Babushka

Translation: Oliwia Björk Guzewicz

I HAVE MANY MEMORIES of myself in Russia, running along long tunnels and sumptuous, vast balconies of the magnificent art museum of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. The museum has 1,500 rooms and is the second-largest art museum in the world.

During the first semester of the director’s program in St. Petersburg, I attended weekly to the palace for art history lectures. During those six years that I lived in the city, I met many good people who are dear to me. Russian people are generally kind-hearted and talk about the uniqueness of the Russian soul, which I got to know to some extent. The Russian soul is wise and warm but to understand it it's good to understand the language that, in my opinion, is the most beautiful and the richest in the world. The Russian tongue, like the Russian soul, is convoluted and complex.

It wasn't possible to not get to know the wooden doll that natives call matrioska or housekeeper. A widespread myth by visitors is to call her babushka, which means grandmother or old woman. The dolls come in countless shapes and sizes, although the classic, red, floral, and fluffy matryoshka is the most popular. It’s common to paint celebrities and politicians onto them. Russian presidents and past leaders of the soviet union come in countless versions. The string puppet Medvedev, Putin’s chairman, considers it insignificant that he doesn't get his own doll. The president that has had the power is usually the biggest and fattest doll with other leaders stacked inside. It stores them all along with the country's history and culture. The symbol of the matryoshka is a multi-layered onion that not only symbolises fertility but also holds the unlocked secrets of Russia. Although Stalin's doll is small, his crimes were not and he has more lives on his conscience than Hitler. As new tyrants take over, the transgressions of those who came before often become trivial and fade into the history books. Putin's fat matryoshka is a restored iron curtain from which future generations will be able to soak up the broth. With time, their sorrows and sufferings will be compressed into an even smaller doll, because God knows that Putin is not the last tyrant to rule Russia. Over the centuries, the country has been harshly ruled by masters who ruled it with an iron fist. Reduced freedom of expression, violations of human rights, and the penalties for protesting in the streets are appalling. Today, the citizens are shrouded in a mystery and cut off from the West. Confined in the cold cavities of the matryoshka, which is permeated with the sins of their fathers.

Since the war in Ukraine broke out, my communication with my friends in St. Petersburg has been cut off. I don't know about the fate of some of my fellow students who came from both Russia and Ukraine. I don't even know whether they were forced to fight and die for their motherland in this senseless war between closely related nations. It's like my friends got pulled into the matryoshka and locked away.

Because of this, I have no means of contact. I don't want to get them into more trouble than they already are. Anything they say or write can be used against them if it doesn't conform to Putin’s orthodoxy. The WhatsApp conversations I have had with a few of them have been difficult and constantly interrupted. How does one begin to talk about war, or in my case not about war, with people who are living and experiencing this tragedy? How can you talk about everyday things, about how everything is so good here in Reykjavík when their bleak reality is heavier than tears?

It's hard to tell whether I'll ever get to roam the magnificent halls of the Winter Palace or the streets of Nevsky Prospekt on bright summer nights again. It will be sad if the Russian soul and all the rich flora of art and culture that Russia has to offer will be locked away in the tyrant's bowels for the foreseeable future, away from the outside world. These are the concerns of a privileged gal who has thankfully never experienced war firsthand. I want to hold onto the hope that in the near future, the dolls will open one by one and let out the art, the people, and the Russian soul with all that it has to offer again. But it may be nothing more than just a childish and simple wish of Katya Vladimirovna from a demilitarised country.