We’re sitting in a small one-room apartment in the north of the city. The tiny kitchen is in the hall, between sea-blue walls with golden stars. A mountain bike, which is more expensive than all the furniture, rests against the windowsill in the living room. Yuri is fifty-seven and works as in marine research for a state-run institute associated with the Ministry of Fisheries. There he leads a team of twenty people whose main task is to monitor fish stocks and analyze any irregularities.
“Which propaganda is good for Russia?” I ask.
“The media mostly stresses one central idea: people’s living standards should improve.”
“And are they?”
“In the last fifteen years much has changed for the better. I’m not a fan of Putin but I see no one with a better vision for the country.”
He goes to the kitchen and returns with two mugs of tea.
“But didn’t things deteriorate for people after the Crimean crisis? And still Putin’s approval ratings rocketed afterward.”
“I admit, since then things have not gotten better. But they haven’t gotten worse. I think 80 percent of people here don’t notice the sanctions in their everyday lives.”
Five minutes later he tells me that at the moment there’s nothing that would induce him to sell the empty apartment in which we’re now sitting, because the ruble is so low. Well then, some things have gotten worse in recent years.
“How can you be so sure that the government means well with the propaganda? Would it not make more sense for them to focus on their own interests and gains in power?”
“That depends on the government. If the government’s actions are good for people then their propaganda is also good for people.”
Yuri is an alert guy, a highly educated scientist, someone who in his professional life is always searching for data that can be substantiated. I’m a bit bewildered by his good faith, which reminds me of the Vissarion followers in Siberia. I can sense that he’s not an out-and-out Putin admirer, but that he’s just pragmatic.
But maybe the explanation is not that complicated. He was born in 1959 and in his whole life he has never experienced an independent news media. Isn’t it then quite logical to differentiate between mendacious and slightly less mendacious propaganda? The desire to subordinate to a strong leader who is felt to be just seems to be much stronger in Russia than in the West.
“I do compare to other media sources,” he says. “I receive BBC, Fox News, Belarusian, Ukrainian, and even Vietnamese channels. Every morning at breakfast I watch Euronews.”
“And what are the differences to Russian channels?”
“Generally you have the same basic facts. The ranking and the additional information are different.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“Today it was about the bombing of an aid convoy in Syria. It was broadcast everywhere, none of them ignored it. Euronews added that American sources suspected Russia was behind the airstrike. Channel One also mentioned that, but added that Russian officials had denied responsibility.”
“What do you think about talk shows? Sometimes there’s the impression that people with anti-Russian viewpoints are only invited so they can be shouted down.”
“There are different shows, I prefer watching the STS channel. But I have my doubts about whether foreign politicians are real or actors. For years I’ve been seeing the same faces of apparently Ukrainian politicians. They must live permanently in Moscow; how can they do politics from there?”
A short while later he thanks me for the talk and says goodbye as he has to get back to his wife. Once again I have an apartment all to myself.
IN THE MIDDLE of Vladivostok there is a huge plastic goalpost with the word Finish emblazoned on the crossbar. Hundreds of spectators are there; in the Square of Fighters for the Revolution, a stage has been erected for dance performances, and Svetlanskaya Street has been cordoned off. TV crews are out and about; someone is making excited loudspeaker announcements; excessively beautiful cheerleaders are waving pom-poms.
It really wasn’t really necessary to make such a fuss about my arrival at my final destination, but still, it’s a nice gesture. Although I’m not quite sure why there are so many sweaty people wandering around with numbers and “Vladivostok International Marathon” printed on their T-shirts.
I climb over the barriers, run across the finish line, and quickly disappear toward the Tokyo Sushi Bar. Vladivostok has many Japanese and Chinese restaurants offering authentic nigiri, jiaozi dumplings, and kung pao chicken. There’s even a North Korean restaurant called Pyongyang. The waitresses wear snappy uniforms, and every evening at the stroke of eight, they perform a couple of karaoke songs oozing with corniness (the duck with paprika also oozes, but with fat).
It’s only eighty miles from here to the Friendship Bridge at the border to North Korea; China is even nearer, and the Eastern Dream ferry takes passengers to South Korea and on to Japan.
Most of the cars in the city are right-hand drive because of the massive amounts of secondhand Toyotas and Hondas that were imported, at least until 2009, when the government in Moscow began slapping a hefty tax on Japanese cars. Many small importers had to give up their businesses; there were angry demonstrations, but they had no effect.
Vladivostok, seven time zones away from Moscow and lying on the hills at the head of Golden Horn Bay, seems as if someone has flung some Far Eastern and Russian culture into a blender and pressed the button; the resulting mixture turns out to be one of the few attractive cities in the country. Stylish pubs and baroque cafés line the side streets; young couples stroll along the crumbling promenade.
One of the many Russian words relating to alcohol for which there is no corresponding term in other languages. It describes a person who spends a number of days in continuous drunkenness. The terms suchnyak and nedoperepil are thematically related. The former describes the rough feeling in the throat after a boozy night. The latter refers to someone who is certainly drunker than is good for him, but not as drunk as he theoretically could be.
The 750-foot reinforced concrete pylons of the Zolotoy Bridge, opened in 2012, look like giant chopsticks. Thanks to them, the cityscape now looks a little bit like San Francisco. The Russky Bridge, a few miles to the south, is even more impressive, its central span distance making it the world’s longest cable-stayed bridge. It was constructed in preparation for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in 2012, using the latest anti-earthquake and anti-storm technology, and cost an estimated US$1.1 billion. Its steel cables have been shaded in the national colors—red, blue, and white. So far, quite the status symbol.
What’s puzzling, however, is where it leads: to an island of the same name, about the size of Manhattan but with a population of only a few thousand, some pretty hiking trails on the coast, and plenty of nature. Once Russky was a restricted military zone, and you can still find the ruins of watchtowers, forts, and depots there. In the summer it’s a popular place for mushroom hunting.
Okay, so there is a modern university (which is where the APEC summit was held), an aquatic complex, and a brand-new oceanarium, but nothing that would justify an infrastructure project of this size; the huge bridge could hardly be described as busy. It’s almost as if Switzerland had built the Gotthard Base Tunnel just to provide an improved link to a small but attractive skiing area in a remote valley that up until then had been inaccessible.