“Who hurt you?” Two security guards getting off their shift at the corner grocery store asked. I shook my head without taking my hand from my mouth, and kept walking. “Whoever hurt you is an idiot!” One of them shouted at my back. I shrugged, and kept walking.

Still, I couldn’t help but notice that their small intervention made me feel better. Popular wisdom suggests that Moscow is a pretty harsh city – not just in terms of the lifestyle, but in terms of relationships. A girl walking down a street in the dark and crying appears to be somewhat of a rarity. I’m sure it happens, but then again, I suspect that when I see it happening, I avert my eyes and refuse to see it – and I’m on autopilot the entire time I do it.

A city is harsh not because of people who don’t cry in its streets, but because other people tend to look the other way when it happens.

In 1981, “Moscow doesn’t believe in tears” won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and today, it’s somewhat of a cliche, among expats and locals alike.

“I spent all day crying in bed!” I shout at a friend and colleague via SMS.

“But Moscow doesn’t believe in tears!” He replies, thinking it might cheer me up.

So much of Moscow is firmly ensconced in concrete (something that made this summer’s record-breaking heatwave so ridiculously unbearable), that it is indeed hard to imagine the possibility that the city may have a soft heart or two, beating beneath the paneling and bas-reliefs.

Maybe, the possibility isn’t just hard to imagine – maybe it’s painful to imagine. Because where was that light when you needed it most? Where was that person who randomly – or not so randomly – told you exactly what you needed to hear in that moment?

I think that if Moscow believes in anything – it has to be fate. Fate is the one thing you never really can control, unlike tears.

Meanwhile, the man the security guards were calling an “idiot” had finally caught up with me. Even when there came a breach in the autumnal clouds, the sky above our heads remained starless, due to light pollution. We didn’t act like movie heroes – or maybe we did, I don’t know. All I know is that we were standing on the sidewalk together, in Moscow, and that is good enough for me.

An unprecedented drought, combined with some of the worst heat that Russia has ever seen, has resulted in a number of wildfires in the country. At the end of the July, even residents of central Moscow began to suffer from the acrid air. And it only got worse from there.

There was plenty of blame to go around for the environmental situation in Moscow – but peatbog fires in particular are notoriously difficult to put out, especially with different natural phenomena ganging up on you. Plenty of people, though, have pointed out that human and state negligence (and what can be more human than state negligence, in a way?) has greatly contributed to the overall damage. Deputy Director of the Institute of Geography under the Russian Academy of Science, Arkady Tishkov, told Itar-Tass, for example, that mismanagement and neglect of grasslands and peat layers is directly responsible for much of the fire damage across Russia.

Moscow. Summer 2010. Photo: Anastasia Bobrova

On YouTube, this video of volunteers nearly getting killed in a rapidly spreading wildfire in the country quickly went viral (don’t watch if you don’t think you can’t handle it).

In the meantime, a friend calling from Moscow earlier this week complained about his trip to Red Square with his nephew. “The kid is from the country – you want to show him what the capital is all about. You get there, and it looks abysmal. It looks like the Apocalypse is coming. Or is already here.”

The weird visuals of smog-blanketed Moscow are certainly worthy of a very good horror movie – which is a small consolation. It’s a haunting scene. Watching the news one day, I recognized the embankment I live on. My building was rising out of the dirty cloud like a ghost – a 1947 Stalin-era beauty, gazing out at the surrounding carnage. I suppose that immediately following after WWII, things in Moscow were a little more complicated than they are now. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there was clarity then – of the sort that we do not have today.

Years later, people will at least be able to tell their grandkids that they survived the Great Smog-Over of 2010. It’s just too bad that Yury Luzhkov’s career (the Moscow mayor went on holiday on August 2nd, while smog choked the city – and although he cut his trip short and returned on the 9th – people have remained pissed off with him) appears to be doing the same.

At 11:06 p.m., I had just bounded out of my building, and was standing on the side of the road, hand outstretched. A small sedan heeded my desperate call.

“Can you get me to Kievsky railway station in 10 minutes, give or take a few?” I asked.

“Uh…” The driver replied.

“500 roubles!”

“Get in!”

Moscow is the sort of city where people are willing to take a chance on you – especially when you’re waving a 500-rouble note around. It’s not a whole lot of money, in the grand scheme of things, but it’s not an insulting sum either – especially when Kievsky is not that far away, and you still need to get to the platform to give your mother her mobile phone (which she forgot – because mothers do that).

