Many years ago somebody told me: “Why do you want to emigrate? Not you and even your children will never be 100% Americans, only your grandchildren can become Americans and live the real free life”. “Is not this a great goal of anyone life?” – said I without a second of delay. It was my purpose to leave a country, where I was born, raised, educated, and worked for 21 years. All those career successes were just a path to the life among free people, who respect everyone personality. I wanted to be among the people for whom “Life, Liberty and Pursuit for happiness… are self-evident truths with certain unalienable Rights”.
Here’s what I wrote to a famous Russian TV and Internet Journalist, Andrey Karaulov, about my understanding of Russian society, which basically explained my decision to leave the country of my birth.
I am not a Patriot
Why am I writing to you? I think you may be interested in my life story, my views, and maybe even you can correct your opinion about the fate of people in Russia (I catch you saying that there are no people in Russia, there is a population). In fact, it was this statement that prompted me to write to you.
In the film “You are not patriots,” people highly respected by you and me, talk about the slavish worldview of the Russian people, cultivated for decades by the authorities. It is expressed in the most direct way in the fact that in order to achieve something good, you need to ask everyone who is above you, starting from God and going down to the state, local authorities, bosses at work, and finally, your district police officer. To ask, and not to earn with your labor, talent, invention - all this has absolutely no effect on the progress towards your dream. Therefore, it was rightly said by Daniil Granin - in Russia there is no national dream, there is no people, there is a population.
You probably already understood why I made the decision to emigrate. Here in the US I have met quite a few people with similar views. One of them most clearly formulated when you need to leave Russia: you need to leave when you absolutely cannot live there anymore. After the collapse of the USSR, a large number of people rushed to the United States, hoping to break free and "conquer the world." A huge number of these people did not find a place for themselves in the new society, were stuck in low-skilled jobs or even turned into unemployed, living on poor social benefits, many returned back to Russia. I see the reason for their failure in their unpreparedness for honest, albeit hard at first, work for the sake of their dreams. When I talk to visitors from Russia, I always hear smart stories about the easiest way to get comfortably settled in America. The simpler has replaced the concept of the better, which can be achieved in a very difficult way.
The slave worldview kills the love of work as a means of satisfying vital needs. When the communists said that under communism they would give everyone according to their needs and take according to their abilities, they developed a slavish worldview - you can get more than others without working.
I have good friends in Russia, smart and kind people, I enjoy spending time with them when they visit me in California. But I have not been to Russia and do not want to go in the future, out of curiosity, to visit present-day Russia. While still a student in the construction brigade of Moscow State University, one of my friends once said - “There is vulgarity and rudeness all around!” - and this phrase still pops up in my mind every time I see your reports.
There is another topic that worries me - this is fanning of anti-Americanism in all possible ways. I was born into a family that has been at the epicenter of the nuclear arms race all the time; my father, the direct project manager of MinSredMash, also conveyed to me how important it is to have a nuclear potential to contain American imperialism. Now I am witnessing an even more aggravated information flood at all levels, claiming that great Russia must follow its own special path and, if necessary, sweep away any adversary. With all the ambiguity of the processes of the 90s, one thing is absolutely clear, Russia lost its chance to join the ranks of the most socially developed countries when a helping hand was extended to it.
In 1993-1994, I was invited to take part in a series of meetings with the heads of academic and departmental research centers in Russia dealing with the use of lasers. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was the lead organizer of these meetings and had a substantial government budget for these purposes. You may have your own point of view on the sincerity of the Western "allies", but you may be interested to hear my impressions of that time as a participant in the US-Russian negotiations on the possibility of joint development in the most advanced scientific areas.
The meetings were organized on a thematic basis (among the topics were high-power lasers, research on laser nuclear fusion, the use of lasers for environmental control, etc.) As a rule, groups of leading scientists and heads of institutes, from 10 to 15 people, were invited to Livermore, and presentations of achievements were heard in order to establish business contacts. All the participants in the Russian delegations did not hide their satisfaction in the negotiations, hoping to receive the long-awaited support for their work, while practically being ignored from the Russian government. Many of them I met in my previous life, they were happy to know me (which they did not openly showed when I was one of them), and I sincerely wanted to help them not only with the English language (especially considering the many specific scientific terms), hoping to continue to work together.
Unfortunately, my hopes were not justified, by 1995 not a single valid contract remained, the last with whom LLNL decided to terminate contacts were the heads of the laser project from Arzamas-16, now Sarov. The reason for all the failures was the same - a lack of novelty and a low level of development of problems announced by Russian institutions. I myself experienced a certain inconvenience, seeing with what pathos the respected Russian professors presented the results obtained a decade ago. Nevertheless, Livermore invited all interested institutes to submit a technical report on the reported topic. As a reward for each report, 10 thousand dollars were paid, plus 5-7 of the most powerful personal computers at that time were sent to each institute.
A year later, after the reports were received and identified as not of significant scientific value, the question was about the inventory of personal computers, since they were officially leased out for free for the preparation of reports. Steve, the property manager of the laboratory's laser department, approached me, and literally with tears in his eyes began to beg me to contact the Russian heads of institutes from St. Petersburg to Novosibirsk. The fact is that for the annual inventory, he needs the signature of the responsible person on the faxed form. All his attempts to get an answer to his inquiries went unanswered, as did his direct calls. As he said, his usual conversation ended after the first phrase, a woman's voice answered that she did not understand English.
I spent a dozen nights trying to get through to the directors of well-known institutions at a convenient time for them. Usually my conversation with their secretaries went like this: “The respected director is not there, he hasn’t come yet today and it’s not known when.” I tried to convey a message to the deputy Director through the secretaries, but this did not work either. Of the ten Institutes that I have called, only three have sent faxes with illegible signatures from no one knows who "confirming" that the computers are still in operation. Steve was happy with this result, but I was very bitter for the rudeness shown, one might say, by the crop of the intelligentsia of Russia. Even the American property keeper turned out to be more intelligent. I don’t want to name these directors, that’s not the point, this is just an example of how deeply a slavish conscience is rooted in Russian people.
Willingly or unwillingly, Mr. Karaulov, you have touched on my thoughts about the reasons for the collapse of the Russian nation as a uniform, united, integral people. Of course, for last 30 years I have not been a part of it, I myself aimed for such a position and in fact I am really happy that I realized my dream of living in a society of people like me, to honestly work and receive their respect for the successes I have achieved, as well as the corresponding material compensation.
Interestingly, when I first came to work at an English university, I was found by one of the leading political science professors, who often appears on national television commenting on events in Russia. It was September 3rd, 1991, and he was sitting on pins and needles with me at lunch. "Do you think Russia will soon undergo the changes necessary for its inclusion in the democratic commonwealth of free and developed countries?" He asked, "is five years enough?" He was very disappointed and did not seem to believe my objectivity when I replied that I would be glad to see the completion of this process in 25-30 years. I explained to him that since biblical times the slavish conscience can disappear only when the current carriers of it die their natural death and the new generation is able to lead the people. So far, in my opinion, there are no such leaders in Russia.