Стыдные вопросы про Америку / вДудь

I've never seen a chipmunk. Chip'n'Dale. It makes no sense to be American when the Cold War is over. They will pervert our kids. They are the bosses. Brodsky supported the war. History gets rewritten everywhere. Why does the US start so many wars? Slavic demonology. He's going to the rescue. Before watching this episode please subscribe to our Telegram channel. It will help us keep in touch if YouTube gets banned. Here is the name of the channel. I will leave the link in the description. Ivan, you are one of the biggest experts in Russia-United States relations. In

your books you wrote: We - Russians and Americans - can't imagine how interconnected we are. How close we are in our differences. I would like to talk to you about Russia-United States relations and about the US in general. I'm going to ask you tens of random questions about us and them. Great. Ivan Kurilla 57 years old Historian, Americanist Born in Volgograd Teaches at Bowdoin College Brunswick Maine We're in Brunswick, Maine. What kind of place is this? This is the Bowdoin College campus, which was built in the 18th century. Many Presidents and famous writers went to

this college. Hawthorne and Longfellow studied here at the same class. And also the founders of Subway, Netflix, and Evan Gershkowich, the reporter that has recently been swapped. They supported Gershkowich here. They had a Free Gershkowich banner on the college website. I've heard that this is the elite college. This is the case in all old colleges in New England. Massachusetts is considered to be the most elite..Maine used to be a part of Massachusetts. There is a plenty of prestigious and most expensive universities here. Bowdoin is one of these most attractive and competitive colleges. We had 30

thousand applications and we could only accept 500 students. The competition is very intense. Let's make it clear: these 30 thousand applicants were all willing to pay for their studies. They were all willing to pay for their studies. Or was someone else willing to pay for them? Bowdoin is a private college and here is how this works. Anyone can apply regardless of their wealth. Students are selected based on their skills, not their financial condition. Once the selection is over we ask students how much they are capable of paying for their studies. Students bring their parents' income

statements. If their parents are willing to pay for their studies, which is quite a lot.. $88 800 a year They're good. Otherwise they can get a partial scholarship. Some of our students even get a full scholarship. The majority of our students are borrowing money for their college. It is similar to a mortgage. A mortgage for your studies. A lot of students are in huge debt after they finish studying. Yes, they're paying for the debt for many years. How can you move to the US? We've just talked about students from all over the world coming to

study in the US. Studying is not the only way to move to the US. In our last episode we showed you a plenty of talented people who became successful in the US. If you are willing to move to the US but don't know how to do it Migrator would help you do the paper work. There is a talent visa program in the US. You don't need to have any outstanding achievements to get such a visa. You must have a higher education diploma, prove that your project is good for the society and prove that your current

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of the 500 best students that the college is willing to accept. This student doesn't have to be the best of 500. The college would pay for him in case his parents are not able to pay. This students has to be smart.. Of course, the students has to be as good as the other 500. We also care if their parents had higher education. We're looking if this student is the first person in his family to have a higher education. Is this a priority? It is. This matters for us. Some people would tell you that this is

unfair. Coming from an educated family is a disadvantage. What can you reply? I have watched Eric Foner, a great American historian, perform recently. He talked about the Reconstruction era. President Andrew Johnson protested against such affirmative actions. These actions allowed to choose people from unprivileged families over more privileged. Back then it was more about the black people but it could also be applied to families where nobody had higher education. There were critics of such policies back then who claimed that this was a discrimination. Foner said that such logic would only reinforce the inequality. People with not

enough resources would not get a chance to get a higher education. Such policies were adopted to give the unprivileged an opportunity to make it. So students whose parents have no higher education have a priority over those whose parents are educated. They are. This is also the case for racial minorities. African Americans also have a priority. They have a lower income and they are less educated so we are trying to fix this. Some people disagree with such policies, especially Republicans. Former, and probably, future President Trump disagrees with this approach. They call it a reverse discrimination. I

was surprised to find out that there was a reverse Dulles' plan. The Dulles' Plan never existed. This is a fake doctrine. Okay. Soviet and later Russian people were being frightened by this fake doctrine. I found out that there was a similar fake doctrine in the US relating to communism. There was a so-called Communist Revolution Plan which became a thing before the Dulles' plan. This plan was spread across the US and it was even brought into the Congress a few times. Congressmen would receive this plan from their voters and they would bring it to the Congress.

This plan was a reverse Dulles' plan. What was it about? This document claimed that all the problems in America, according to the conservatives, were caused by communists. So what do communists dislike? Liberal ideas among the youth.. They even said 'They will pervert our kids' Not really. I guess, you got this from Dulles' Plan, which was a fictional book. In the Communist Plan there was a list of actions that would potentially destroy America. Banning the right to bear arms.. This plan was obviously a part of Republican propaganda. This plan referred to a 1920's article that never

existed. The Congress reviewed this plan and the New York Times wrote an article about it in the early 1970s. Even after the New York Times exposed this fake plan a lot of people still believed in it. They were still trying to expose such conspiracies in the Congress. There's a lot of conspiracy theories believer in both Russia and the US. Right-wing conservatives tend to blame the foreign influence for all the internal problems. They would blame evil communists for their problems. And the same was happening in Russia where people believed in the Dulles' Plan. They believed that

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got a small group of students. We don't have a lot of students here in general. I'm teaching American students. Are you teaching in English? I am. All the studies are held in English here. What is their motivation to study relations with Russia? I asked them about it on the first class. They all answered differently. Some of them are interested in Russia, some of them wish to study foreign relations. I hope that I don't let them down. First and second year students don't have to choose their future career. They pick classes that they are interested in.

My course is called Frenemies, which means friends-enemies. Oh.. Can you make up a name for your course as if it an article? Yes, there is a syllabus of the course.. A colleague of mine teaches Russian language and he also teaches a course called Slavic Demonology. Does he tell them about Perun? He doesn't. His course is dedicated to Russian literature. He can tell them about Stalin and Lenin.. There are no courses on Stalin here in Bowdoin. In Wellesley College, where I used to work, there was a Stalin course and a Putin course. Really? Who's teaching there?

Nina Tumarkin. She used to write some speeches for Reagan. She didn't write speeches for him. She consulted him before his trip to the USSR. She advised him to honor Soviet soldiers who died in the WW2. Americans don't know how important it is in Russia. Nina Tumarkin reminded Reagan about it and he said this. You told this story in your Ira Shikhman interview. I will leave the link in the description. You said that Americans believe that they won the WW2, which is actually true.. They didn't lose. They don't talk about the role that the Soviet Union

played in the war. You said that Reagan was advised to say this in his meeting with Gorbachev. So it was Nina Tumarkin who advised it to him. Yes. I guessed, he said this at one of his public performances. Probably in MSU. He mentioned this in his speech and it worked well. When Obama had just been elected.. You advised his administration to visit Volgograd. Did you talk to his administration? I talked to his advisors.. I said that coming to Volgograd would be a great gesture. I did. This was a similar advice to which Tumarkin gave to

Reagan. Obama's administration didn't want him to be associated with Stalingrad. All because of Stalingrad? This is what they told me. There could be other reasons. Let's imagine that Obama came to Volgograd and spoke about the role of Soviet Union in defeating Nazis. What would it change? Putin visits Volgograd a lot. This is how he shows that this is important. One of the biggest problems that Russians have with the Americans is that the Americans don't appreciate the sacrifice of Soviet people in the war. I hear this a lot from our compatriots. I feel like such performance

from the President would be a good gesture. We're now talking about 2008 or 2009. The situation is very different today. Back then I felt like it could stop the new trend. Do you remember Putin's 2007 speech? This was an Anti-American speech. So what would Obama's visit change actually? What would it change? What would it change in our lives? I'm trying to be rational like Valery Karpin or Alexander Mostovoy. So what? Foreign relations are not only the relations between the presidents and the diplomats. These are also the relations between the people. In democracies the authorities are

elected by the people. When one country doesn't like another country they wouldn't want to have good relations with this country. Russia is not a democratic country but still some popular beliefs are taken into account. I feel like we could have avoided the confrontation with the US. Putin had his own plans and it all went where it went.. Back then I hoped that our relations would improve. When a politician makes a statement it becomes a part of his image. Obama underestimated Russia. He called it a regional power a few times. I guess, he offended some officials

in Moscow. He underestimated Russia and it also led to a new Cold War. Politician's words become a part of his image.. If a politician makes a wise move that his advisors told him to do, he looks wise in everyone's eyes. Yes, I feel like this is true for everyone, especially politicians. Your actions make you who you are. There can be different reasons behind your actions. But these actions shape who you are. Sometimes heroic acts are driven by fear. Once you make this act - you are a hero. It doesn't matter what you think about it.

For politicians words are as important as actions. Once you say something, it becomes a part of you. This is how I feel about it. It is important to remind each other that we don't understand each other well enough. Is it true that CIA published Doctor Zhivago? CIA was involved in promoting authors who were oppressed in Russia. As far as I remember CIA took part in publishing the novel. US government authorities like CIA or the Pentagon or the State Department all invested in studying the Soviet Union in the universities. The Cold War implied studying your enemy.