In Moscow, like in no other place before it, I feel comfortable offering people money, because goddamn, life can be hard on us all!

When three guys from Tajikistan who live in my building started flirting with me when I came outside on my way to work, I asked them if they needed a thousand roubles.

“Who doesn’t?” One of them replied.

So I invited them upstairs and had them carry out old pieces of broken down furniture to the dumpster for me. The stuff was too heavy for me to carry on account of my injured back – but three young guys did alright with it.

Now we’ve even become friendly with each other. The ice has been broken, so to speak.

Giving people money because they need them to help you out is one thing, though. Bizarrely random gift-giving is another thing altogether.

Faced with the task of defrosting my great aunt’s ancient fridge in the record-breaking heat, I had to carry a bunch of food out to the dumpster. Most of it was fairly mouldy already (I’m a crappy homemaker – what else is new?), but I did have a glass bottle of delicious fresh milk I was particularly loath to throw away.

After dumping the mouldy stuff, I stood there, bottle in hand, the cool glass sweating in the sweltering summer night, when I noticed a couple of dudes hanging out on a bench nearby.

“Good evening, guys,” I said. “Would you like a bottle of milk?”

“Are you selling?” One of them asked.

“No, just defrosting my fridge.”

“Well, is it fresh?”

“It’s excellent – fresh and delicious. And not skimmed.”

The guy sitting closer to me outstretched his hand. I handed him the bottle.

“Thank you!” I heard him shout at my retreating back. “This is VERY good milk!”

In America, I might have thrown this very same milk away. Just because I wouldn’t have wanted to impose a random gift on anyone – nor be taken for a weirdo serial killer type who spikes milk with cyanide and the gives it to strangers. Not that I’m saying Moscow is a more innocent place. It isn’t. Quite the opposite. But people here are a little more practical – and way more open to the idea that some random chick just really doesn’t want to waste her milk.

(Hm. The last line of the above paragraph could be construed as vaguely dirty. Oh well.)

The abundance of street musicians in Moscow presents an interesting dilemma, in the meantime – is giving money to them charity? Or are you just going, “Hey, thanks for the awesome music, guys”?

I prefer to do the latter. Which is why I only give money to street musicians who make me smile. I’ll even walk all the way back down the underpass, if I realize that the little band I just passed is actually kind of awesome.

The ones who play by Park Kultury metro always seem to notice.

“You came back!” They say.

“Because you guys are great!” I’ll say.

And we will smile and share the love – for a brief moment or two.

As I exit the underpass, my phone will usually ring. There will be someone at the other end of the line. Some man or some woman.

And they will be going,

“Is this Natalia? Oh hi. So and so gave me your name and number. I heard you write in English and such? Yes? Excellent. How would you like to earn some extra money on the side…”

An American friend of mine told me on a recent visit to Moscow that sure, I can marry a Russian man, “as long as [I] know what [I'm] doing.”

It wasn’t an ill-intentioned comment, but it threw me off-guard. I had already heard from plenty of Western expats that while Western men were entitled to date whoever they choose, Western women dating Russian men, let alone MARRYING them, “mostly isn’t done.”

“How dull,” I thought. “These people are missing out.”

The knowledge that such statements about Russian men are also freaking offensive came later. I always try to put off offense for as long as possible. After all, it doesn’t agree with me. I’m a fan of generalizations – especially darkly humorous ones. I use them all the time!

And yet, the same Westerners who would undoubtedly think it horrible to say something like, “And don’t ever marry a black dude – he’ll probably turn out to be a crack dealer,” have no problem saying what basically amounts to as the same thing when it comes to Slavic men, Russian men in particular.

Some of this stems from a familiar trope – the idea that there are these women out there who must, at all costs, be rescued by enlightened Westerners from their own husbands and boyfriends. Textbooks have been written on the subject. Anyone interested in the topic is probably better off reading one of those, as opposed to this column.

Then, there is pop culture. While the image of the Russian woman has been popularized in all sorts ways – many of them suggesting that she is an object of desire, even if it’s a dangerous desire (just look at the elaborate dance the media has done around Anna Chapman) – Russian dudes are mostly portrayed as thugs. Well, Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises” was a pretty fine thug. But then again, nobody could seriously confuse Viggo for an actual Russian (could they?).

