Russia

Russia

Earlier this year, I had done a piece on Russia and how it celebrates Christmas. With the end of the Sochi Olympic games, I thought that it would be appropriate to take a second look at them.

The closing ceremony was a great look back at this international event. The Russians put on a great show for this, featuring Russian classical music, Russian ballet, opera, and Russian circus performers. At the end thousands of children came out to show the change from winter to spring.

Our expectations of Russians ability to host the games had been low, and the American media seemed to revel in any hick-ups that occurred in the Olympic village. A top list of these include:

1) The 5th Olympic Ring Not Opening.
2) Bathroom fiascos where people had to share toilet stalls
3) A possibility that there would be a lack of snow due to high temperatures.
4) People going through there hotel walls.
5) Heavy security risks from terrorists and extremist groups

Reports like the one above make me question one thing: Where we rooting for Russia to fail at this? We as American people had spent so long thinking of them as our enemy.  We have been out of the cold war for the past two decades, and we basically won the war, so do we have to still vilify them? 

 Media of the Past:

During the cold war, Americans had adopted the Russians as the stereotypical enemy, whether we were watching spy movies, movies about the cold war itself, or cartoons. Those with Russian accents were always the enemy.  My favorite example of Russian villainy comes from Rocky and Bullwinkle, where the antagonists were Boris and Natasha.  For no reason what so ever, they were always trying to rid the world of “Moose and Squirrel”. According to the show the two characters are actually from the fictional country of Potslavania, but they sounded Russian.

Book:

I followed up this post by listening to "The Communist Manifesto" by Carl Marx. This text is considered to have started the whole communist movement back in 1848. The book just stated fact: This is what we believe and why. Some of it was far from what many people here believe, but I was surprised how much of there beliefs we have. For example we believe in free public education for all children. Some of what was stated was far outdated, for example we no longer have child labor, which is cited as being one of the disadvantages of Capitalism.

The book constantly refers to the enemy as the Bourgeois, those who are rich and oppressing the lower 90% of society. With the widening gap between rich and poor it is hard to ignore some of the points made in this text. Still, many of the what Marx seemed to think would happen haven't occurred. One of his fears was that we would produce so much that we providing for us would no longer be valuable causing the normal man to starve. I am not sure if I understood why this would happen.

Food:

For lunch today I made borscht out of beats, and tomatoes. I also had potato salad.

There is no proof where potato salad really came from.  Potatoes themselves, came from South America, and were taken back to Europe by the Spanish. Potato salad spread throughout Europe and the former Soviet Union. American Potato salad most likely came here from Germany, where potato salad possibly originated.  However, Russia also has its set of potato salad recipes, such as the one here: http://kosherfood.about.com/od/koshersaladrecipes/r/pot_russ.htm

Work Cited:

Ward, Jay. "The Adventures of Bullwinkle  and Rocky ".  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi03bifJFTo#t=22

" Sochi Opening Ceremony 2014 Olympic Ring FAIL - Sochi Russia ". Fox News. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ygd6KynacY#t=59 . Retrieved:  February 23, 2014.

Shimoni, Giora. Russian Potato Salad Recipe (Parve). About.com. http://kosherfood.about.com/od/koshersaladrecipes/r/pot_russ.htm. Retrieved: February 23, 2014.