A lot of experts in Russian culture were financed by Pentagon. It doesn't mean that this people were influenced by the Pentagon or CIA. In fact, Pentagon was quite unhappy. They invested money in studying the enemy and people were studying Tolstoy and Chekhov instead. They were financing these activities, including publishing Doctor Zhivago. People who studied Tolstoy and Dostoevsky were sponsored by Pentagon or CIA but they were not influenced by these organizations. Yes, not all of them were influenced. In the beginning of the Cold War in early 1950s they introduced Area Studies in the US.. And the

universities received a lot of money to study the Soviet Union. As far as I know, which I am not sure about, sometimes Pentagon would keep in touch with the professors.. But I feel like it was all about another American tradition - professors becoming government authorities. They would work for the State Department and CIA as analysts.. And then they would come back to the universities as professors. This is very common here. In Russia universities don't work with the authorities at all. Here they studied Russia as scholars and then they got employed by the government to apply

their knowledge. I don't think that they hired the professors of Russian literature as analysts.. They probably hired historians, sociologists, economists. I like filming wild squirrels and some people make fun of me because of that. Aren't you surprised by this squirrel hunting right here? We're not used to American wild nature. It's very different from European nature. In Europe they have put all the wild life into the enclosures. America surprised me with its wildlife when I arrived here. You can spot a deer in a city. Squirrels are everywhere here.. And raccoons, too. Raccoons and rabbits, too. When

I wake up in the morning I see a flock of wild turkeys walking in the fog. About ten big turkeys. Your breakfast came to your house. My friends asked me if I liked hunting..I don't. There's a bunch of wildlife here. I've seen videos of bears breaking into people's garages. I brought my cat here and people told me not to let him go outside. There are predators here. Yes, they would eat my cat. There are huge prey birds here..And coyotes running around. This is the reverse side of the coin. It's a metaphor to this country. There

is a lot of diversity here but you've got to always be careful. It's true. Wildlife can be dangerous. You first arrived here in 1990 in the Kent State University. This University is known for the famous shootings in 1970. Yes, the National Guard shot the protesters. Can you tell us about this shooting? In 1970 the anti-war protests were at their peak. The students were actively protesting against the war in Vietnam. The protests started in 1968 reached the peak by 1970. The Kent State University Campus, as well as other campuses, was used by students who protested against

the war. The Governor was worried about these protests and he ordered the National Guard to enter the campus and to disperse the crowd. I guess, the investigation hasn't described what happened next. The commander of the troops ordered to fire at the protesters. They killed four people and wounded nine, including passers by. Some people were protesting and other were just walking towards their class. There were innocent people wounded by the police. This was one of the most violent attacks on protesters in the US. In 1990 I was a young man it felt like 1970 was a

long time ago. However, I met a lot of professors who witnessed these events. Now, 34 years later, we're much further from my arrival in the US than I was from the shooting. It's been 54 years since the shooting. The Kent State University is, unfortunately, most known for these events. This university is ranked much lower than the college where we are now. After the shooting the KSU received a lot of money from the government. Other universities were jealous. They said that KSU made money from the shooting. They received extra money from the government to build a

new library. So the government tried to make amends. Kind of. This is not what I think. This is what other professors told me. Is it right to say that Americans protested against the war in Vietnam quite late? Yes. On the fifth year of the war? Yes, they started protesting in 1968, after four years of war. The war escalated after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964. And the first mass protests began in 1968. Why so late? There was a lack of information. There are researches proving that the civil rights activists supported this war. The war

exhausted some of these organizations. The US military was the first desegregated government organization. Black and white troops had equal rights since Truman administration. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act and the Gulf of Tonkin resolution were separated by just a month. These events happened at the same time. Many African American activists felt like by fighting the communists in Vietnam they would establish themselves as Americans. If their country needs to stop the communists, they would fight for their country and their people. This was a common opinion in the 1960s. At some point in February 1968 everything changed

on the Chinese New Year's Eve. Vietnamese soldiers attacked the city of Saigon, which was deep in the hinterland. These guerrillas were quickly liquidated but the attack happened in front of the reporters. They took pictures and videos of the attack. Some of these pictures went viral. A South Vietnamese officer shot the guerrilla in front of everyone. The American photographer took pictures of the execution. The Americans got terrified of these pictures. This is when they questioned this war. American troops were dying and people were protesting against sending more guys to Vietnam. Five years of fighting is a

lot. Famous people like Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) protested against the war. He said that the Vietnamese did nothing bad to him and he wouldn't fight them. He was sentenced to five years in prison and he fled to Canada. A lot of significant people protested against the war and the people joined them. Did they put the protesters in prison? They did but not for a long time. They would sentence them for a few weeks. Some of them were sentenced to a year. I don't know if any of them were sentenced to more than a year in

prison. In your book you wrote that Brodsky supported the war in Vietnam. Brodsky was still living in the Soviet Union..He didn't actually support the war. From the memoirs of the Ardis Publishing founders we know that they met Brodsky.. They talked to him about the war in Vietnam. The Americans had already been protesting against the war. The publishers were left-wing and anti-war. Brodsky told them that the students needed to study. He said that they had to nuke the Vietnam. To kill the communists? I'm not sure that Brodsky would actually press the red button and nuke anyone..He

was showing off, I think. This is actually how a lot of Russians see America. For Brodsky America was the guarantor of freedom. Meanwhile everything was much more complicated in the United States. Many Soviet dissidents believed that the US were fighting for freedom all over the world. A lot of them believed in this. They felt like the US government was never wrong. The protesters were either wrong or corrupt by the Soviet Union. So Brodsky supported the United States because they didn't like the Soviet Union. This bipolar system is pretty common. People see the world in black

and white, which is wrong. The world is much more complicated. You used to work in Wellesley, Massachusetts before moving here, which is a women's college. It is. Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright are the alumnae of the college. Why is this a women's only college? Women colleges were founded at the times when the majority of colleges were for men only. Bowdoin used to be a men's college. It was a men's college until 1971. What about Wellesley, which is still a women's college? There are no men's colleges left. I feel like there are three women's colleges left,

including Wellesley. They have a tradition of only accepting girls. We had a similar Besstuzhev's university in Saint Petersburg, which was founded almost on the same year as Wellesley. This was a breakthrough back then. Isn't it archaic nowadays? Some people would say that this is archaic and this is a discrimination.. It is archaic because it is a single-sex college. Some people would say that this discriminates men. Men are traditionally privileged, so a college which would allow an underrepresented group to be educated is justified. It's hard to understand this coming from the Soviet Union but women here

got equal rights quite recently. I'm not talking about equal political rights but equal rights in the society. In 1970s there were still some men's colleges here. When Jane Fonda visited the Soviet Union in 1970s to star in the Blue Bird she was shocked to see women directors and camera-men. There were no women in the Hollywood. Women could only be actresses. I spoke to Wellesley College president and she told me that her supervisor in Harvard was the first female professor in her field of studies. So it all happened quite recently. So we had feminism in Russia

before the US. I feel like there was a breakthrough after 1917. During WW2 the Americans were taught to communicate to Russians. They were taught to drink vodka and to talk to women. 'Some Soviet women might get offended if you give them a hand or offer them a seat' After the 1917 revolution Russian women believed in gender equality and they wouldn't accept some of the traditional etiquette. This is how the Americans were instructed in 1945. When we could visit America in the 1990s they would warn us about feminists.. It has gone a full circle. In 1990s

America was experiencing a new wave of feminism. In 1970s, however, the Soviet Union was miles ahead of the US in terms of women representation. We can say that we were equal in our poverty and powerlessness. However, we were still equal. I'm Russian and the American policies towards women and towards African American seem weird to me. Are you talking about diversity quotas? Yes, sometimes such measures seem like a reverse discrimination. You've got to understand that they had inequality here not long ago. This inequality is still a problem. I had a friend from Georgia. He told me

that when he was a kid they wouldn't let black people into their home. When a black woman knocked on his door he cried and ran to his father. It all happened recently. People who are still alive remember the inequality. It is still around. And the society is trying to adjust it.. They are trying to adjust it. They are trying to solve the problem of inequality. Coming from the Soviet Union this seems very weird. However, there are reasons behind these policies. Recently women were only considered as housewives. This is how my parents' generation saw women. My

mother was a reporter. People of her age in the United States were mostly housewives. It was very different here. Vladimir Nabokov used to teach in Wellesley. Does anything remind people of him there? Yes, they have a Russian language department where they store a collection of butterflies. This is not his collection, they bought it in his memoriam. He was catching butterflies at the lake next to the college. And they also have a Nabokov's door in the campus. I don't know what it has to do with him.. There is a plate that says Nabokov Portal. They are

keeping the memory of him. He's the highlight of Russian Department in Wellesley. You wrote:'As soon as the American press found out that the writer arrived in the States with his mistress Gorky was denied staying in a few hotels' 'Him and Andreeva had to stay at their friends' house' It happened in 1906 when Gorky visited the US. Did he really come here with his mistress? He considered her to be his wife. The protestant culture is very strong here and they don't approve of getting married for the second time. Gorky took an oath when he got married

and he could not leave his wife, according to their traditions. They considered his second wife to be his mistress. American society is much more religious than we think. They possess much more traditional values than we do. America embodied the ideas of enlightenment in the 18th century. However, the Americans denied one of the main ideas of European enlightenment - atheism. Voltaire and other French Enlightenment writers praised atheism and said that religion was a poor fiction. These ideas didn't work in America. They had a few waves of the Great Awakenings. Now we live in the fourth Great

