Photo by Valentina Kovalchuk, "Zagranitsa"
The Smell of Money
Wealth is, perhaps, the most prominent feature of this country, which seems to refute the claim that money does not smell. America simply reeks of money, and as you absorb this smell, you begin to understand the ridiculousness of talk about the confrontation between the Old and New World, about a Russian counterweight to the States, about the titanic efforts allegedly undertaken by overseas leaders to control Moscow. Suffice it to say that America consumes 60% of everything produced in the world, and therefore its economy can grind any other easily, like a coffee grinder grinds a coffee bean.
As they say, money makes money, and so today no country in the world can afford to undertake alone projects like the American ones, be it scientific research, a flight to Mars, or the war in Iraq. This is not praise, but, alas, reality: the statement that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world does not mean he is the best and smartest of people. The US economic system is far from perfect - billions of dollars are spent on jeans and T-shirts, even though this country has hundreds of thousands of poor people, there are even entire cities, such as Newark, into which "outsiders" are not recommended to enter. It's just that the American system is probably the best of the worst.
Economists like to write about the catastrophic crises that have been tormenting the United States in recent years. However, for some reason they have practically no effect on the lives of Americans. Before this trip, I was in New York two years ago, and since then half of my acquaintances have acquired houses, switched to new cars, and at Christmas Americans still leave as much money in stores as all of Europe spends on its armed forces.
Our mathematicians conquer Wall Street
In America, what was born in Europe but could not ripen there bears fruit. Among those leaving the Old World were many of the most educated people of their time, driven out by the civil war in England, who carried overseas the wealth of knowledge accumulated by Europe over centuries, and those progressive ideas that could not be realized in their homeland. The first settlers crossed the ocean to create a new world - and this was the main difference between New England and other colonies. And what is also important, they managed to create what today political scientists consider a guarantee and basis of stability of any political system - a middle class that demanded self-government even then.
The Americans managed to write from scratch the most perfect legal document of that time - the US Constitution - and teach their new compatriots to live by it (by the way, back in 1639 the basic law of Connecticut was adopted). However, it was not so difficult to do - the most enterprising people, ready to work and make money, went to the USA. Here is how the French aristocrat Saint-Jean de Crèvecœur, who arrived in the colony in the mid-18th century, wrote about them: "As soon as he breathes our air, he (a European who arrived in America. - ed. note) makes new plans. It seems to him that he is resurrecting ... in his own country he was too insignificant and went unnoticed by its laws, and the laws of this country clothe him in a robe. He begins to forget his former subordination and dependence ... he is inspired by new thoughts. This is the distinguishing feature of an American!" And to this day, the USA remains a country created to help a person get rich. Not to find oneself or absorb new small business ideas, but precisely to get rich, in order to eat, in Franklin's words, not from pewter but from silver.
I celebrated the New Year in the company of Russian-speaking immigrants. These were mostly thirty-year-old mathematicians and physicists. Even in their domestic institutes, they had won various international prizes and could have become the flower of domestic science if conditions suitable at least to some extent for their development had been created at home. But they "were forced" to become the flower of American business.
Many of them seemed to me "too American," even compared to the native residents present at the party. But this is perhaps my subjective impression; objectively, they all have made brilliant careers - they head financial groups, departments in the largest banks, their European offices, and graduates of American economic schools can envy the aggressiveness of their stock market play. At the same time, many of our former compatriots continue to engage in science. And they have no time to miss their homeland.
In general, nostalgia is practically not observed among immigrants of the newest wave. Especially since, unlike Americans, our former compatriots in the USA enjoy all the benefits of this country and, as they say, live life to the fullest. Most of them see more here than the average American. They travel a lot, go to museums, exhibitions, concerts, and clubs. For example, at the El Greco exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, it was pleasant to often hear Russian speech, but I experienced a real shock in the mountains at Lake Placid, where every second person spoke Russian.
And they all caught from Americans their main "disease" - a thirst for living, working, and, most importantly, with optimism. The energy of the Yankees simply deafens wise Europeans tired of life. Maybe it's all about the tornadoes that constantly destroy this country and force people to start all over again each time? But if tomorrow an American wakes up and discovers that he has gone bankrupt, his house burned down, his job lost, and his friends scattered, then he will drink coffee and start looking for a job. The States begin with work.
Instruction is the mother of order
Americans are accustomed to work from childhood, then at universities, where students really have a huge workload. As in the USSR, labor is held in high esteem there, and even janitors enjoy unfeigned respect.
