising, then, that so many of the book\u2019s characters are able to make jokes\u2014to laugh in the face of despair.<\/p>\n
The second time Parker spends time with Igor, the two men take a trip to a local banya<\/i>\u2014a Russian sauna. The author is overwhelmed with the intense heat of the steam room, lightly beaten with veniki<\/i> branches, and asked to jump into an ice cold pool. After one cycle of this masochistic spa treatment, Igor asks Parker if he \u201cfeels the rebirth.\u201d And he says he does. Parker\u2019s banya<\/i> trip illustrates something we all know\u2014that undergoing pain before being released from it can be a miraculous experience allowing a person to emerge feeling as if they have been born again. This seems like a deft metaphor for Russia\u2014the closest anyone\u2019s likely to get to identifying something as nebulous as a national character. Despite so much evidence to the contrary, the country that Jeff Parker chronicles is full of people who believe in a future where, once the current cycle of pain has passed, Russia can be reborn again in yet another incarnation. Maybe one where the best parts of the nation and its culture are able to thrive more fully. The honesty of Where Bears Roam the Streets<\/i>\u2019 portrayal of the nation is its greatest strength. The book may tackle the darkest aspects of Russian life head-on, but Parker also takes care to regularly remind the reader that a better future is possible if the cast of characters enlivening its pages are provided an opportunity to do more than simply survive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nonfiction Review Where Bears Roam the Streets: A Russian Journal by Jeff Parker Toronto, ON: HarperCollins, 2014 272 pp. $29.99 \u201cEvery Russia story tends to fall into the stereotype of Russians are crazy! or Russians are scary! Once you\u2019d spent time there, you could feel that these stereotypes were inadequate, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2295,"parent":93,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1444","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2218,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1444\/revisions\/2218"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/93"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}