Awakening. It is a period of a religious revival. There are new religions emerging, like mormonism. The American society is united by faith. This includes having traditional views on family values. This country is much more traditional than Russia despite all the latest trends. There is a hypothesis that the Americans became religious because the Soviets were atheist? This played some role, too. The Americans became religious much earlier, in the 18th century. The founders of New England were puritans, which was a radical Calvinist cult who were oppressed for their beliefs. In some sense, Calvinist traditions are still alive

today. We say that America is a free country. It is free in a political sense. If we take a look at moral freedom, there are more limitations here than in Russia. The legacy of Calvinist tradition is strong here. America has been a religious country for a very long time. In 1920s they called the bolsheviks atheists and later in 1940s and 1950s the United States had to reinvent their role in the new world order. They had to be different from the Soviet Union and they paid attention to being religious. Some of local traditions were introduced in

1950s during McCarthyism. They were trying to reinvent themselves to oppose the Soviet Union. School prayers, which were cancelled later.. They also introduced a requirement to print In God We Trust on bank notes. America became more religious during the Cold War. However, it doesn't mean that America wasn't religious before. These lovely elderly people are working out. They don't work here, do they? I don't think that they work here. College campus is open for everyone so everyone can work out on this lawn. This college is trying to interact with the world. American campuses are the greatest thing

about America. Compared to Russian universities.. This lawn is blossoming. It is blossoming. They have all the books in the libraries. How can you not study here? In Russia I would struggle a lot to find a book that I needed to read. Campuses were one of my first impressions here. Why are campuses the best thing about America? This place looks like there are no flaws in this country. Which is not true. A student in Austin University told us about homeless people living next to the campus. Why are campuses so good here? Is there a particular reason

behind it? A campus is not the only representation of America. I have a colleague Alexander Kubyshkin. He wrote a book a couple of years ago. The book is called the City and the Gown and it is dedicated to the role of universities in American cities. American universities used to be quite poor in terms of education. Up until late 19th century..Harvard and Bowdoin were already prestigious but there was a lack of good universities here in the States. The Americans felt like the universities raise new elites, which is bad. Teaching everyone to read and write was democratic

but higher education would only raise the new elites. American universities would only become significant after 1860s. The Morrill Land-Grant act allowed land-grant colleges. As the society became more complicated they lacked professionals. A professional is a person with a degree higher than a bachelor. Engineers, lawyers, doctors are all professionals. This created an incentive for them to introduce education reforms. They adopted the German education system and for the last 150 years colleges have been playing a very important role in the American society. Many parents believe that going to college is a great opportunity for their kids to

build a career. If you are born in a privileged family you would have to stay in your position. You are definitely going to the college. You are. You are going to a good college. A good college like this one would have an impact on your whole life. Networking in the beginning of your life. Yes. In Russia some people are not proud of their higher education. Some people are not happy with their college. Here your college becomes your business card for the rest of your life. A Harvard graduate will remain a Harvard graduate for the rest

of his life. A Kent State graduate would struggle much more in his life. A graduate of a good college would benefit from his college for his whole life. Would his CV be more significant? It would be much more significant. If won't be able to become a professor in a college unless you wrote your PhD in a top three college. Most of the professors in the United States are the graduates of the same few colleges. Everyone wants to go to a good college or to at least some college. You said that the United States rewrite their

history. How? History gets rewritten everywhere. It is a healthy state of this science. There is no history if nothing is being rewritten. In America there are many battles going on regarding the interpretation of the past. They have their own pain points which have nothing to do with Russian pain points. The Civil War is the main event of the American history and there is a lot of debate on this war. This war was the turning point in history of this country. The slaves got released and the conflict changed this whole nation. Eric Foner, a great American

historian, called this period the second foundation of the country. Nowadays people doubt the interpretation of the war because the American society is now different from what it used to be. Who are Americans? For a very long time African Americans were not considered to be a part of this nation. Even a hundred years after they were released from slavery. In 1964 Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and said 'Finally, two nations will unite into one' Until 1964 African American people were not considered to be American. Sixty years later the situation is different but it is

still a sensitive topic. The American nation now includes the African Americans and this affects their opinion on the past. They looked back on their past from a multi-colored perspective and it turned out that the African Americans did not take part in the Civil War. Two groups of white people were fighting each other. It is important that they were fighting to abandon slavery, however, the black people did not take part in the war. This became a problem. Eight years ago they opened a museum of African American culture in Washington. This museum is very different from other

museums in a way that it looks at the past. The civil rights movement was much more important for African American population because they played a big role in this movement. They protested and their actions led to something. They became the actors. In 1863 Lincoln ended slavery but the black people had nothing to do with it. This is a very different view of the past. It turns out that the Civil War was not as important. It was a local conflict inside one of the ethnic groups. This is an example of rewriting history. You told me a

similar story about Texas. This relates to their school text books. The 1619 Project received the Pulitzer Prize in 2020 during the BLM wave. 1619 was the year when the first black slaves were introduced to America. This projects offers to reconsider the history of this country from the perspective of the slaves. They made a sketch of a future text book that would describe the Revolutionary War as an attempt to preserve slavery. According to the project, the founding fathers were not fighting for freedom but to keep their slaves because England would end slavery. The Great Britain ended

slavery quite soon and the US kept it for another 80 years. How true is that claim? Were they really fighting for slavery? I can't be sure about this now..I guess, they were fighting for their ideas. They weren't thinking about slavery too much. Jefferson wasn't supporting slavery even though he had some slaves. This point of view deserves some attention. It is an example or writing history from a very specific point of view. A person who is in power today would try justify his power by the past events. A white protestant Anglo-Saxon would have the different history

book than an African American descendant of slaves. Or than a Russian emigrants' descendant. These would be three different history books. They would have something in common.. But they would not only differ but also contradict each other. This is how history works. History consists of many sources. How do you feel about it? I find this interesting as a historian. Aside from studying American history I like studying history in a modern society. How does modern society communicate with the past? The past cannot be explored and described as some white spots on Earth. History gets reconstructed all the

time because of new challenges and new actors. I'm interested in studying the past and finding out why we care about it so much. This is very interesting. I like studying American history. It turns out that Russia is not the only country with unpredictable past. Past in general is unpredictable. The past is very big. Imagine a science of the present. Of everything that is happening now. We are sitting here talking and somebody has gone to bed already. Some other man has caught a lobster ten miles away from here. Can you imagine how much stuff is going

on in the world? We would not be able to describe the full history of the past hour on Earth. There is too much going on. Can you imagine how many stuff happened in the past? We are choosing what we can find there with our small flashlight. Depending on where we aim the flashlight we would see the different points of view. What we see depends on our point of view. It doesn't mean that the past is entirely subjective. I don't want to claim that there is no past. The events of the past are real. However, they

are much more diverse than we think. Our attempts to describe the past are too narrow by definition. We only describe the experience of a specific social group. Is it right to say that Putin has his own flashlight when he talks about the past? Yes, but the problem is that he doesn't understand that there are other flashlights, too. He thinks that his point of view is the only correct perspective. He banned quite a lot of perspectives of the past in Russia. He calls these perspectives anti-Russian propaganda coming from Polish, American, or Ukrainian enemies. Putin has not

been properly educated. His closest advisor is Vladimir Medinsky, a person who makes all the historians mad. Putin continues to come back to his opinion over and over again. A couple of days he called the Security Council to talk about the past. This is quite barbaric from the professional perspective. He justifies his actions by the past events. In fact, it is not true. He only cares about the past events that can justify his actions. He might not understand it. He might really believe in what he says. His decisions come first and the justification comes next. I

would like to ask you a couple of questions about McCarthyism. Can we briefly explain what it was? In the beginning of the Cold War the US were scared of communism. In early 1950s this wave of fear was associated with Senator McCarthy's name. McCarthy once said that he had a list of 200 members of the communist party who worked in the State Department. A couple of years before that one of the former employers of the State Department was pleaded guilty in spying for the Soviet Union. The statue of limitations had already run out and he was

sentenced to a year of prison for perjury. This case even more fear of the communists. Senator McCarthy claimed that there were 200 communists in the State Department and more of them in the military and in the Pentagon. People believed him. Politician who argued with him lost in the following elections. The voters believed McCarthy. There were no communists in the government bodies of the US.. They even put the leaders of the communist party in prison. Gus Hall, who later kissed Brezhnev when he was an old man, was put in prison for being a communist. Later he

was recovered by the supreme court. They put him in prison for supporting the manifest that was considered extremist. Hollywood wouldn't hire people who were suspected in sympathizing the left-wing. McCarthyism lasted until 1956-1957. Actors weren't allowed to work because of their views? Actors, writers, and directors. Hollywood was very leftist at that time. There were many Russian emigrants in the industry.. They didn't support communism, though. They didn't. During WW2 they were shooting movies sympathizing with the Soviet Union. They helped Roosevelt spread the idea that the Soviet Union was an ally, not the villain. And later people blamed