But then there is also the fact that in many ways, Russian men are simply in their element in Russia, in a way that most Western dudes aren’t. They aren’t seen as mouldable, unlike Russian women. If you wind up marrying one of them, you’re marrying more than just an individual – in the eyes of your Western friends, you’re marrying a system, an entire way of life. You might as well be chaining yourself to the Kremlin Wall.

I’m too unsettled to get married at the moment, but I also have a father. Who is half Russian and half Ukrainian. He is a big, blue-eyed man. When I’m back home, the two of us have vodka shots with lunch. We go out for shashlik together. When we’re in one of our collective mournful moods and sitting on the balcony of our apartment in Kiev, we sing a song about a black raven circling over a warrior.

I love my father. And I knew exactly “what I was getting into” when I was born to my mother and him – i.e. I am glad to have been born into this family, in this time, in this place.

When you insult Russian men, you insult my father and two grandfathers. You insult my kid brother, my cousins, my friends, the people I love. You insult who I am as well.

Cut it out, for God’s sake.

The response I found most interesting, however, was that of the Kyiv Post’s Nataliya Bugayova. Criticizing the outrage that naturally followed Azarov’s comments, Bugayova claimed that the small percentage of women who make it in government are strong enough to be able to ignore Azarov’s comments – and as for the rest of us, we don’t matter, because we’re not suited for the job to begin with. Most interestingly, Bugayova chose to sum up her piece by pointing out that she herself has “never in [her] life felt any sexism or male chauvinism coming from Ukrainian men.”

While I obviously disagree with Bugayova’s first statement – and find her second statement incredulous to boot – what struck me about her position is how little it actually surprised me. One of the most popular arguments against women’s movements in general – and the Ukrainian women’s movement in particular – is rooted in a kind of determinism. Strong women don’t need any help in getting ahead!

If we don’t support a culture of strength, though, where are those strong women going to come from?

I would agree with Bugaoyva when she talks about the fact that Ukraine has, in fact, produced many excellent examples of feminine strength – though whether or not that strength translates to actual power is debatable. Regardless of any stereotypes, the majority of Ukrainian women are worker bees, fighting for survival right alongside the men. Whether their work usually translates into success is another matter entirely.

As Hutsol put it,

…gender in Ukraine works against women. They get lower salaries, fewer opportunities to move up the career ladder, and even fewer chances to get a good job or a good education. It is in this light that deep antagonism exists between gender and professionalism that Bugayova singled out in her column.

Professional success for women in Ukraine is often determined by the random lottery of privilege. Christina, 29, a successful dentist and a childhood friend of mine, recently remarked to me that she would have never gotten anywhere had her parents not looked out for her. Though one can argue that young male professionals must clear all of the same hurdles, the hurdles that are in place for Ukrainian women are higher. After all, the pressure on women to succeed is equated, if not surpassed, by the pressure to marry young, have children, and keep a perfect house, while still earning money.

Nobody gets ahead on merit alone. Some of us have people looking out of us. Some of us get by on luck. Some are blessed with a combination of the two. But what is most certainly clear is that any Ukrainian woman who stands up and says, “well, I have everything I need. Guess that means that sexism can’t be a problem in our country,” most likely lives a fairly insular existence. And yes, even in Ukraine, an insular existence is entirely possible.

Azarov’s remarks are more than an issue of sexism – they bring us to the intersection of sexism and class. The most privileged members of Ukrainian society can, in fact, ignore whatever it is that Azarov is saying. The rest of the country, though, best take heed. Attitudes like Azarov’s strike at society’s most vulnerable members, after all. For those young women who are already taught that they are nothing much, sexism among the nation’s elite acts like another nail in the coffin.

Disoriented after oversleeping, I didn’t immediately realize that I would have been passing through Lubyanka today had I woken up as planned. Instead, I woke up when my phone began to ring. A neighbour was calling. “Thank God!” Was the first thing she yelled. “Didn’t you say you were going to head north this morning?”

I was. And when I head north, I always take the red line, even when I find it less than convenient. In fact, just yesterday, I had just endured a protracted argument with my mother as to the benefits of riding on the metro to my destination. “But I ALWAYS take the metro,” I insisted. “I HATE buses!”