Work is the main headache of Americans, and small problems - a broken car, a missed plane, a lost credit card - are just life. In the USA everything is arranged so that people do not think about trifles, but simply work and obey the laws and rules of the game. And there are quite a few rules there. Instructions follow you everywhere: when crossing the road, at the pool, on the ski slope, in the Jacuzzi.
I had the opportunity to see blind obedience to instructions from my own rather sad experience, when in the mountains five minutes before the lift closed, another skier crashed into me. Literally a moment later a rescuer appeared over me, who, after making sure I was not too seriously injured and could stand on my feet, quickly questioned the guy who had rammed me. Looking at his face pale with fear, I suggested parting peacefully. "No, sir, I must first file a report," answered the guardian of ski order, talking on the radio. Within a minute the slope was cordoned off around the perimeter by about a dozen rescuers, as if it were not a banal concussion, but a shootout with gangsters. But cordoning off the slope is a requirement of the instructions. After all, again it is about money, because the mountain can be fined, and the report will be needed by the insurance company.
Money forces Americans to approach everything with maximum professionalism, doing nothing at random. Again an example from personal ski experience. I noticed that I had some problems with the bindings and asked to fix them at a workshop. I had to fill out a multi-page questionnaire, after which the skis were placed in a huge machine costing, as I later learned, $12,500. As I was explained, all the skier's parameters are loaded into the computer in order to fully simulate possible loads so that in case of a fall the skis release. The insurance company obliged the workshop to buy this "Moloch" because if the skis do not release during a fall and a person gets hurt, he can then sue the workshop. As a result, the bindings were set to the same "six" that I always set manually.
Or take the fight against smoking. Rather, against smokers. These, apparently, after terrorists, are the main enemies of the USA. In New York State, for example, smoking is prohibited in all public places. And although it is hard to believe, in famous New York clubs and bars, where just a couple of years ago they almost freely smoked marijuana, you cannot even take out an ordinary cigarette. So now smokers sometimes think whether to go to New York or better have a party in neighboring New Jersey, where there is no such hunt for them yet. But the strangest thing is that even the most inveterate tobacco lovers have already got used to their position as outcasts.
Another scourge for tourists is the need to always carry documents with you. Not for the police, though, but for bartenders. Alcohol is not sold to persons under 21, and therefore, to be on the safe side, ID is asked of everyone who could be suspected of being underage. I myself had my documents checked twice, and my wife once was not even allowed into a bar. And not long ago a completely anecdotal story happened in the USA. A young man robbing a store was not satisfied with the cash and demanded to add to it a huge bottle of whiskey. The seller, boldly looking into the barrel of a pump-action shotgun, refused, expressing doubt that the robber was already 21 years old. After a short argument, the attacker produced a driver's license. The seller carefully studied it, apologized and, having packed the whiskey, handed the bottle to the robber. Half an hour later he was detained because the seller immediately reported the criminal's name and address to the police.
Back in the USSR
Because of the many absurdities surrounding a newcomer on all sides, he sometimes begins to think that he has ended up in the USSR, but with stocked store counters and civil liberties. The USA is in many ways a complete "sovok".
Here is a blatantly Soviet case from real life. A young man scored the maximum 1,600 points on his final exam, which is quite difficult. However, he was not accepted into the prestigious Princeton University (the very one where Einstein worked and the hero of the film "A Beautiful Mind" still works) because he did not participate ... in the social life of the school! The explanation that the boy spent all his time studying did not satisfy the university administration. So European individualism and liberalism are not too honored in the USA, but the spirit of collectivism is propagated at every step.
Americans, in the best socialist traditions, like to create all sorts of fetishes like Lenin's coat with bullet holes from Fanny Kaplan or Stakhanov's jackhammer and a handful of the first coal he mined. In Philadelphia, for example, there is a whole Museum of the Liberty Bell. This bell was supposedly rung when the Declaration of Independence was adopted. True, in the lower corner of one of the last stands of the exhibition there is a small inscription saying that perhaps no one rang the bell, and it itself is not real. And this is most likely a fabrication of journalists from three hundred years ago. But, actually, this no longer matters, since the bell is simply a symbol of the nation's love of freedom.
In America they fight hard for workers' rights, too, and some trade unions are no less influential than the Republicans and Democrats combined. Across the ocean there are giant factories and corporations subsidized by the state solely so that workers do not end up on the street. There is also a sad result of this tense class struggle - the city of Philadelphia. Once it was a wealthy industrial city, but the unions fought so desperately for workers' rights that business simply preferred to leave the first capital of the United States. Now it has huge areas with luxurious abandoned houses turned into slums and populated by people of color. It is not recommended to go there, and if you do go, you should not roll down your windows, let alone get out of the car. The local punks stared for a long time at the windows of my sister's Jaguar, as if trying to make out who was about to give them a car. By the way, a Jaguar is not considered a luxury car in most parts of the United States, because quite a few people can afford to lease one for just $300 a month.