Hollywood for praising the communists. There were many leftist people in Hollywood just like today there are many leftist students. Hollywood studios were on the verge of getting closed. Hollywood studios became banning leftist people from new projects. These black lists were one of the most famous features of McCarthyism. Ronald Reagan started his political career and met his wife because she was a leftist woman. He came to investigate her views but he fell in love with her and covered her. Her name was Nancy. Did they hunt anyone else outside of Hollywood? McCarthy never showed this list of

200 people to anyone. He claimed that he had it but he never showed the names. At some point he said that there were communists in the Pentagon. The US military bases were full of communists. He took a picture next to the map where he showed the communist bases as red stars. Eventually, it was the Pentagon that managed to defeat him. McCarthy blamed the Pentagon for being communist and they sued him for defamation. This court case was shown live on American TV and the audience played a big role in the outcome. McCarthy didn't look confident in

the court. People saw him live and noticed that he looked mentally ill. This was the beginning of the end of his career. He shouldn't have blamed the military for hiring communists. So what happened to him next? He became a drunkard and died at young the age of 48. He died from the cirrhosis of the liver caused by alcoholism. When we talk about Russian emigrants in the US we usually think of Sykorsky, Zvorykin, Ayn Rand..I would like to ask you about less famous emigrants. First of all, the biggest patriotic song in America was written by a

man from Tyumen who served in the US military. He was born in Tyumen and he grew up in America. There are a few opinions on his place of birth but he was definitely born in Russian Empire. His name is Irving Berlin. He was born Bellin and a typo led to his last name becoming Berlin. He did not only write God Bless America but he was also probably the most popular songwriter of the century. He'd written more hits than anyone. Everyone here knew his songs by heart. He was born in Russian Empire. A man born in

Russian Empire wrote God Bless America.. It's the country of the emigrants. It's a feature, not a bug. This is a country of the emigrants. Everyone is fine here with emigrants writing patriotic songs. Henry Kissinger, who was probably the most influential American diplomat of the century, had German accent until the rest of his life. Wernher von Braun and Einstein were emigrants, too. This is absolutely normal here in America. There was a Russian head of council in Hawaii. He was the head of Senate. Nikolay Sudzilovsky. He left Russia after Alexander II got murdered. He stayed in America

and worked as a doctor. There was a short period of time when Hawaii was an independent country. He was the head of their Senate for this short period of time. Was Hawaii an independent country? It was. It was first a kingdom.. A video recorder was invented by a Russian emigrant. Alexander Poniatoff. He was an engineer. You mentioned Zvorykin and Sykorsky. Poniatoff was another engineer that succeeded in the US. In the 19th century America was a country of engineers. Russia would invite American engineers. American engineers would build railways and plants in Russia. Unlike Berlin, who left

Russia when he was a kid, these three engineers got educated in Russia. They moved to America and managed to create new industries. At some point Russian engineering school caught up to the American school. Poniatoff was one of these engineers. Is this an active church? Or is it a former church? As far as I know, this is a former church. Now it's a cultural center. It used to be a Christian church. Now it's a place where people of different religions can visit to talk to God. Are there prayer rooms for Muslim and Jewish people? Probably. I

haven't been there yet.. I went to a similar building in Wellesley which used to be a Christian church and later became a place for all believers. This is how they are trying to escape from being purely white protestant country. They are trying to be more friendly towards other religions. This has started happening quite recently. Churches are turned into cultural centers. What is the point of doing that? Why does America care about not being a white protestant country? There have been several opinions on what the American nation is. Previously they would turn all the emigrants into

the white protestants. The Italians and the Irish never changed. This concept didn't work. When they started having emigrants of other races they needed to invent another concept. They created this melting pot concept. They would try to turn everyone into a new nation. The melting pot is now outdated, too. Now they have a concept of a salad bowl. A salad bowl consists of different ingredients. The nation is the salad and all the people are different. Everyone keeps their identity to make America a diverse country. Is melting pot outdated now? It is outdated. Melting pot implied turning

everyone into the this porridge. Now they have the salad bowl. We're shooting this interview in the United States, where you work. Why are you working here? There is no work left for me in Russia this year. I tried to stay in Russia to continue working there. I didn't want to leave. However, I went on a Sabbatical. I took a vacation to finish my book. As soon as I went on a Sabbatical I got fired. It turned out that they didn't allow me to go on a vacation. I guess, they fired me for another reason. This

was obviously used as a formal reason to fire me. It's clear. Why? Last year a few people reported on me. One person called Anna Korobkova reported on me, as well as on many other people who didn't support the war. There might have been other reports that they didn't show me. Someone told me that the rectors in Saint Petersburg were told to fire the professors who signed the anti-war statement. I signed this statement so there was a number of reasons to fire me. Nobody told me anything about it..So I moved to the United States. My colleagues

from other universities told me they were sorry for me but they told me not to even try working in their universities. I feel like I have a reputation. It's a good reputation but it's not appropriate in modern Russia. I'm working here temporarily. One semester here, one semester in another college.. I will be working in another college next spring. Another one? Next spring I'm coming back to Wellesley. I will stay there for six more months. You're a nomad. I am. It's hard to have a permanent job here. I wasn't preparing for that. It's a bit too

late to move somewhere when you're 57. I'm not so young anymore. I tried to stay in Russia but I failed. I am an optimistic historian and I hope to come back to Russia some day. You studied English in Volgograd using an unusual method. Can you tell us about this method? I didn't expect that question. Yes, there was an experiment. I was a history student in the USSR. I was a student before they started teaching English quite well. Before it became a basic knowledge. My generation didn't need to know English. We could not travel anywhere when

I entered the university in 1984. The university did an experiment that I found quite successful. They taught us using an intensive method of learning. They taught us to speak from the very beginning. They taught us not to be scared to speak. And it worked. Most of us are too scared to start speaking a foreign language. They brought us into the class and there were no chairs or desks there. There were soft chairs placed in a circle. There were colored lights as if we were in a pub. They showed us slides of some nice pictures. Why

did they do that? They set the mood for us. What kind of nice pictures did they show you? Some pictures of nature. Not American? Not particularly American. They didn't show us pictures of the skyscrapers. This was a psychological set up to make us forget that we were studying. And then they applied this intensive learning method. They gave us English names. Were you Ivan? No, I was Robert, if I'm not mistaken. It doesn't matter. We were trying to imitate real life conversations. We would start with some basic situations.. And in the end of the class we

would relax and listen to some music. Our teacher would repeat the dialogues that we had modulating his voice. It helped us memorize everything. I am still confident in my speaking even though I make mistakes. They never corrected us if we made some small mistakes. Would you say 'he have' or what kind of mistakes.. No, but sometimes I would forget some of the words. This learning method was quite a breakthrough for 1984. It was. They told us they it was invented by a Bulgarian linguist and psychologist. They would use this method before sending people abroad. We

were one of the firsts groups of students who were taught using this method. Our teacher was a big enthusiast. In 2016 Mikhail Khodorkovsky made a list of 13 people who could replace Putin. Navalny won the voting.. But you were on the list, too. How did you feel about that? The reporters woke me up..Khodorkovsky didn't talk to me about putting me on this list. He announced this list and the reporters woke me up in the morning. At first I felt anxious. I felt like I was framed. Russia was an authoritarian country already. I opened this list

and saw that Kudrin was also on the list. I felt like this list wasn't as dangerous.. Kudrin had more reasons to worry. I felt like I wouldn't suffer from being on the list. This list was more like a joke in Russia. When I came to America to some conferences people would whisper that Khodorkovsky picked me. A year later everyone forgot about this list. This list was taken more seriously in America than it was in Russia. We're in Russian Culture Center that has a different name now. Yes, it used to be Russian Studies. Last year it

was renamed to Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies. Because of the war many American colleges had to rename their Russian programs. In Wellesley they still have a Russian Department. They have Russian language and Russian literature teachers here. There is a teacher of Russian history and a teacher of Russian political science. They work in the History Department and their office is in another place. Your colleague just rushed to his class and told us he would be teaching Harms and Shalamov. Yes, he is a teacher of Russian literature. He's also a teacher of Slavic Demonology. This beast

looks like a Gogol's character. Yes, kind of. There is a list of authors that he talks about on this course. This is a literature course, not a mythology one. From Lermontov's Demon to Soviet writers. Students love this class. His classroom is always packed with students. 35 students is a lot for our small college. Why would anyone study Gogol's demons or the demons of Soviet Moscow? Studying is interesting. Liberal Arts colleges are designed to make studying interesting. A lot of students don't know their future job yet. In a liberal arts college they would have four years

to pick a job that they would like the most. Fairytales are fun. Demonology is fun. Frenemies is an interesting course, too. Students pick the class because they like its name. And then we teach them how scientific research actually works. Some of them enjoy this subject and then sign up for more advanced classes. Some of them leave after completing the class. This is how education works. It has to make students interested. How else would you pick a job? So curiosity should be rewarded. Yes, curiosity is rewarded here. Studying should be fun. Otherwise there would be no

point in it. Russian language used to be popular because of great Russian writers. And here is how they advertise learning Russian now: Do you want to understand what is written on the Russian anti-war protester's banner? Study Russian. Is this a stand where all the teachers would advertise their classes? A lot of teachers do it. There are general announcements here and there are courses banners. Anti-capitalists group? Yes. Free radicals? Obviously, there are different kinds of students. Is everyone okay with the word radicals? It's a word play. There are banners over there, too. Yes, let's check it

out. This banner says that studying Russian would give you a bonus pay as a job applicant because the US government considers Russian as a critical language. Russia is a threat again. Now studying Russian is rewarded. How can we translate the word critical? It means important. Critically important? Yes. The US government needs more Russian-speaking professionals. Is it true that the teachers are motivated to have more students pick their classes? Of course. There is an economic reason behind this. The teachers need more students to continue working at the college. If nobody signs up the teacher gets fired.

