In a few weeks, Russia will hold a mock election again to seal Vladimir Putin continuation as president.
When Putin had just ascended to the leadership of his country at the beginning of the 21st century, I remember how there were decorative objects depicting the president on the shelves of the souvenir shop. I was visiting Russia for the first time, and the country was excited about the young leader, who also spoke fluently about the importance of democracy and freedom of speech.
In reality, Putin, who has a background in the security services, came to power for his first term in elections that were not free or fair. As president, she immediately began to discipline media independent of the Kremlin and concentrate power in her inner circle.
As a high school student studying Russian, the souvenir shop introduced me to the Putin cult. Later I realized that in Russia it is natural to think that the ruler acts above the law.
Russian can be understood. However, it is difficult to measure Russians’ values and way of perceiving the world in terms of Western culture. When we try to understand Russia by referring to our own starting points, we go astray.
After high school, I often returned to the eastern neighbor, and lived in the country together for more than a decade. The years spent in Russia taught me these three things about its inhabitants.
1. Fate guides life
Finns cherish the idea of the interior as the basis of our national identity. Sisu communicates a belief in one’s own potential for influence: Anything can be possible if you just try without getting discouraged.
Russians, on the other hand, are known for their belief in fate, like Russian roulette.
The eastern neighbor’s fatalism is summed up in the Russian word avos. It refers to the wish for an impossible situation to turn favorable thanks to some superhuman power.
More generally, it is about the fact that Russians have little faith in their ability to change their lives for the better. On the contrary, the people believe that they survived the turmoils that ravaged the country from one century to the next just by chance.
A lack of faith in one’s own influence can reduce the will of Russians to oppose their regime and its two-year war of aggression in Ukraine. Even more, it is undermined by the arbitrary judgments given to critics.
2000 Vladimir Putin becomes president.
2011 The opposition’s large demonstrations begin.
2015 Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov is assassinated.
2020 The constitutional reform guarantees the continuation of Putin’s power.
2024 Opposition leader Aleksei Navalnyi dies in prison.
2. Truth and legality are elusive
The Russian mind seems to have a lot more shades of gray than we do – especially when it comes to truth or legality.
This is what the two Russian words for truth, istina and pravda, tell us. The former refers to unchanging, objective truth, while the latter refers to partial truth or a person’s subjective “truth†about something.
When the Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov argues like a bitch, that Russia has not invaded Ukraine, he repeats the administration’s version of the truth, in other words, he lies. The Russian listener understands that the message should not be interpreted as a fact, but as a so-called “tactical truth†, which is meant to get rid of fear.
Throughout their history, Russians have gotten used to the fact that you shouldn’t even expect a foundation of truth from gentlemen’s speeches. In Finland again, the career of a politician caught lying can end up in it.
Obscuring the truth is the main task of the media close to the Kremlin.
The most important thing is not to get people to believe everything the state television is spewing out propaganda, but to sow doubt towards all information. At its most grim, it means that Russian propagandists blame the West opposition leader To Alexei Navalny of death.
The concept of legality is also flexible in Russia.
My brain went into a knot when I first heard the word polulegalnyi, or loosely translated as “semi-legal”. Can’t it just be either legal or illegal?
In a corrupt system based on personal contacts, people have learned to question the orders given from above. If the authorities act arbitrarily, evasion of the laws starts to seem like a natural necessity.
Therefore, in the Russian and Finnish reality, the requirement of legality is not the same.
2000 Russia takes over the capital of Thailand, the guerilla war continues.
2008 Russia is at war with Georgia.
2014 Russia takes over Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine begins.
2022 Russia starts a major attack on Ukraine.
3. Community always comes first
We Finns are used to seeking consensus. In our speeches, we repeat how a small country must pull together to survive in the big world.
Still, our society is strongly individual-centered. We consider it natural that everyone is subject to the same laws and rights, and that everyone can voice their own opinion.
Russian culture, on the other hand, stems from the fact that the interest of the group comes before the interest of the individual.
The common guilt of the eastern neighbor is explained by the concept of sobornost. It refers to the free association of souls that prevailed in old village communities, when the most important human virtue is a unanimous commitment to a common goal.
When it is required to maintain harmony, direct confrontation should be avoided. Sociability can be seen as the sociability of Russians, which has always fascinated me – whether it was talking about warm toasts or paying attention to others on a crowded bus.
On the other hand, commonality explains why an individual’s own opinions are so easily ignored. That’s why the Western world view, which starts from respecting everyone’s human rights, can seem alien to Russians. It is also easier to discriminate against minorities when it is justified by a common principle.
The shared experience of the primacy of the community makes citizens more naturally adopt the message drummed up by the state leadership about a Russia surrounded by enemies. It helps the Russians to tolerate the policy pursued by the leaders and also makes it easier to go to war in Ukraine.
2007 Russia will become Finland’s largest trading partner.
2010 The train connection between Helsinki and St. Petersburg will be opened.
2013 Finland issues a record number of visas to Russians.
2014 Finland starts imposing sanctions on Russia on the EU front.
2022 Russia classifies Finland as an “unfriendly country†.
The differences are due to history
The Russians’ way of perceiving the world is therefore different from ours. Survival strategies learned over the centuries – both during the Mongol conquest and the Soviet Union – have left their mark on the eastern neighbor.
It is even more important to understand that during its history, Russia has not adopted those economic reforms and social currents of thought, on the basis of which democracy, the rule of law and human rights took root as part of the West culture.
Professor of General History at the University of Eastern Finland Jukka Korpela explains in his scientific article, how the development of Europe and Russia has diverged since the 12th century. According to Korpela, the use of power in Russia is still based on clan power based on personal networks and the bazaar economy, the built-in characteristic of which is corruption.
Russians’ values and ways of working are still not exceptional when you look at it on a larger scale. In most matters, Russians are closer to Finns than the average people in the world.
Russians can adopt our values
When I moved to live behind the eastern border a good ten years ago, the relationship between Finland and Russia was completely different.
In 2013, Finland issued a record one and a half million visas to Russians. Four train journeys transported them from St. Petersburg to Helsinki every day. According to an opinion poll at the time even two out of three Finns supported visa freedom for Russians.
Now the border is closed. The people living on the other side of it are still the same Russians as before.
The Russians’ own experience of our kind of democracy is weak. It is based on the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which were marked by crime, corruption and poverty.
Still, Russians have actively protested against their increasingly autocratic regime. Those residents of Russian big cities who have themselves been able to get to know it in the West have demanded democracy more strongly.
Tens of thousands of people who moved to Finland from Russia have also shown that despite the differences, nothing prevents them from adapting to our society. So Russians can adopt the values prevailing in Finland – democracy, the rule of law and human rights – which are missing in their homeland.
As long as Russia continues its war of aggression in Ukraine, steps to normalize the differences cannot be taken. At the same time, however, it must be understood that Russia will remain by our side and that the day will come when relations will start to be built again.
Before that, it is good to keep in mind the thing that I consider the most essential of my Russian teachings: In relation to Russianness, it is crucial to make a difference between Russians and the Russian administration in between.
The author is ‘s former Moscow correspondent, who currently works as a presenter of the News podcast.