Indifference

In her “The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck” best-seller, Sarah Knight describes a “fuck budget” everyone has. Whenever you do something that requires your time or energy, you spend some of the “fuck bucks” from this budget. The life-changing magic itself is to understand that your budget is limited and stop wasting “fuck bucks” on irrelevant things. Well, if Russians are poor financially, at least they are “fuck bucks” millionaires, since “not giving a fuck” is another common Russian treat.

I’ve already mentioned not giving a hoot about massive corruptions and the fact that everyone, from the President to a local judge, steals budget money. In the end, people who consider themselves as expendables, not citizens of their country, have a moral right to have no responsibility for it, or a desire to change the course.

By the way, the fact that Putin steals for almost 20 years (and will probably continue doing so until he dies) is the major reason we don’t riot against this neo-monarchy — what’s for? Another one will come on Putin’s place and start stealing, what’s the difference? Some even believe that the longer Putin reigns the country the better, because he has already stolen enough and maybe will eventually make an effort to do something decent for his poor people, while a new hungry guy who takes his place will start stealing much more than Putin does now. Truly, this country does terrible things to your mind.

But the indifference stretches far beyond the politics. Russians don’t give a shit about how the city looks. Every elevator, every house is covered with penis drawings (or its textual representation, the branded Russian “hyi” word), gum, and piss (the later is even laughed upon, in the figure below people ask the symbol of “goddamn Americans”, President Obama, to stop pissing in their elevator — a local humor, don’t ask me to explain).

Most benches near the apartment entrances are broken. Doors are covered with ads. Light bulbs are broken or stolen. Patches of different paint — signs of feeble repairs attempts — cover dirty walls that lose their plaster skin.

Dog shit covers every yard and most of the playgrounds. Dog owners and their our own kids cannot walk more than 30 steps without stepping into another pile, but no one cares and (almost) no one cleans after their dogs.

Why? To quote a well-known Russian designer Artemy Lebedev, we all have our “comfort zones”, but if civilized people’ comfort zone includes the streets they walk, the parks they visit, the cities they live in, and the countries they inhabit, a comfort zone of a Russian ends at his doorsteps. Everything outside my apartment does not belong to me, hence I don’t give a shit about it.

And for those who dare to upset the established order of not caring, we have a perfect and constantly used reply: “Tebe bolshe vseh nado?”, which means “are you the one who cares the most?” Indeed, are you the one who stepped more than anyone into dog shit? We all do, buddy, shut up. We all live in these ugly homes, who gave you the right to be offended with this sight more than we are? Bite the bullet and keep your mouth shut, just like we do. And believe it or not, that works as a charm — most anyone instantly chills and backs out.

You don’t want to be the one who cares a little bit more than everyone around you does. And even if you do, “Odin v pole ne voin” — “One man, no man”.

The high noon of this herd morale is pictured in the critically acclaimed 2014 movie “The Fool” by Alexander Bykov: a regular service guy finds out that the house with 860 people inside is about to collapse because of a giant crack in the wall. Rushing into the restaurant, where the mayor happens to celebrate her birthday, he alerts everyone about the upcoming tragedy, which is about to happen because of the tragic negligence, bureaucracy and the fact that most of the city budget has been systematically stolen by the government pen-pushers throughout years. The good civil servants quickly come to understanding that they won’t be able to cover this story up, and they are much more comfortable with burying everyone alive under the ruins and blaming a couple of fall guys in the office, rather than evacuate that “living trash”. Desperate, the movie antagonist runs back to the falling building and starts banging into doors, shouting about the emergency and rushing everyone to get outside… where he eventually gets killed by the mob, angry at the guy who has forced them leave their cozy wormholes. A fiction movie, yes, but for everyone who’s lived here long enough it looks more like a terrifying prophecy, a dark omen of what is to come, a reminder for those who want to change the way the things work here.

“Chelovek cheloveky volk” — “We are wolves to each other”

The degree to which Russians don’t give a shit about the people around is frightening. A few years ago the Russian media was covering a story about a university teacher that had a heart attack and collapsed on a street in Saint-Petersburg. He lied down covered with snow for two hours and eventually died. No one approached him. “Huh, probably another alcoholic had too much for today, that’s not my business”. This specific case took place several years ago, but such tragic events happen every week.

The guy in the video pretends he suffers from a sudden pain in his stomach — watch how “fast” the help comes

The emergency medical info available from the locked iPhone screen, bracelets for diabetics that warn people about the wearer’s condition in case (s)he suddenly collapses — none of precautions make sense here in Russia, because should anything happen to you, the first one who approaches you would probably be a city worker who came to collect your body. But at least our “fuck budgets” are always topped, right?