(continue from part 2)
By Oleg Vereshyagin
Mikko, 10 years old, Finland: The snitch.
Zorko, 13 years old, Serbia: About Russian Carelessness.
Mikko got beat up by four of his classmates. As far as we could tell – it really wasn’t too serious: he was knocked off his feet and hit a few times with backpacks. [Textbooks used in Russia are about 1/4 the size the ones we are used to see in the U.S.; consequently Russian children’s backpacks are not so bulky and weigh much less – RV] There was a reason for that. Mikko bumped into a couple of boys smoking in the orchard behind the school building; was offered a smoke, too, but refused it and immediately told his teacher about it. The teacher punished the little offenders by taking away their cigarettes and making them wash the floor of their classroom (that latter fact alone astonished us in this whole story) She never directly mentioned Mikko’s name, but it was really not that hard to figure out who ratted the boys out.
Mikko was devastated. He wasn’t worried about the beating itself as much as he was confused: aren’t we supposed to inform our teacher about such things?! My husband and I had to explain that tattling was not acceptable among Russian kids; in fact, even if directly asked by adults about such things, one is supposed to keep it secret. We were really angry with ourselves: how could we not have explained this to him earlier?! I suggested we go talk to the teacher or to the parents of the boys that beat him up, but decided against it after giving it some more thought.
Meanwhile, our son was restless. “Does this mean they will despise me from now on?!” He was terrified. He felt like all of a sudden he was on an alien planet and didn’t know anything about the life there. We couldn’t offer him any advice, for there was nothing in our previous experience we could draw on. Personally, I was fuming over the double-standard morality of Russians: how can one teach the child to be truthful, while at the same time telling him that he cannot say the truth?! At the same time, I was tortured by doubts; something inside was telling me it was not so clear-cut. I couldn’t quite get it.
My husband had been thinking, his head low. He took Mikko by the elbows, pulling him face-to face, motioned for me to stay out of it and said, “Tomorrow you will tell the boys you didn’t mean to snitch, you didn’t know one wasn’t supposed to do such things, and that you ask them to forgive you. They will start laughing at you. And then you hit the one who laughs first.” Mikko wailed, “But dad, they will beat me up!” “I know. You will fight back and they will beat you up again, because there many of them. But you are strong and will be able to strike a few times, too. The next day you are going to repeat everything again, and if someone laughs you hit him again.” Mikko almost howled, “But da-aaad!” His father sharply stopped him, “You will do what I said. Understood?” Mikko nodded with tears in his eyes. And my husband added, “I will find out if you talked to them.”
The next day Mikko was terribly beat up. I was beside myself. My husband was also obviously upset. To our amazement, there was no fight the day after. Mikko ran into the house and excitedly told us that he had done what he was told to do and no one laughed, someone just murmured, “Yeah, we know; heard about that…”
The most peculiar thing about all of this was that from that moment on, our son was accepted by his class entirely and was not reminded once about what happened.
Zorko, 13 years old, Serbia.
About Russian Carelessness.
Zorko really liked the country itself. The matter is, he didn’t remember how life could be without war, explosions, and terrorists. He was born in the midst of the war of 1999, and practically all of his life went in an enclave behind the barb wire, where I kept my machine gun hanging above my bed. Two more pistols were kept on the shelf by the outside window. Zorko was very concerned for our safety until we registered our two guns here. He was also troubled by the fact that our room’s windows were facing the forest. Long story short, living in an atmosphere where shotguns were only fired in the woods during hunting season was quite a revelation to him. Our older girl and Zorko’s younger brother had a much easier time adjusting to the new life because of their age.
What astounded and terrified him the most though was the fact that Russian children were so carefree and most unaware. They are ready to be friends with anyone; as Russian adults put it, “so long as he is a decent person.” Zorko was quickly accepted by his peers; we owe it to them that he stopped living in constant fear of war. He never did stop caring his knife around though; pretty soon almost all the boys in his class were caring knives of some sort or other. Just because boys instinctively take after one another worse than monkeys.
Now, about carelessness. Several Muslims of different nationalities go to Zorko’s school. Russian kids are friends with them. Zorko drew a distinct line between himself and the Muslims: he’d ignore them if they were far enough away, but if they were nearby he would shove them out of his way, openly threatened with physical harm in response to so much as a simple glimpse from them. He would explain that they shouldn’t dare lift their eyes upon a “righteous Serb” in Russia.
The Russian children were genuinely surprised by this behavior; we even had some problems with school authorities. The Muslims were peaceful, I would even say polite people. I talked to Zorko, but he said I was trying to deceive myself and that I myself told him earlier that in Kosovo they were pretty peaceful and polite at first, while there were not many of them. He told the same to the Russian boys over and over again. He also told them they were just too kind and way too careless.
My son really likes it here in Russia; he thawed out. Nevertheless, he is sure there will be a war here, too. It looks like he is seriously preparing for it.
Russian source:
http://samlib.ru/w/wereshagin_o_n/ovr.shtml
Link active as of January 17, 2017. RV
(continue reading part 5, 6, & 7)