More students sign up to the class in the first year than there are left by the second year. Teachers are motivated to have as many students pick their class as possible. Who is Zbigniew Brzezinski? Russian propaganda loves bringing his name up. Is it true that he was an enemy of Russia and the Soviet Union? His last name is pronounced as Brzezinski. He was one of the political advisors in America. He was a National Security Advisor in Jimmy Carter's administration. Some of his speeches were anti-Soviet and some of his critics claimed that he hated everything Russian

because he was Polish. This is too easy of an explanation. I've seen him perform once in 2012. I didn't feel like he said anything anti-Russian. Did you see him in person? Yes. He performed at some meeting in Washington. He was talking about Russia. I would saw that he was quite optimistic about Russia. I think that he had a wider view on Russia than some people claimed. When he was the National Security Advisor he ended the Detente. The Detene facilitated negotiations over arms control which were over once Bzrezinski was appointed as the National Security Advisor. The

Soviet Union is often blamed for ending the Detente with the Afghanistan invasion. In fact, the Detente was over before the USSR invaded Afghanistan. It all started with Carter's administration. We know what Brzezinski advised Carter. They needed to recover after being defeated in Vietnam. They faced an economic crisis as oil prices increased. And they had Watergate in the same year. The US nation faced three major crises in a year. Everything they were proud of - economy, political system, and the army - failed miserably. How could they remain the best in the world? They needed to find

a new way to prove their leadership. Brzezinski advised Carter to extend internal victories on foreign policies. The civil rights movement was victorious, segregation was finally over. Carter would now talk about the human rights violations in the Soviet Union. We have solved the problem while they haven't. Exactly. Carter's predecessors could not point at the USSR because racial segregation was still a thing in the US. Carter was looking down on the Soviet Union. The Detene was over. Despite the Watergate scandal and the defeat in Vietnam the Americans could say that their country was better than the Soviet

Union. This idea was introduced by Brzezinski. Carter liked this idea because he was a man of faith and he cared about human rights. Brzezinski was a great manipulator. There are pictures of former.. Former presidents of Bowdoin College. The latest president is a man in a suit while the first presidents wore gowns. They are still wearing gowns. I feel like the artist to picture the president in a suit. Gothic style is still very common in American colleges. Professors always wear their gowns on the first and on the last days of studies. American colleges love this Medieval

style. It is an interesting question - why should education system look like we're in the Medieval times? I don't have an answer to this question. There is a huge campus in Yale that looks like a Medieval building. Even though the campus was built in 1930s. They built old-fashioned houses on purpose. There is no Gothic tradition in the US. It was all imported from Europe. This comes down to hierarchy. The higher education system was associated with the elites. The Medieval society was very hierarchical. So they built this Republic of Knowledge, Hesse's Castalia. The Glass Bead Game

is a very good metaphor of the higher education system. All these gowns and Gothic spires should remind the students that they are in a special place now with different rules. You said that some books here surprised you a lot. Yes, they have some books in Russian here that students can borrow. Some of these books were published in the USSR and in Russia..I had these books at home. And some of these books were published in the US. These are the memoirs of Alexandra Tolstaya, the daughter of Leo Tolstoy. This book was signed by her and gifted

to one of Bowdoin professors. Wow. This is a rarity. Chekhov Publishing, New York. This was one of the biggest publishing houses of Russian books. Look at the logo. The Statue of Liberty and a book. In your interviews and lectures you like talking about American goods in the USSR. First metal railways and motor ships, telegraph, Zinger sewing machine, Berdan rifle, the first moveable bridge on Neva, Varyag Cruiser, the Great Constructions.. Magnitogorsk plant, Volgograd tractor plant, Nizhniy Novgorod automobile car plant, Dnieper Hydroelectic Station. All these objects were built or designed with the help of American engineers. You

also said that the Americans like countries that use their technologies. They do. Why? As a nation they care a lot about being a role model for the whole world. It started with the puritans in the 17th century and this model has changed a lot since.. However, they really care about leading the humanity. They like proving this to themselves. The Americans like when other countries copy their political institutions. Americans like to share their technological and economical knowledge. For them it is a proof of their leading role. When the Japanese invited Americans in the late 19th century

they became friends. The Americans called them the Pacific Ocean Yankees. Decades later they would go to war against Japan. The Americans helped Japan built a fleet after the revolution. Russia would also hire American engineers and the US people would appreciate this. Nicholas I built the railroad from Moscow to Petersburg. And then even the bolsheviks invited American engineers during the industrialization of the country. Eventually, the United States recognized the Soviet Union in 1933. These events are all related. When you're sharing your technologies with another country does it make this country easier to fight in a war?

I don't think that this was their logic. We can think about it but I am not sure that this was the plan. When engineers came to work.. I didn't mean that this was a plan. It was one of the reasons. For whom? I don't think that the planned to fight the USSR before the Cold War. There was no potential confrontation with the USSR before the Cold War. During the Cold War they stopped sharing technologies. There were bans and sanctions on the use of technologies. Russian spies would steal the technologies from the US. Even Putin talked

about it. They wouldn't hire American engineers. The United States were still the supplier of new ideas and new technologies. If this was the plan they would be sharing technologies during the Cold War but it didn't happen. How did the US help the Soviet Union during the famine? There was a famine in the Volga region and in the south of Russia and Ukraine. After WWI and the Civil War a lot of men were killed or could no longer work. The Soviet authorities made some economic mistakes and then there were a couple of years of crop failure.

It all led to a famine. All the reserves were gone. Thousands were dying. And the US provided aid to the Soviet Union even though they considered the USSR as villains. President Hoover said that millions were dying and the United States had to help them regardless of their political views. American Relief Administration would work in Russia for a couple of years. There is a book about ARA program in Russia that was recently translated to Russian. I helped translate this book and now everyone in Russia can find out what ARA did during the famine. And there is

a film by Alexander Arkhangelsky and Tatiana Sorokina called The Famine. I'll leave the link to the film in the description. The book is much bigger than the film. I guess, the film was based on the book. Why did the US help the Soviet Union? Did they do it for humanitarian reasons? They helped Russia during the famine in the 1890s. This famine was not as bad as the 1920s famine. The famine happened in 1891 and 1892 and the United States sent their help to Russia. Aivazovsky drew a picture that a colleague of mine published. Many people

don't believe that this painting is real. Is this a painting by Aivazovsky? Yes, these two paintings are called the Relief Ship and Distributing Supplies. The Americans helped Russia during the famines a few times. ARA also helped Western Europe recover after WWI. They helped Belgium and other countries destroyed by the war. And later they started helping Russia. Why did they do this? Americans care about setting a good example for the world. They are the bosses. Yes, they are the bosses. They weren't leading the world in the 19th century. They didn't have enough military power and political

progress to lead the world. How can a country become important? They can either fight the opponents like they did in the Cold War.. Or help someone. Americans are often helping someone. Helping people with food is the most obvious case. Such programs often coincide with crises inside the US but this is a more complicated topic. In the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps. This organization would provide international development assistance and spread American ideas. Helping other countries is a part of the American mission. This is what makes American feel good.

When they share their technologies with the world they see themselves as teachers. When they help fight the famine they are providers. They are kind of looking down on others. It helps them feel better. This is one of the integral parts of their foreign policies. Doing the charity work and providing help allows them to look down on others. Why do they care about it? How else can you unite a country? America was built from different pieces and different ethnicities. London was shocked when the 13 colonies united. Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Virginia were all different countries. Different

economies, different religions, different attitude to slavery. They were further from each other than they were from London. It seemed like they would never be united. But then the Catholic Irish people and Italian people entered this country. And then the Jews. And then the Asians. Americans didn't want to recognize them for a long time. They would ban the East Asians from entering America for quite a long time. Uniting all these ethnicities into one big nation has always been the main problem here. They don't share the same past as European countries. They don't have the same past.

They can say that they all originate from the Pilgrims or from the founding fathers but this would not be true. Some families moved here fifty years ago. From Palermo. They don't share the same past. A lot of African Americans don't have the history of slavery and the Civil War. Not all of them originate from slaves. A lot of them moved here much later. How can all these people be united? There are two ways to unite a nation: using the past or using an external factor. Being different from others. Our ideals are different from their ideals.