But the main thing that unites the States with the Soviet Union is, of course, Brighton. Only there can you see old women in shabby coats and knitted hats à la the 70s, with string bags and washed-out plastic bags in their hands, men lying under cars with wrenches, or sitting on benches with bottles of beer.
The most interesting place in Brighton is the shops. If you remove the 55 varieties of sausage and cheese that adorn the counters, you get a classic Soviet grocery store: jugs of tomato juice, cups of lumpy salt, saleswomen in dirty aprons, queues, and - something completely unbelievable for America - cursing in the queues. I also had to encounter forgotten Soviet service there. Loose change had accumulated in my pocket, and I dumped it in front of the saleswoman at the deli counter. She glared at me angrily and went off somewhere to count the money. An annoyed line began to grow at the counter. Finally, the woman returned. "Are the chebureki hot?" I asked her as amicably as I could. "Warm," the saleswoman muttered and shoved an absolutely ice-cold package at me.
In general, it is a museum of developed socialism. Actually, that is not so surprising. At best, former Odessans live in Brighton, but mostly its residents are people for whom provinciality and insularity are second nature. They want to live the Soviet way, but only richly.
Who Lives Well in New York
America without New York is not America. But the city of the "yellow devil" itself is not America, but its quintessence. One can speak of it badly or well, but in any case in superlatives. And it is completely impossible to characterize it in one word - there is too much of everything: people from all over the world, lights, cars, shops, money, restaurants. But what it lacks is greenery and trees. There is only Central Park - amazingly beautiful, well thought out, and well maintained. It is the only place in New York where a European can feel like a human being and breathe easily.
Like any metropolis, New York is a state within a state and, by the way, a rather powerful one. The city's budget is $400 billion, so if it were a sovereign country, it would rank 15th in the world by economic size.
In general, it can be called the capital of the planet (although formally it is not even the capital of New York State), in which half of its population suddenly decided to gather. It is a city reminiscent of Babylon at the very moment when the Lord mixed the languages. And it is a Babylon that never sleeps - its skyscrapers never go dark: the panorama is majestic, and besides, fire safety regulations require that the lights in offices always be on.
New York makes a shocking impression on a person unaccustomed to it. The first desire that arises when you come out of the subway is to go back down there: at least it is quiet. After it, our capital seems like a quiet provincial town. Of course, New York also has quiet areas. These include the slums of Queens, the quiet, calm Brooklyn, panel high-rises with free apartments, and areas where shops have no price tags in the windows, and old ladies with surnames like Rothschild or Morgan stroll along the streets.
New York's streets are narrow and long, and you feel that your running along them is somehow programmed. And after you get out of the city, you begin to breathe easier. So, three categories live well in New York: businessmen, representatives of bohemia, and those who want to call themselves New Yorkers. It is a city where there is nothing to do if you are not part of its life. And it is a city where you feel alone, even though you are never alone.
At the Edge of Humanity
In general, the feeling of public loneliness does not leave foreigners. Perhaps it is because Americans are not accustomed to looking at passersby, and therefore their houses are almost never fenced. Personal space is their holy of holies, and if someone bumps into you, or simply walks too close, or simply accidentally looks at you too intently, they will certainly apologize. Of course, one can talk at length about the low educational level of Americans, their low culture, but does it really matter whether a shop clerk, a flight attendant, or just a passerby has read "Ulysses," if they are all polite?
This politeness is surprising also because Americans live in a state of stress. It is unknown why they go to psychoanalysts so often - because they are spoiled by prosperity or because they are ill. But the fact remains - their nerves are not in order. Of course, poor food also contributes to this. "Genetically modified products greatly weaken the immune system, which is why Americans often get sick," my microbiologist father explained to me. "They are practically all allergic. I recently analyzed the dyes that are added to drinks, and since then I only drink mineral water. By the way, weakened immunity is a very serious problem that may in the future become the main problem of this nation. Moreover, people come here from all over the world, so America is simply a museum of infections and viruses."
So Americans work for half their lives, and spend the other half being treated for overwork and obesity. Their other scourge is propaganda. And in general, Americans are much more trusting than our people. True, there is a simple explanation for this. The basis of the American political system is developed self-government. America began with it, and it relies on it to this day. There are far more average Americans, that is, residents of the hinterland, where signs prohibiting the entry of weapons still hang in bars. And they are concerned only with local problems, and not at all with the fate of humanity or at least America. Paradoxically, a country that would seem to be at the forefront of civilization actually consists of those who are in its deep rear.