Even when a bus would technically be quicker, I prefer the Moscow Metro. I enjoy its polished marble, the rocking of its trains, the cheerful announcer voices. When I have my ears plugged with headphones, I like spacing out in the long stretches between the stations and studying my traveling companions. I enjoy it when some guy sitting nearby will take his gaze off his Umberto Eco or Haruki Murakami long enough to flirt a bit, his voice rising as the train picks up speed: “So what is that crap you’re blasting on your iPod again?”

Like many visitors and Muscovites alike, I am in love with the Moscow Metro, and that love is mutual.

On days like today, tragedy does not remain localized. It spreads outward, from the epicenter. Beside the dead, there are the wounded. Beside the dead and the wounded, there are the traumatized. And then there are the friends and relatives of the dead, and wounded, and traumatized. Traffic is at a standstill near the affected areas right now, like a metaphor for shock.

This isn’t the first time that the metro has been the site of terror, of course. Before today, the latest such incident occurred in 2004, when a bomb went off on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line, between the Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya stations, killing 40 people.

Gorgeous Paveletskaya station is the one I use every day in Moscow, because it is closest to my mother’s residence. I don’t think about this chapter in its history as I hop on the escalator in the mornings and evenings, and neither, I suspect, do any of our neighbours.

We are not, in spite of anyone’s efforts, terrorized.

It’s not that I am particularly happy to note how easily the promises of the Orange Revolution were squandered, and how bitter and disenfranchised the majority of the Ukrainian electorate is. It brings me no joy to point out that in this country, people must worry about everything from the skyrocketing price of cheese to the stoking of mass hysteria surrounding swine flu, before they worry about which one of their candidates is pro-Western enough.

Still, it does bring me joy to mock Professor Kuzio’s sage advice from on high. I’m sure he can take it in stride. He’s not the one who just had to help bandage his kid brother’s arm because the ice on the streets of the capital is not getting cleaned up, and people are falling left and right, falling on the way to the polls to cast ballots for candidates who rarely deal with the reality of what it means to be an average Ukrainian. The way I see it, people who urge Ukrainian voters to lay aside petty practical concerns and see the big picture are getting off easy.

Here is where Victor Yanukovych comes in. Yanukovich, you might recall, was the reason why 2004′s Orange Revolution happened in the first place. His initial win in that election was declared to be the result of electoral fraud. Undaunted by his reputation as a Kremlin shill, Yanukovych hunkered down in the opposition and set about re-branding himself. And after the pathos and euphoria of the Orange Revolution had passed, after political deadlock seized the country, after President Victor Yuschenko utterly failed to unite Ukraine on most issues, Yanukovych began to seem more and more appealing.

Most outsiders do not quite understand the charm of Victor Yanukovych. He is not particularly eloquent. He has two criminal convictions under his belt. He is, in many ways, just as divisive of a leader as Victor Yuschenko turned out to be. But for a narrow majority of voters, Yanukovych represents a chance at stability. He is solid and calm, the very opposite of flashy. He has pledged to introduce Russian as a second state language, an issue which is seen as crucial by millions of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, who get as fired up about it as the American conservative base does about abortion. For a man of his background, he is often surprisingly mild-mannered. His campaign slogan, “A Ukraine for human beings,” belies a certain uncomfortable truth about standards of living in this country.

"I've lived a complicated life!" Victor Yanukovych on the cover of Korrespondent. Image: Yanukovych.com.ua

“There is no one in charge in this country,” a taxi driver told me bitterly as he attempted to navigate a snow-choked street in the early morning the other day. His sentiment is one that, I believe, was echoed by millions of Ukrainians as they cast their vote. Combine this with low voter turn-out in Western Ukraine, for all intents and purposes the birthplace of the Orange Revolution, and Yanukovych’s projected win makes total sense.

For a symbol of a failed revolution, Yulia Tymoshenko, who was beaten very narrowly just now, has shown remarkable tenacity. “She belongs in the opposition,” a member of Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions recently said on television. “She has that contrarian spirit.” The remark, meant to be dismissive, does highlight an important element of Tymoshenko’s politics: she appears to really hit her stride while in active conflict. Opposition politics are as crucial in Ukraine as they were five years ago, and they will continue to be crucial. When life in the country is not improving, however, in-fighting becomes exhausting. One can hope, though, that as far as her political activity is concerned, Tymoshenko will not simply take her toys and go home.