You've got to compare yourself to others. This tool is used in all countries. Russian politicians both talk about the past and about other nations when they are trying to define the Russian nation. People in America don't share the same past. The colonies shared the same past with England but England was their enemy. The United States always compared themselves to other countries. They were trying to be different from Europe and from England. Then they were trying to be different from Russia and the Soviet Union. They would describe their opponent and then say that they were the

opposite. They would also help the weak and the poor. They would help those suffering from the dictators. This looks like foreign policies but in fact this is an internal policy. This is how they are trying to keep their nation together. This is one of the reasons of the crisis that happened after the Cold War. The Cold War was over and there was no opponent left. As Updike wrote, without the Cold War, what's the point of being an American? The Cold War gave them purpose to stay united. What we are seeing now is that they are

looking for another reason to be united. It is what it is. What are we seeing now? The nation being divided? Yes, American nation has not been as divided for a very long time. I can't say that it's never been so divided. The 1960s were much hotter than what's happening now. However, the political division is very harsh. Republicans and democrats refuse to understand each other. It's all about Trump. I don't think that Trump is the problem. He's just a display of deeper problems. There's a conflict in the Middle East and the students are protesting. These protests

are more heated now than they were before. People are willing to fight each other. If we listen to sane people..I have a lot of friends from both sides. I respect these people..But when my Democrat friends start talking about Trump they go nuts. And vice versa. My Republican friends go crazy when they're talking about the Democrats.. They start shooting in the air. Yes, Republicans love shooting. I don't have any friends who own guns. These two sides are very emotional now. Do you think that is was caused by the end of the Cold War? This, too. Any

crisis has a lot of causes and this is one of them. It is a structural reason that caused a division in this country. The lack of global challenges caused this crisis.. Socialism is no longer a taboo. Bernie Sanders calls himself a socialist. There are socialist Congressmen, too. This was unimaginable quite recently. The supreme court allowed burning the American flag in 1989. Let's stop here. Burning the national flag used to be a crime here. It was. Nowadays it is allowed. It is allowed. The supreme court recognizes this as the freedom of speech. Burning a flag is

a non-verbal freedom of speech. Such a statement is allowed. President Bush condemned this decision, as well as the Congress. The Congress tried to pass a law that would forbid desecration of the flag but the supreme court cancelled this law. The President didn't like the verdict but there was nothing he could do about it. Yes, he couldn't do anything. This is how the supreme court works. How it works here. Yes. You said that the US cared about helping other countries. But why do the US start so many wars thousands of kilometers away from their country? Partly

this is how they see helping others. In Vietnam they were helping their ally fight the communists. There are multiple reasons why they start wars. Of course, they have some interest in other countries. They have military interests and they have oil extraction interests. This is common knowledge. Such interests would require the use of military. Economic interests require politicians to take such steps. Politicians have to find the political purpose behind the war. They are always fighting for freedom. They can't fight for oil wells. This is not going to work here. The voters need to know what the

troops are fighting for and to support them. So the United States are always fighting for freedom and for American values. When they fail to explain it to the people, people are protesting. This is important. It means they are lying. In some cases this is not the truth. This is partially true. Americans believe in it. American politicians believe in it. Other countries might have a different opinion on it. And the critics of such policies in the US would also disagree. The Americans believe that they are on the right side of history. This is what they like

saying. We're on the right side of history. Whatever happens, Americans believe that they're on the right side. Can we talk about one particular case? The war in Iraq. What is your opinion on the US invasion and the reasons behind it? I don't support this invasion but who cares about my opinion. The war in Iraq was one of the most unsuccessful wars that the US started. Their European allies didn't even support them. Their actions didn't lead to a democracy. They turned Iraq into a wild country.. And it led to ISIS. Yes, this is not what they

wanted to achieve there. I can't support this war and it is one of the examples that the reality was different from what the Americans believed. General Jay Garner, who became the Director of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for Iraq, got fired when he criticized the American view on democracy in Iraq. The Americans could not agree on what they should do in Iraq. There is a bunch of bad examples here. I'm not trying to justify them. I'm trying to explain why they have such foreign policies. They care about being right. Other countries might suffer

from it. Do you mean the elites by 'they'? Not the people? Of course, I'm talking about the people who create this narrative. The politicians, the reporters, the professors who write articles about the role of America. Political, academic, cultural elites. They create this narrative of American greatness. Regular Americans can't create the narrative. They consume it. They consume it since they go to school. They are taught the role of America in the world. The critics of American foreign policy here are still so Americanocentric that they don't allow other countries to have an opinion. Some people believe that

the US were right for expanding NATO. Other people believe that the NATO expansion was wrong because it led to Russia starting the war. In both cases these people are only focused on America as the actor. The rest of the world can only react to what America does. They can't imagine Putin, Gaddafi, or Kim Jong Un having their own interests or goals. Some people get it but the majority here only cares about America. America can be wrong or right but the rest of the world should sit and wait. So why is America allowed to bomb other

countries while Russia is not? I don't think that America should do this. This is wrong. Whataboutism has become a very common word. People tend to justify their actions by saying that others did it, too. And it is considered wrong now. I don't hate whataboutism as others do. When one country tries to judge another for their morals while being very immoral, this is a weak position. Do you believe that such people should be exposed? I believe that the United States did a lot of wrong stuff, which was quite similar to what Putin is doing now. The

United States shouldn't be proud of some periods in their history. This doesn't justify anything. This only proves that the United States did a lot of bad stuff, too. This doesn't justify what Russia is doing now. Does this situation prove that the world is unfair? This is quite banal. The world is unfair but we should try to make it more fair. We should all try. So there is no moral standard in foreign relations, there is no role model. I sounded like a relativist. I don't want to live according to relativism. There are ideals that we strive

for. The United States make mistakes but they've The United States make mistakes but they've done a lot of good, too. I can't imagine the world without the United States starting from the 18th century. The world would be worse off without the US. They made the world a better place. However, they are not perfect and they made a lot of mistakes. When I was a teenager I didn't have access to banned books. I would read Evtushenko and I believed that he was an anti-Soviet poet. He wrote this piece about Vietnam. Bombs are falling down Burning villages

Hitting kids But doing the right thing Doing the right thing is a very American thing to say. When I was reading this poem I was thinking about the Soviet Union. He was definitely writing about his country. America introduced the concept of freedom. America can be at wars but it is still one of the most free countries. They are the embodiment of freedom of speech. The freedom of speech is not limited here. In Europe they limit the freedom of speech. I'm not even talking about Russia or Asian countries. You can say whatever you want here or

you can burn a flag. In some EU countries this would be considered a crime. I support the total freedom of speech. The United States introduced the concepts of republicanism and the representative democracy. These concepts were new to the world. In the 21st century most of these ideas are common and are no longer considered American. The American experience is very unique and useful. Nowadays it is no longer unique. The unique ideas are no longer useful. The unique ideas that they have now are not very useful. The United States experiment had a huge impact on the world.

The freedom of entrepreneurship is still present. This is still the best country in the world to run a business. I'm not a business man and this is not my opinion. This is a common opinion. Their foreign policies are far from perfect. Such policies are caused by the internal challenges of building a united nation. In Russia they just rewrite the past to build a nation. The US foreign policies are as important here as Russian history is to Putin. I've never seen a chipmunk. Chip'n'Dale. Here it is. Look! You won't catch him. He's hiding from us. He's

got stripes. He's going to the rescue. One of the most important American books of the 19th century, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was written here in Brunswick. It was written here in this house. Yes, this is the house where the Bowdoin College professor lived with his wife, Harriet Beecher Stowe. She spent two years, 1852 and 1853, writing the book. The book became one of the most influential in the history of this country. This is the second most sold book of the century besides the Bible. It is considered that the book contributed to the end of slavery in

the US. Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe and asked her if she was this tiny woman who started this big war. He blamed her for the war. Did the book start the Civil War? This is an overstatement. However, the book had a big impact on mobilizing the abolitionist movement. The book affected those who had never thought about the horrors of slavery before. The book got translated to Russian very soon. There were two translations of the book in 1850s. 1850s. Yes. A lot of Russians could relate to the book because they still had serfdom. So in

