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.Read on and you will understandwhat is meant by the word  gods, and the book will eventually convinceyou that the Russians are indeed such ''gods''.Right now, don t get scaredby this word, and you will soon see how useful it is in our effort tounderstand the Russians.Indeed, the first thing to do, as a god, would be to ensure for yourselftotal personal freedom unrestrained by any laws.In the city, I throw abanana peel right on the sidewalk.I am free, I am bound by no law; I livein a garbage dump and do not care.There is a good Russian expression, The law was not written for me! But others are gods, too.One assumesthat the passerby's own divine powers will prevent him from slipping onthe banana peel and falling, so no harm will be done.This is where thefamous Russian avos,' meaning  hopefully, comes from.But what if42Russia As It Is: Transformation of a Lose/Lose Societyyou do fall? Then, it is either ''A broken leg won't bother a god', or ''Itserves you right, you devil''.In Holland, everyone looks at the punk with disapproval the momenthe drops the peel and then, in three seconds, the peel is picked up anddisposed of; thus, the result of the punk's infraction is nil.In Russia,sometimes it seems that only burning the offender at stake would impressothers enough to make them observe the rules, and then only for threeseconds.The law is always connected to a certain territory where it exists,otherwise known as a jurisdiction.When someone breaks the law, thefirst thing that law does is to restrict this offender s freedom to move, asif saying,  You are where this law is in force. Holland is small, andthere is nowhere to run.Thus, if you go somewhere, the situation is notlikely to change.And so, you submit to rules and to laws.The result isthat the law is permanently there.In Russia, the situation has alwaysbeen different.If you did not like the way things were going in aparticular area of the country, you could just move a thousand kilometersaway, still remaining in Russia but no longer susceptible to the offendingregulation.OWNERSHIP WITHOUT POSSESSION, OR THE REASONBEHIND TERRITORIAL EXPANSIONWhen you have property, you stay put, and when the law is not arbitrary,you do not have to run away.But when you have nothing to tie you to aplace, when you fear for your life but can do nothing about the legalsystem or about your rights, you do try to run away.Could this be thereason why the urge of the Russians to extend their borders was so muchgreater than that of their neighbors, so that the Russians eventually cameto spread over such a large territory? We again come to the question ofland ownership: when you can t have your own, you can never haveenough.Usually, people first civilize the heartland of their state, and then tryto spread further.In Russia this is also the case, but to a much lesserextent.The Russians were afraid to stay in place as there was no rule oflaw, and left their heartland almost as underdeveloped as the newterritories they moved into.Very old cities still have unpaved roads andwooden houses as if there hasn t been not enough time, for the last eight43Matthew Malycenturies, to do the roads and the houses right.Wherever you are inRussia, it seems that people have either recently settled or recently left.If you visit a Russian wheat field, you a likely to find a huge boulderstuck in the middle of it.Why didn t anyone haul it away, during allthese years? If it were Germany, this boulder would have been takenaway eight hundred years ago, broken up, and used to build a house.InRussia, the boulder is still there; the peasant hut beside it is made ofwood, and is already in need of repair.If we compare a street in an old German town with a street in aRussian town of roughly the same age, we will see that the German streetshows ten times the amount of human effort: stone houses, paved streets,cozy cafes, fresh paint.A Russian poet said,  We do not know ourcountry, and our footsteps are not heard.It is like trying to reachthrough a glass window: since the Russians cannot own property, theycannot touch and feel their land.A German house is built for eternity; a Russian house looks as if itwas built in a way that the owner wouldn t mind abandoning it.But theRussians also care about eternity: there is a half-rotten fence around thehut so as to impede those who would try to steal some radishes, and onthis fence we can read a carving of  Ivan loves Maria , or something lessreadily quotable.LAW AND LANDWhat if there is no law to protect your property and, as a consequence,you have no property? That would mean that you could move freely, butthe state cannot allow that because otherwise there would be no one toharvest the crops and to pay taxes.Thus, the state had to tie its citizens toa particular place by force.We see that in Russia serfdom was a directconsequence of the lack of protection of private property [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]