What If

I've been thinking more about what 1991 meant to the people of Russia, largely because I continue to hear what it meant. Irina, who has taken us on two enjoyable and informative excursions, to Uglich last week and to Velikoye today, described the impact when we visited a small, three-room museum this afternoon. One of the rooms had several items related to Lenin and his legacy.

Irina told us about her experiences passing through the various Soviet youth organizations, with the culmination being admittance to the Communist Party upon reaching adulthood. Imagine, if you were raised to believe and trust in these principles, and then suddenly they vanished into a puff of history. I think Russians are doing remarkably well adjusting to this latest wrench thrown into the gears of their national and personal identities. 

By the way, the young boy in the second photo above is, I understand, Lenin himself. What a cute kid. Aren't they all? It's interesting what we become and do as adults. There are, no doubt, intimations of our future selves and actions present in our early selves. I've seen this, it seems, in one young man in particular this week. He seems sweet and creative, and also threatening. I wonder what environment he has come from and its influence. I can imagine him growing up to be a gangster. I could see him as an artist. I wonder which path he will follow. And why.

Why did the man below become one of history's heinous, paranoid mass murderers?  

While the man who painted the picture in the second photo above, spent 95 years in his village creating art and apparently harming no one irreparably. Looking at his self-portrait below, there's nothing that indicates why he wasn't also a monster. Maybe someone provided an example or some influence that encouraged a path away from the potential for evil that is harbored in each of us. Maybe we are providing something similar for the creative, sweet, threatening young man who I met this week in Yaroslavl?