In the meantime, Ukraine remains as divided as ever. Expectations are low, which is dangerous, because low expectations automatically mean complacency on part of leaders.

Perhaps Serhiy Tihipko, who came in third during the first round of elections and is considered by many to be a breath of fresh air, will start building a decent coalition for a new opposition while everyone is still going on about Tymoshenko’s tiger and Yanukovych’s oligarch allies.

“I voted for Yanukovich. I think there will be less chaos, with him.” She seemed a little doubtful. She also seemed like she didn’t think she had a whole lot of choice. Yanukovich, she felt, she could relate to. “He’s a simple man. That’s not a bad thing.”

Now that the Ukrainian presidential election is going to round two on February 7th, when Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will be facing off against opposition leader Victor Yanukovich, Western observers are treating the fact that Victor Yuschenko’s presidential candidacy has been eliminated as some sort of news. Well, to be fair, it’s news for the outside world. It’s not news around here, though. For most people who lived through the economic and political turmoil that followed the Orange Revolution, Yuschenko has become a caricature of himself. His long-standing investigation into his own poisoning stopped eliciting sympathy a while ago.

“I voted against everybody,” Yaroslava, a 25-year-old translator living in Kyiv told me. “Because I don’t believe we have actual leaders in the country right now. If nobody can take care of the fallen branches in the street following the latest blizzard, and this is in the capital, what does that tell you about the state of the country?”

Eugene, a 28-year-old software developer, also living in Kyiv, told me about how he had made up his mind to vote for a certain candidate before he set out for the precinct in the morning. The road, however, struck him as so poorly maintained, that by the time he actually got to where he was driving, he felt obligated to cast a protest vote as well.

Victor Yanokovich’s main campaign slogan goes like this: “A Ukraine for human beings.” It may not be especially subtle, but it brings the point home. Ukraine, lately, has not seemed to be particularly hospitable to actual people.

“People shouldn’t give Yanukovich crap for having close ties to the Kremlin,” a friend from Donbass told me yesterday. “Why shouldn’t he have them? Living next to Russia doesn’t count for anything anymore?”

Both Tymoshenko and Yanukovich arouse suspicion in the West, some of it healthy, some of it not so much. Without getting into the interesting details of both candidacies, many people automatically brand the two as suspect due to the fact that the Kremlin is, indeed, not frothing at the mouth with hatred for either one. This is, of course, automatically a bad thing. It’s almost as if nothing short of an armed conflict with the Russian Federation would please certain people, at this point. Of course, the people in question would not stand to lose a whole lot should that, God forbid, actually happen.

Kyiv is often referred to as “the mother of Russian cities,” which is no empty phrase. Despite the devastating effects of both Russian and Soviet imperialism, there are many ties that do, in fact, bind the Russian Federation and Ukraine. To discount them is idiotic, and destroying them would pave the way for more unrest in Europe.

The people who prefer Yulia Tymoshenko, however, see her as both more independent, tougher and, let’s face it, classier than Victor Yanukovich.

Tymoshenko in recent appearance on ICTV. Photo: Tymoshenko.ua

“Just don’t try to tell me I voted for Yulia because she’s good-looking,” another friend of mine, who works as a builder in Zhitomir, said to me over the phone.

“Of course not! That would be sexist!”

“It would be stupid, because look at her track record. Yuschenko fell apart, Tymoshenko charged ahead. I don’t care what anyone thinks, you have to admire her for that, at least. And the white tiger in the campaign posters. I don’t care. It’s genius.”

He’s right. It is genius. Yanukovich may appeal to people with folksiness, but it is Tymoshenko who knows the true meaning of spectacle. While I would shy away from making sweeping pronouncements on Ukrainian culture, I have always believed that one of the things people really know how to do around here is having fun, and Yulia Tymoshenko is incredibly fun. She didn’t fall apart either, it’s true. She has, like the Bob Dylan song, kept on keeping on, blunders and all. People who seriously refer to her as the Ukrainian Sarah Palin have no idea what they’re talking about. Tymoshenko could school Sarah Palin on everything from international relations to media image to money to the art of the save. There is a lesson in the fact that Tymoshenko was not buried in the debris of the failed Orange Revolution.

For now, as I slipped and fell on the ice for the second time yesterday, in an unkempt courtyard smack in the city center, I did catch myself hoping that Tymoshenko’s tenaciousness will translate into actual stability. And do so sooner, rather than later.

