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I created these web pages while I was teaching at Moscow State University during the spring semester 2004. I added new pages with photos periodically during that six-month stay. Below and on the pages that follow, I've retained the text that I wrote then.
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For fourteen years now, it's been Russia where I have most liked to work, play, and just live. I love Rome, yes. And Paris and Barcelona and Prague. But I always come back to Russia. The writer Vladimir Mayakovsky expressed my own sentiments perfectly when he said, "I would want to live and die in Paris, if there had not been such a place as Moscow." This unexplainable affinity is often called the "Russian bug," and once you've been bitten, for better or worse there's no cure.
I've spent quite a lot of time in Russia since 1990, usually in visits of three to six months -- a total of about three years, overall. I'd like for it to have been a great deal more. With luck, these pictures that I'm taking during my current stay as a Fulbright lecturer at Moscow State University will help to sketch out some of the reasons why.
As I'll try to show later, beyond the cultural factors that have universal appeal, Russia is a hugely complex and challenging place. Daily living here inevitably brings both frustration and joy, uncertainty and hope, ambiguity and insight. I think that nearly everyone who lives here experiences the society's multifaceted character on more dimensions that I could ever name or illustrate visually. This is what makes the idea and the reality of Russia so compelling to some of us who are outsiders. The qualities that most fundamentally characterize this culture have been forged in hardship and struggle. Even the beautiful scenes, then, have a pronounced tinge of the profound.
February 17, 2004
This is my academic home for the coming semester -- Moscow State University. The university has been the source of innumerable innovations over the years in science, literature and the humanities more generally. The main building, pictured here, looks over Moscow from one of the highest spots in the city. It's spectacular any time, and especially with a blanket of snow!
I teach my comparative politics class here, in the second humanitarian building at the university. As the Soviet economy stalled in the 1990s, funding for education declined, and the situation worsened after the breakup of the USSR. The effects show in many university facilities, which often need extensive renovation. The good news is that improvements are starting to be seen, as the next photo illustrates. In the classroom, I'm finding my students to be bright, inquisitive and enthusiastic about their studies.
The building wrapped in plastic is the home of sociology at Moscow State University. Sociology occupies all five floors, and the structure is undergoing extensive renovations right now, complete with marble on several floors and beautiful wood paneling. Hopefully, upgrades such as these will be the wave of the future for Moscow State facilities in general. I teach my Global Societies course here.
Yes, there's life off campus -- and lots of it! Here's a good place to start with our city tour. It's the main entrance to Red Square, which has been the center of Moscow's, and Russia's political life for centuries. For more than 70 years, it was the place where the Soviet Union's highest officials worked and held official functions. The Kremlin is to the right, and as you can see, we have snow. (There are no university closings for the white stuff, in such usual amounts as these!)
Moscow has what is unquestionably the most beautiful subway system in the world (the Moscow Metro), and also the most functional. It transports mind-boggling numbers of people daily to points all around this city of 10 million. Cars for everyone would never work, the way the streets of this old city are laid out. Several downtown streets go in circles, intersecting streets that fan out from the center. I'll show you a map later. There's beautiful architecture in the metro stations in the city center, and all of the stations are different. I'll give you illustrations as the semester continues. This is an example of wall art from one of the stations -- New Socialist Realism. You can see the emphasis here. Strong families help to build a strong state. This is art to remember, art that exemplifies one of the most all-encompassing social experiments that was ever carried out.
Moscow is full of life, as you'll see in several subsequent pictures. It's also rich in history. There are hundreds -- probably thousands -- of churches, large and small, all around this amazing city. You know that there are enduring traditions in this culture, as well as the radical approach that was ushered in by Vladimir Lenin.