Our endless winter has definitely affected our mentality. Well, I couldn’t help it. Writer Leonid Kostyukov reflects.
It’s minus fifteen outside. Some kind of circular wind (poorly explained by physical laws) dangles tons of unpleasant prickly snow over the asphalt, trying to pour it into your face and under your scarf. Underfoot is ice, lightly sprinkled with the same snow for camouflage. You get to the bus stop and peer into the blizzard to see if the outline of a trolleybus is outlined there.
If you try to somehow determine your coordinates on the scale «natural environment — open space», then our Russian winter is frankly unnatural for a person. The sum of clothes and tricks, somehow embedding a person in a winter landscape, is quite comparable to a spacesuit. Naked and barefoot, this very man would die in a matter of minutes.
The brain understands where the artificial structures are, but the body, in fact, does not believe it. It trustingly relaxes: in the subway, in the office, at home. Here it is — the native natural environment. And we do not need to explain for a long time about concrete, brick, thermal conductivity and other subtleties.
Now let’s mentally impose an eight-hour working day on this weathered city. A person leaves the house when it is still dark, and leaves the office when it is already dark. The stunted and dim daylight disappears into the cracks between the curtains.
In fact, you can’t live like this. Winter in Russia is not lived, but rather endured, endured; they dive into it around October, hoping to emerge around April. People of the older generation have such a topic, as they say now: will I survive this winter? And regardless of age, there is a hint of desperation in the whole event. It’s not even about individuals. The point, rather, is that nature does not just die for a while, but plunges into a lethargic sleep, to whom. And will he wake up from sleep? Seems like it should. The mind is sure, but the body only hopes.
The reader may object: what about winter joys? Skates, skis… these… sleds. Healthy frost, healthy blush, bird-troika. Winter hunting of King Stakh. Add here swimming in the hole and ice fishing. I would summarize these situations as follows: a person learns to enjoy everything, in particular, from any extreme. Speaking between us, a bathhouse with its ultra-high temperatures is an objective threshold of hell, with the only difference being that in hell, for obvious reasons, it is impossible to die.
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
But here is a passing thought: these winter deaths and subsequent resurrections give our lives a kind of fragmentation, which is reflected in the mentality. Everything will start over again — and probably in some new configuration. How Kharms got to the point — life overcame death in a way unknown to me. Since it will miraculously resurrect literally from non-existence, maybe it will get better? By the way, in Russian fairy tales, if they are resurrected, then they are certainly more beautiful than before.
- When the cold gives energy
We, as a rule, do not make plans, do not think far ahead. We’re not looking through this endless winter. We hope for a magical update after the New Year.
In the very touching and amazingly authentic through the grotesque old film «Big Break», night school students sang along with the guitar: «Something new is waiting for us, change is waiting for us.» It was nice and somehow well suited to the place that working youth occupied in public life. In less than ten years, in a stirring country, the idol of youth Viktor Tsoi, in fact, reversed the subject and object: “We are waiting for changes!” Tsoi was adored during his lifetime and idolized after his death. I love many of his songs, including this one. But … try to understand me correctly — if a young, smart, gifted, strong person, a charismatic leader of the generation is just waiting for changes, then who will make them? Personally M.S. Gorbachev? But then is it any wonder that to the best of your taste, understanding and interest.
But that’s the thing, that’s the mental insight of Tsoi, that we are waiting for changes. They are somewhere out there, behind the bend, behind the endless winter, behind the red sheet of the calendar. They are on their own, and we are on our own. And if we share, it is only between those who are waiting for these changes with hope, and those who are waiting for them with anxiety. Which, however, gives rise to some discussions and a semblance of public life …
I’m going to sit down Friday night and plan some changes. Maybe it will work.