Natalia: Here’s a rhetorical question to start us off, IS there feminism in Ukraine?

Maria: That’s not a rhetorical question, that’s a difficult, philosophical question. The most common belief is that feminism is “not needed” in Ukraine, that Ukrainian women have all the rights they need and that we furthermore have a matriarchy. Contrast that, for a moment, with the fact that there less than 8% of members of parliament are female.

Women’s organizations are terrified of the word “feminism.” Right now, Ukraine has seriously begun to tackle the issue of gender equality; there is a sub-commission on it in the government commission on human rights. The media, however, is very careful to differentiate between “gender equality” and “feminism,” because feminists are hellish, castrating creatures, or so everyone thinks.

And why are we so terrified of a single word?

The word “feminism” is a bit like the word “nationalism” here. They are mythologized as destructive and inhumane. The Soviet system equated both feminism and nationalism with the lifestyle of the bourgeoisie. In modern Ukraine, we also spread rumors about how feminism works in, say, the U.S. There is a popular belief that if you come to America, and happen to open a door for a woman, she’ll sue you for everything you’ve got. I’ve been to the U.S., and I know that’s not true, but people enjoy their caricatures.

Can we talk about feminism in the context of nationalism? That’s kind of an alien concept, to me.

It’s a difficult topic for me. I’m a Ukrainian nationalist, but I know that our nationalism is not progressive. One of the many problems with it is the idea that a woman is a kind of keeper of the household and of national identity. In this role, she gets blamed for everything that goes wrong in the country. “Our women are bitches who f*ck foreigners and ruin our gene pool,” does that sound familiar?

Yes.

People want to build a better nation on the backs of women, and that’s not going to work. I call myself a nationalist because I believe in developing and bettering Ukraine, but how can I reconcile that with putting fellow women down?

I see eerie similarities between Ukrainian nationalism and National Socialism. Like the Kinder, Küche, Kirche slogan, I find that it’s similar to the kind of rhetoric that Ukrainian nationalists spew.

We need to get rid of both sexism and xenophobia, but we don’t have critical mass right now.

Speaking of critical mass, what do you think of Yulia Tymoshenko?

Tymoshenko on the campaign trail. Photo: Tymoshenko.UA

I think it’s great that we have a prominent, powerful woman in government, someone who has a real chance of winning the presidency, but I think we can’t talk about Yulia Tymoshenko without mentioning the issue of tokenism. Right now, it’s too easy for people to say, “what are you complaining about? You have Yulia!” That’s beside the fact that every time Yulia makes a mistake, all women collectively are blamed. It really makes me wonder about whether or not quotas for women in government will be useful. Quotas, of course, can result in us having a class of female puppets sitting in parliament, but at the end of the day, I think they will help even out the power imbalance.

Here’s something I’ve been dying to ask a Ukrainian feminist: what do I tell my teenage cousin who says that boys won’t like her if she becomes a feminist? She’s smart, she’s young, she’s fit, she wants to have a social life, and she doesn’t want to be ostracized.

Let me start off by saying that when I was a teenager, I knew I was unattractive. My classmates wore make-up, and were fashionable, and I wasn’t anything like that. However, I started approaching the most attractive boys at all the school dances. They were so surprised, that they usually said “yes.” I ended up having a lot of fun. I developed a sense of confidence, and rejection didn’t hurt me, because I just moved on. Confidence is key. As the result of having it, I was never bereft of male attention.

You should remind your cousin that feminist women don’t dehumanize men. A feminist woman doesn’t need a superhero, and guess what? Most men like that. People who don’t have unrealistic expectations of one another tend to fight less. And if a man is, say, turned off by your cousin’s intelligence, tell her to ask herself if she needs a guy like that in the first place. If a smart woman digs deep enough, the answer is always “no.”

When you mentioned superheroes, it made me think about how sexism hurts men too. I know guys who have to be alpha males in all areas of life, 24/7, and if they don’t, it’s a safe bet their wife or girlfriend will be horribly dissatisfied. I think that really sucks.

I come home to my husband and say, “thank God I have you, thank God we have each other,” because I couldn’t stand it if our relationship was built on that model. I don’t know how anyone could put up with that, male or female.

Women who don’t have someone in their lives are pitied, of course. I think so many women in abusive relationships don’t leave, because men around here are seriously over-valued.

