LESSONS FROM THE ‘WILD EAST’ 283passivity, Russians oscillate between feeling that they are in control and
feeling that they are being controlled.
The harsh climate has given rise to the bear metaphor associated
with Russia — symbolic of low energy levels in the winter and an ele-
vated mood state in the summer, when food is abundant. Like bears,
Russians can ‘ hibernate ’ for long periods of time, awaking to remarkable
spurts of activity. In Russia, given the short planting and harvesting
seasons, farmers can work only for a limited amount of time, but they
show their capacity for hard work and endurance during those short
seasons. While the bear metaphor primarily illustrates the duality
between passivity and activity among Russians, it can also be used to
address the duality between order and disorder — a theme I develop
later.
The Legacy of the Mir
Despite Russia ’ s heavy industrialization, the country is still highly agri-
cultural. In previous centuries, the vastness of the land was broken only
by the occasional agricultural village commune, or mir. While the mir
was largely succeeded by the communal farm (run by a Soviet, or com-
munity council) and in some regions supplanted by urbanization, the
philosophy behind this self - contained community lives on. It affects, for
example, the Russians ’ outlook toward what we in the West tend to call
personal space — the extent to which one ’ s immediate environment is
private as opposed to public. Because of the closeness of living conditions
in the mir (and in overcrowded communal apartments), Russians tend
to be intrusive; they do not respect other people ’ s private space as much
as people in other cultures do.
The mir mentality has also had an infl uence on the way the Russians
view relationships. In all realms of human endeavor, they favor the col-
lectivist orientation at the heart of the mir , an orientation that subordi-
nates individual interests to those of the group. The collective will is
more important than the will of any individual.
The legacy of the mir is also revealed in Russia ’ s atmosphere of
mutual dependence, in which the group provides emotional support and
moral guidance for its individual members. Russians display a great need
for affi liation. They like to belong, to be attached to a group, and they
feel extremely uncomfortable when excluded. Many of their activities,
social or otherwise, are conducted in a group setting.
The mir legacy also makes for a clannish loyalty that expresses itself
in chauvinism and passionate patriotism: the love for the motherland. A