Russia this was an anti-serfdom book. The book went viral in England because they were happy to see that America wasn't a modern country. The print run of the book in England was higher than it was in the US. Hundreds of thousands books were sold. Did they have any slaves here? They did not. They lived in the North.. There were no slaves here. There was no slavery in Maine. The southerns hated the book. They said that the author never lived in the south and she didn't know what their life was like. She had no idea how

the slaves lived. And how the plantations looked. She described the wildlife of Maine, not Virginia in the book. The southerns noticed these mistakes and said that she no idea what she was writing about. They failed to expose her. And there was a bunch of anti-Tom literature. Yes, these books were pro-slavery. They explained that the slaves had a decent life. Some books claimed that the workers in the north had a worse life than the slaves. George Fitzhugh wrote a book called Cannibals All! about the north. It was considered that the free people worked more efficiently than

the slaves and Fitzhugh claimed that it proved that the workers were more oppressed than the slaves. While the southerns were kind to their slaves. This whole outrage was caused by one book. There was a conflict in Kansas called Bloody Kansas. This book made many people finally think about slavery. It had been a problem for a few decades but many Americans ignored it. It was a dangerous topic and they didn't want to start this conversation. This book made everyone start this conversation. The book had an impact on the doubters and the escapists. It did. Abolitionists liked

the book right away. They had been ignored by everyone. There was a so-called gag rule. The Congress voted for not considering any petitions from the abolitionists. They were considered as radicals. The book changed everything. We're meeting in Maine. The Indians lived here for thousands of years and now almost all of them are gone. How long have they been gone? There used to be Abenaki tribes here. They became extinct in the beginning of the 19th century. They were forced to move to the Great Lakes. There was the Treaty of Greenville between the United States and the

surviving indigenous nations. Nowadays they are supporting the indigenous nations a lot. You could have noticed these banners in the college. We live in the land of the indigenous people. They respect the Abenaki people and invite them over from the West of the country. Nowadays the United States are dealing with the responsibility for what they did to the indigenous nations. Can this considered to be a genocide? Genocide is a political term. In Canada they recognized the genocide. In the United States they don't even though the activist still use the word. In Canada the genocide was recognized

by the state. Genocide is the 20th century term. We can use this term to describe such events of the past, which were common for colonial imperialists. This happened in Australia and in North America. Can we use a modern term to describe what happened 200 years ago? Was this in fact a genocide? The definition of the genocide is.. Targeted extermination.. I'm not a lawyer and I can't use this word. I don't know how international law defines it. Was this a mass extermination? It was. How do Indians live nowadays? It depends.. Do they live in reservations? Or

have they joined the nation? Most of them live in reservations. These reservations used to resemble a ghetto.. Nowadays they have tax cuts and gambling is allowed in reservations. They even have oil wells in some reservations. Most of them live in reservations. They're quite poor. I've been to a Navajo reservation when I was in Arizona. Their houses looked quite poor. They are slowly integrating into the society. There is still a boundary between the White Americans and the Native people. There was a movement of American Indians and they occupied a city called Wounded Knee in 1970s. Recently

Americans started to reconsider what they did to native people. One of the most symbolic movies on this issue was called Dances with Wolves. This movie came out in 1990 and it caused a lot of debate. The movie showed Native Americans as good people and it caused an outrage. This movie came out not long ago. The attitude towards Native Americans was hard to change after centuries of seeing them as enemies. They are now reconsidering it. Did the Americans understand why Native Nations didn't like them? The Americans came to their land and they tried to defend it.

They are getting attacked now and they don't want to think about the past. Yes, but there is logic behind these events. The logic used to be different. We are Christians and they are savages. This was the logic. These savages attack us for no reason. There was a lot of racism towards Indians. They were considered an inferior race. This continued until the middle of 20th century. Segregation was officially over only in 1960s. 1960s happened recently. I was born in 1960s. This country has been changing fast in the last few decades. These changes started happening quite recently.

Europeans and Russians always had a different attitude towards Indians. Starting from the Noble Savage by Rousseau..Jean-Jacques Rousseau created this image of noble savages. From the 18th century the Europeans liked Indians and considered them noble. The Americans found them dangerous. In American Westerns native people were always the villains. These movies were made in 1950s and 1960s. The new generation of Americans is now dealing with the responsibility for their ancestors. Slavery in Russia was abolished a little earlier than in the US. Yes. Are these events connected? Did Russia have any impact on the US? In Russia slavery

was abolished in February of 1861 and Lincoln announced the emancipation in January of 1863. Slavery was officially abolished after the Civil War with adding the new amendments to the Constitution. The fourteenth amendment was introduced in 1866. When slavery and serfdom were still a thing Russia and America would look at each other to justify their actions. The supporters of slavery would say that the other country had slavery, too. And the Russian abolitionists would read Uncle Tom's Cabin and say that they had the same problem in Russia. The Americans would also criticize Russian serfdom. I'm not sure

that these events were related. When Lincoln decided to abolish slavery, the Civil War had been happening for two years already. When he finally made his decision he asked his ambassador in Russia to read some lectures on the abolishment of serfdom in Russia. Lincoln used it to promote his decision. He used the soft power. Or wasn't it soft? We're used to Russia copying from America but sometimes they would copy from us. I can't say that they abolished slavery because Russia did it first. Russia had an influence. They used this case as an argument. The abolition of

serfdom took a long time in Russia. Serfs didn't get released right away. What about the US? The slaves got released but they didn't own any land. They were still dependent on their lords but now they could not be sold. The slaves didn't get any land in America. They got their freedom but they didn't have any money or land. They would still work for their lords but this time they were free. In this sense the consequences were similar in Russia and America. Fifty years later in 1913 Lenin wrote a short note Russians and Negros.. He wrote

that Negros were set free by the Civil War while Russians were set free by Tsar. And this made Negros more free than Russians. Because they fought for their freedom? Yes, but Lenin believed in a revolution as the best way to freedom. In this sense he liked the American way. He was wrong in everything about America. But here's the thing. The Americans are divided and racism is still a problem here. This is the legacy of slavery and the consequences of the Civil War. In Russia serfdom was abolished and we had the tragedies of the 20th century..

However, I feel like Russian society is divided similarly to American society. We have the same legacy of serfdom but it's not being recognized. Like what? Some of our intellectuals believe that Russian people are stupid and they shouldn't have a right to vote. Have you ever heard such an opinion? I've only heard it from the people who I consider outcasts. Unfortunately, a big part of Russian intellectuals thinks so. I've seen this on my Facebook. They believe that Russian people would always vote for fascists. Ivan, you've got to get rid of some of Facebook friends. Probably. I

hope I didn't discriminate anyone. This is called social hygiene. I have a lot of people on my feed. I have Putin's supporters, too. They've stopped posting, though. This is a popular opinion in Russia. Mikhail Gershenzon wrote that only the authorities could protect the intellectuals from Russian people. Going to the People was a process similar to what the Americans did to help the black population come to power. Later such movements were seen as patronage which was wrong. What we see as class inequality is seen here as racial inequality. Their society is divided by race while Russian

society is divided by classes. There was this show about the inferior class recently.. Slovo Patsana? Yes. They could have made a similar movie here about the black people in bad neighborhoods. Their lives are quite similar. These are social boundaries. And this is the legacy of serfdom and slavery. Russian intellectuals who are well educated and have read many books write absolute nonsense on their Facebook. They became a part of the elites because of the Soviet Union and its social mobility. These people might be the descendants of peasants but the Soviet totalitarian system provided them with social

mobility. These people managed to become intellectuals by having access to free education. They are the descendants of serfs. And yet they claim that the masses support Putin which I don't actually believe in. They said the same stuff about the Immortal Regiment. Ten million people would come to the event.. What did they say about it? They said that these people were Putin's supporters. This is a great idea that Putin stole. They hate all the ideas that come from the people. They are scared of mass events. I'm not saying that all intellectuals are like this. But these

people remind me of Americans who are divided by race. Do you support universal suffrage? I do. Let's talk about the US elections. Can you briefly explain how do they vote for the president here? This system gets criticized a lot. It is an indirect election. Presidential elections by design should take into account two separate wills - the will of the people and the will of the states. This is why they have the two-stage system. People for their candidate.. Everyone has a right to vote. Every citizen can vote. They should first register a month before the elections.

On the election day, which is always the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November..This is a quote from the Constitution. They vote on the first Tuesday in November unless it's November 1. This is how the votes are counted. They are counted inside a state and then every state delegates electors for the stage-two voting. The electors choose the president. The number of electors in each state is equal to the number of seats in the Parliament. There are two Senators from each state and a different number of Congressmen depending on the population of the state. There

are about fifty Congressmen from California and just one from Rhode Island. So there are three electors from Rhode Island and fifty-something electors from California. It is considered that the electors vote for the president. The electors should vote for the candidate picked by their state. So if 90% of the voters vote for a Democrat then the electors would vote for the Democrat. And there is no other option for them. If 51% of the voters vote for the Democrat he would still get all the votes from the electors of his state. 49% of the votes for the

other candidate are not taken into account. So if the Democrats win in California they get 50 electors voting for them. There were precedents of faithless electors. Some states are now banning faithless electors. Theoretically, the elector can pick another side but this doesn't happen a lot. Electors usually represent the party. In 2016 people expected the electors to vote for Hillary. I guess, one or two of them refused to vote for Trump. However, there were more electors who decided to vote for Trump instead of voting for Hillary. Some of the electors voted for an Indian activist. Faithless

electors have never impacted the results of the elections. They had never affected the results by switching to the other side. The electors vote and.. And then the votes are counted. Yes, the result becomes clear on the day of the elections. It is clear who won the elections in each state and then the votes are calculated. The results are calculated based on the number of electors from each state. The stage two, the Electoral College is a formal stage. At this point the new president is already known. Yes, the new president is known. The faithless electors have

never changed the result. There are two states, Maine is one of these, who divided their electors into two groups. Here the votes can be divided between two candidates. If I remember it correctly, another such state is Nebraska. In the rest of the states the winner takes it all. There are states where the Republicans have zero chances of winning and vice versa. If there is a 70/30 split there is no point in fighting for this state. The Democrats would only take 5% from these 70% and still lose the elections. Some states have 51/49 or 55/45 split.