Well, women in more developed nations also have a hard time leaving abusive relationships, because of Stockholm Syndrome. But I think you’re on to something, in regards to how men are over-valued in countries like Ukraine, in Russia, etc. Entire generations of men were wiped out by a series of horrific conflicts, and that sort of thing has consequences on society. It’s almost like a reflex by now.

How do we get rid of the reflex?

I don’t think anything is going to change for as long as girls are taught that their youth and beauty are the best they can offer the world. Also, the demographic crisis in the country plays its part, because people’s knee-jerk response to that is to treat women like baby-making machines. If we curbed the infant mortality rate and the rate at which men die of alcoholism and alcoholism-related illnesses or injuries, our demographic situation would improve. Of course, this solution is more time-consuming and less slapdash than demanding that women just “produce” babies. Once again, it’s about building a better nation on the backs of women, and it’s not going to work.

I find that the cavalier attitude many in society have toward child-bearing and bringing up kids plays a huge part in keeping women down.

There’s a popular saying, “if God gives you children, God will give you the means to support those children.” I hate it. I hate it especially because it’s usually uttered by people who won’t lift a finger to help, say, a single mother in trouble. A child is a responsibility, and it’s often shared unequally. I wish people would stop saying that, especially now that there is a financial crisis in this country. All it does is shame people who have nothing to be ashamed about.

Also, it’s somehow considered “natural” for men to abandon their families. I mean, it’s considered “unfortunate” as well, but it’s something that doesn’t really shock anyone, does it?

You also have to understand that there are no mechanisms that would allow parents to share custody. Not to mention the fact that there are many situations in which it would be better for the kids to be left with the father, but that option isn’t even on the table, because the mother will then be pecked to death. She’ll be pecked by her own family, by her neighbours, by her colleagues. She’ll be torn apart, because she’s “neglecting her duty,” even if it’s a situation in which everyone would benefit if the kids stayed with the dad.

Because I’d like to end this on a cheerful note, I want to talk about rich husbands. That’s all I ever hear about in Ukraine, these days. “Natalia, Natalia, get yourself a rich husband, quick. Before they all get snapped up.”

[laughs] Remember, if you marry a man for his money and property, there’s no guarantee that it won’t be thrown back in your face later!

In Ukraine, theater is regarded as genteel and boring – something for dainty virgins to enjoy when they’re not crocheting. By contrast, Troitsky is not afraid to be jarring both visually and emotionally. The work he does as director and organizer is organic to the chaos at hand in Ukraine, and local and international audiences have been responding strongly to everything from his weird, mystical takes on Shakespeare to his own biting commentary on modern times.

After the close of this year’s Gogolfest, I had an opportunity to speak to Troitsky about Ukraine, modern theater, politics, travel visas, people who drink beer at 9 a.m., and what potentially awaits us after the 2010 presidential elections.

Natalia: Now that the festival is over, can you comment on how it went this year?

Vlad: That should really be up to others. Personally speaking, I think it went well. I think the public’s reaction was good. We’re trying to organize an entirely new mainstream, something free of flag-waving and knee-jerk patriotism, and I think we’re succeeding. Attending the festival, people have a chance to not feel provincial next to Russia, next to other European countries.

Natalia: You’ve said before that the reason why the festival is named after Nikolai Gogol has to do with the fact that Gogol is the one Ukrainian cultural figure who is very much European. What do you mean by that?

Vlad: Gogol is part of a great humanist tradition in Europe. He was a rare individual. Even today, you look at our modern immigrants, people who go abroad and supposedly engage with the rest of the world, and you see how they viciously criticize the place they left and the place they moved to. Gogol had none of this typical small-mindedness. That appeals to me.

Natalia: Speaking of small-mindedness, you’ve had a lot of harsh words for the way that Ukrainian art and culture are maintained, or not maintained. Do you think things might change after the 2010 elections?

Vlad: I don’t know. The problem with our country is that there is no strategic thinking where the arts are concerned. Government is like a revolving door, people don’t even have time to make sustained efforts, because they come and they go. In that sense, this is why Gogolfest is such a feat – it’s so hard to secure any kind of meaningful support for it. But it keeps happening.

Natalia: Your rhetoric around Gogolfest is interesting. You’ve spoken of the festival as a kind of ‘cultural mall’ and a distinct ‘brand.’ Looking at our cultural landscape, I wonder if established people…

Vlad: Established? There’s really no such thing as “established” figures around here. Everyone is marginalized, with the possible exception of [actor] Bogdan Stupka.

