“I didn’t want to live in a simulacrum of American life in the ruins of the Soviet Union”
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This ep is inspired by Evgenia’s recent essay on her youth and Russia’s deeply colonized culture. But we get into all sorts of related topics — like what else is out there and what’s worth living for, other than this cursed consumerism and materialism that has surrounded us our whole lives.
—Yasha Levine
PS: The photo is from Gorbachev’s embarrassing 1997’s Pizza Hut commerical.
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That was great fun -- both of you; I love Evgenia's "Slavic" laughter.
Same in the entire East Europe also.
And when you visit home they are often astonished if you are not millionaire with yacht and multiple houses -- hence "a loser" ;-))
Thanks, that was excellent, fascinating. Enjoyable yet also cutting scarily close to the bone for American, and presumably Russian, listeners alike. I would welcome including more psychological framework in further discussions (as Yasha mentioned at the end of the podcast). Listening to this kind of podcast is very much like travelling to a different culture--where you learn about a new culture/collective psychology but also more about one's own cultural and psychological indoctrination.