These states might have the different winners at each elections. Massachusetts and California always vote for Democrats. Pennsylvania can vote for each of the candidates. This is why the candidates only campaign in swing states. You won't see much campaigning in Massachusetts. The result is already clear. If you turn on TV there would be no political ads there. Candidates wouldn't waste their money on such states. Texas always votes for the Republicans. While in Pennsylvania and other swing states there would be the real fight. Is it true that the winner doesn't need to get the majority of the

votes? Yes, this has happened a few times in the past. In 2016 Trump got less votes than Hillary Clinton but still won the elections. The same happened in 2000 when George Bush Jr won the elections despite winning less votes than his opponent Albert Gore. Such cases happen occasionally. Can we consider such system to be a direct democracy? They have a representative democracy here. There was direct democracy in Ancient Greece. This system is called representative democracy. The Congress and the Senate are representative bodies. There are different forms of democracies. This is a legacy of building a

country from the states. The basic level of the government is not located in Washington DC. It is located in your state. This is why different states have different laws. Some states have death penalty and some don't. According to Constitution, the federal government can only do what is allowed by Constitution. There are also so-called Elastic Clauses, which allow the government to make laws not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. But still, the federal government's power is limited by the Constitution. On the other side, local governments are limited by charters issued by cities. While the rest of power

is given to the state. If there is a new challenge and the Constitution doesn't allow the federal or the local government to solve it - it's up for the state. The state is the basic element of this country. This is a legacy of 13 colonies. Same with the presidential election. The state should have a vote. We went on a big trip around Texas and someone told me that he liked the economic program of the Republicans and the social program of the Democrats. This person was upset that these ideas could not be combined in a third

candidate. He doesn't want to vote for either of the current candidates. Why isn't there a third political party in the US? And the forth, fifth, and sixth parties? It's a great question. This problem is discussed a lot here. The winner takes all system led to a transformation of the parties. They are very different from European parties. In almost every European country there is a lot of political parties that form coalitions. There are social democrats, liberals, green, conservatives, Christian democrats, and someone else. The voters can choose from this variety of parties. And then these parties would

form coalitions in the parliament to form the government or to become the opposition. In the US the coalitions are formed before the elections. Democrat and Republican parties are the coalitions of many other parties. The regular voter would tell you that he votes for the Democrats but doesn't support all of their ideas. Another would vote for Republicans and not support some of their ideas. The Republican Party is a coalition of religious fundamentalists, which don't represent all the republican voters.. The working class votes for the Republican party, too. The middle-class entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized enterprises vote for

them, too. While the intellectuals vote for the Democrats. 90% of the professors vote for them. Racial and ethnic minorities mostly vote for them, too. These two parties are two coalitions. Occasionally these coalitions get mixed up. This happened during Nixon's presidency in late 1960s and early 1970s. Before that the Democrats were the party of the southern states. The slave owners would vote for the Democrat party. Southern Democrats would support segregation and racial inequality fifty years ago. Or sixty years ago. And then the sides switched. The Republicans implemented their Southern Strategy to get more votes in the

South. Eventually the parties switched sides and now the Republicans are the Southern party and the Democrats are the Northern party. Both of these parties are coalitions, which is a problem for voters. Voters like the education policies of the Democrats but they wouldn't like their transgender policies. Or they wouldn't support studying certain subjects at school. However, these people would still vote for the Democrats. Same for the Republicans. Voters would like some of their points but wouldn't support their opinion on abortions. Yes. Both of these parties are coalitions. The voters have to choose between coalitions. They would

like to vote for someone else but they can only pick from two. This is a winner-take-all system and there are two candidates only. And this cannot be changed. There are talks about the reform but this is a very conservative country. This system works so they wouldn't fix it. They are talking about changing the presidential elections.. But I don't see these changes coming. This system has worked for 200 years. Do you feel like there is freedom of speech left in the US? There is definitely freedom of speech here. The freedom speech is a freedom from legal

sanction. The first amendment states that the Congress cannot make laws against the freedom of speech. The freedom of speech is heavily pressured by the society here. Don't Americans realize that this is a threat for the freedom of speech? People get cancelled for crimes not proven by court. Or for offending someone. People get cancelled for very debatable reasons. I get it when people get cancelled for committing crimes and being convicted by court. However, the presumption of innocence gets violated here. People get canceled for very debatable reasons. Isn't this an attack on freedom of speech? Some people

call this an attack on freedom of speech. And such people mostly vote for the Republicans. They are not Christian fundamentalists and they don't want to ban abortions..However they feel like the Democrats violate the freedom of speech. This is a problematic issue here. I can't generalize and talk about the society as a whole. Some people here support cancel culture and others try to resist it. This is a relevant problem. Don't you feel like the cancel culture is winning? I don't think so. This has happened before. I like bringing up examples from the 19th century that I

wrote my thesis paper about. Weren't they losing in 1850s when the Congress introduced the gag rule against the abolitionists? Andrew Dickson White was the first President of Cornell University and the ambassador in Russia and Germany.. When he was a young man he came back from working in the embassy in Russia and started reading lectures on serfdom in Russia. In his memoirs he wrote that a friend of his, an abolitionist, walked up to him and asked him:'Why didn't you say that serfdom is similar to slavery?' 'Why didn't you describe the horrors of slavery?' And Dickson White

told him that half of the students would had left the audience had he done this. They wouldn't had listened to him. This was a dangerous topic. He used Aesopian language when he talked about serfdom while professors in Russia would talk about slavery in America when they feared censorship. Russian state didn't allow anyone to criticize serfdom. The American audience wasn't ready to hear the truth about slavery. So Dickson White managed to avoid this public censorship. America has a relatively weak state.. If we divide the society into individuals, social groups, and the state.. American state would have

less power than social groups. Social groups would protect individuals from the state. If the state tries to violate freedom of speech American society would protect the individuals. They would be strong enough to stop the state. When the society violates your freedom of speech, nobody would protect you. The government wouldn't help you. The government wouldn't be able to help. You would be left alone. Remember Pushkin's poem 'Of Pindemonti'? Well, to depend on people or a king, What difference does it make? He read Tocqueville's Democracy in America and was horrified. The people of America were as scary

as Russian emperor. What do you think is worse? Being oppressed by the state or by the people? Both of these are bad. You can find someone who would support you. When the government oppresses you there is nothing you can do about it. The society is complex and someone would always be on your side. This is not a good choice but this is better than being oppressed by the state. You said that there is no government censorship in the US. Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Biden administration pressured Meta and this proves that there is censorship in America.

I didn't say that the government doesn't want to do it. They are trying to do it for their own interests. When it comes to a clash the system of checks and balances protects people from the government. Burning the US flag is an example of that. The government tried to call this a crime until the supreme court ruled out that it wasn't a crime. The government tries to introduce censorship. The Snowden case is also similar.. This man exposed American government for spying on other countries. The American government was also very unwavering towards the Wikileaks man.. The

government clearly cared about its interests. But the people still tried to protect their freedoms. We know that they pressured Zuckerberg. But look at Twitter, which has gone in an opposite direction. Musk bought Twitter and announced that there would be no censorship on the platform. Then he renamed it to X. So you're saying that Biden administration tried to pressure Meta.. but they failed? I don't know if Zuckerberg agreed to do it. He did agree. He did what they required. However, had they pressured Musk.. He would sue them. He would sue them and he would win. It

all comes to the choice that they have to make. Sometimes businessmen don't want to argue with the government.. However, everything is possible in the US. Nowadays the Russia-United States relations are at a very low point. At a terrible place. It feels like this is related to both political and social relations. Can this change? It can. In two hundred years of Russia-United States relations we faced a lot of ups and downs. We faced the Cold War, and the late 1940s and early 1950s were a very bad period. However, it always changed. There is no guarantee that

things are gonna change. There is always a chance. Generations come and go, the situation evolves. Things can get better. Now the situation is much more challenging than it was in the past. Russian people are disappointed in America. Some people used to love America and they got disappointed for various reasons. The Americans didn't help us with the reforms in 1990s. They don't understand the difficulties we are facing today. However, this is not a dead end. I feel like we can recover from it. Before the war in Ukraine there was a hope that our relations would improve..This

was in 2018 when Putin met Trump in Helsinki. Polls showed that there was an outburst of positive attitude towards America among Russians. People hoped that we would come back to normal relations. Russians want to recover the relations with the US. Nobody wants to be an outcast. Even those who support the war would like to see foreign relations being recovered. I feel like the Americans would be harder to convince.. They are now witnessing that Russia is as bad as they were told during the Cold War. There is still hope. Do you feel like if they stop

hating Americans on Russian TV people would change their attitude soon? I don't think that anyone believes that some other people are bad. This is xenophobic. We have a lot of positive memories of America. America is the land of the free and Russian people know that. Even though there is cancel culture in America. They still have the first amendment. They have the freedom of entrepreneurship. Russians love Hollywood movies. There is a lot of positive background between Russia and America. As soon as propaganda vanishes, the positive thoughts replace all the negativity. This will always be the case.

And the final question: what is power? I don't have a short answer to this. I feel like every human has his own power. I would name two things as my powers. First of all, saying no to someone stronger than you is power. And being able to continue working when the goal is very far and everything seems pointless is also power. It is very important to keep on working. This is what gives me strength.