Tolstoy with Dostoevsky or a clean toilet?

I was often struck by such a Russian national trait as uncleanliness. Ordinary household uncleanliness. Sometimes it is expressed in untidiness, more often in the disorganization of the everyday space around themselves, the habit of a Russian person to brush aside everything, in his opinion, “petty, insignificant”. As a result, everywhere one had to stumble upon inconvenience, the unsuitability of living conditions for normal work or normal rest.

Well, rest is a separate story in general … Rest is most often just a desire, excuse the expression, to “get drunk” to a bestial state, to blackout. And why do Russians like this state of self-forgetfulness so much? Nirvana of bestiality and spitting for everything. I remember that in the army, a fellow soldier from Nechernozemie, after donating blood (double ration was pumped out of dumb and defenseless soldiers), ran away without permission, bought a bottle of vodka and blew it out of the neck. The boy’s own weight was no more than 60 kg, in combination with blood loss, the effect of vodka was stunning – the poor fellow’s heart began to stop. He was barely pumped out. Here is an example of organized Russian leisure.

The disorder and disorganization of life, and if you take it cooler, then the unwillingness to organize it are best seen in small towns and villages in Russia. These are houses, roads, and the household sector that were not repaired … Just devastation. Maybe this is because Russian people are supported and warmed by the awareness of imaginary “greatness”, allowing them to ignore the “devastation”?

Take, for example, the Czechs. The same Slavs (and we are talking about Russians who identify themselves with Slavic culture), but they are ok with cleanliness, organization and hard work. They do not have such a number of great writers – the pride of Russian civilization, but there is order with public toilets, plumbing and home repairs. And the transport runs on schedule. Russians have famous writers  a dime a dozen, but at the same time there are laxity, mismanagement, elementary laziness. It is worth remembering one more difference between the ties bearers – hatred for everything non-Russian, malice and insidiousness. The Czechs have a normal European indifference to other people’s affairs and a little ostentatious courtesy.

Tatars sometimes live in poverty, but cleanliness is a trait taught to them from childhood. Ukrainians whitewash their homes and paint stoves. Bashkirs decorate their yurts. You will say: Russians also make carved architraves! Yes, but have you often seen such architraves in real life?

Perhaps this state of affairs is a consequence of the rejection of Russians from property, the prohibition from the authorities to be the owner of any significant property? All these waves of dispossession and collectivization? Maybe, it might be so. But does that make it easier? Does such an answer give a pointer to possible progress, to the return of the feeling of the owner? No, it doesn’t.

Perhaps this rejection arose even earlier, in the peasant communal way of housekeeping and farming. Why jump out of your pants and tear your veins if they don’t let you go to the minimum anyway, and it’s dangerous to reach the maximum – you will cause envy among lazy neighbors and run into trouble. After all, why hide it, during Stolypin agrarian reform, it was not Russian community members who left for the free Siberian lands, but Ukrainian individualists.

An additional upsetting aspect of the problem is that Russians do not want to change. They are ready to make fun of zealous Moldavians, diligent Tatars, Tajik migrant workers, Ukrainians, anyone, but not bother with their emergency barracks or clogged sewage. Moreover, staying somewhere in Europe, they try not only to mock local amenities and comfort, but also to use them for free, while doing dirty tricks to the owners – to break, steal and throw away, beat …

Maybe they do not need all these amenities? Maybe they just need their right to be “great” and spit on someone else’s plate?