Gogol watching over Gogolfest

Natalia: I guess what I’m trying to ask is this: among our cultural gatekeepers, do you get criticized for using business-oriented language?

Vlad: You get criticized if you do anything. If you do nothing, then great, everyone leaves you alone. But it’s not that I necessarily like translating culture into business. Above everything else, the festival is an opportunity for people to feel like human beings. That’s the main point of it.

Natalia: I want to return to what you just said about marginalization. I remember you once commented that in richer nations, wealthier people can cut themselves off from the marginalized, they don’t have to deal with them every day, which isn’t really the case in Ukraine. Can you expand more on that?

Vlad: What does the word “marginalized” mean, anyway? Look at it in context. In Ukraine, the boys and girls who are getting drunk on the sidewalk in the morning, they’re not the marginalized ones. To be marginalized is to not be needed. The people clutching their beers at 9 a.m., they’re needed. In this country, it’s kids who, for example, attend music school who don’t matter to anyone. They’re the real marginalized group. Anyone with an iota of talent dreams of leaving, because nobody cares about them and their work.

And the top of the social hierarchy in Ukraine doesn’t deal with reality either. They don’t have to. There are a lot of rich people in Ukraine these days, the leaders of society, and you just have to wonder if they’re intelligent at all. That’s the real question.

Natalia: I’ve noticed you’ve had a lot of warm words to say about England and English society.

Vlad: I have a lot of warm words to say about Germany, about France. I like England a lot, though, because it’s able to remain so distinctly English.

Natalia: Plenty of English people would not agree with you on that. Everyone seems to talk about how England today is irrevocably changed.

Vlad: Well, that’s the way of all cultures, isn’t? I still think that English culture in particular is holding out as something very distinct, even as people of different backgrounds join it.

You know, I’m a tourist in London. I don’t know if I could get used to living in such a megapolis. Kyiv, by comparison, is something else entirely. Speaking of travel, did you know that the Dakh company and I were supposed to go to the U.S. recently for a private performance, and weren’t able to get a visa?

"In every word, there is an abyss of space, every word is limitless." - Gogol quote on festival banner.

Natalia: That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

Vlad: It’s the reality of how Ukraine is viewed by U.S. officials. We’re on a certain tier at the moment.

Natalia: That’s infuriating.

Vlad: It is what it is.

Natalia: As far as differences between Ukraine and Western nations go, you’ve said that Western theater as very much its own thing, something that contrasts sharply with local theater. Can we talk about that?

Vlad: Well, which Western theater are you talking about? Are we discussing Edinburgh? Avignon? I think the main difference is, Western governments care about high art and know that it must be protected. High art is elevated to prestigious status. Look at all the people clamoring to make it to the Fringe, or to get good tickets to a famous opera house. We don’t have that in Ukraine.

Consider the fact that not a single presidential candidate even attended Gogolfest. What does that tell you? I don’t know if they’re afraid, or if it’s something else, but it sends a particular message.

Natalia: That’s such a contrast with Russia, isn’t it?

Vlad: Russians are raised to love their high art and to believe in it. It is its own unique phenomenon. Most of it is does not engage world culture, with notable exceptions, such as the work of Andrei Zvyagintsev, Alexander Sokurov, Alexei German and others.

Natalia: Not Nikita Mikhalkov?

Vlad: I think Mikhalkov has lost the plot.

Natalia: Tell me about all of those big Hollywood stars you admire.

Vlad: I admire hard-working people: Leonardo Dicaprio, Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt. They have a work ethic that’s largely missing in Ukraine today.

Natalia: And why do you think that is?

Vlad: Look at it in context of breaking away from great Russian theater and standing on our own. We are independent, great, but we’re not cultivating ourselves. When we do cultivate ourselves, it’s mostly done on a very local level, as opposed to national level. Kids who study theater and acting have no myths to propel them forward. Their highest ambition? Get on some middling TV show. Right now, this is the highest career peak they can dream of.

Natalia: Seems like that’s changing already. Though there’s always that temptation to be sad after a festival, no? When everything has been taken apart, and you have to wait until next year?

Vlad: It’s part of the art. After people witness the ending, the dismantling, the sense of sadness that accompanies it becomes another experience to take away with them.