The Years of Russia and India

Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, spent 28 hours in Moscow earlier this week. Apparently, he was in talks with Putin and returning the visit that Putin made to India in January. Improving relationships between the countries, ordering weapons, that sort of thing. According to an interview with RIA Novosti 2008 will be The Year of Russia in India and 2009 will be The Year of India in Russia. The aim is supposedly to encourage trade and all round happiness between the two countries.

It has to be said that I am a little suspicious of this friendship between the two countries. Whatever people say, Russia still hasn't quite recovered from Soviet Times and is still influenced by the Soviet mentality. A characteristic of this was a suspicion of all foreigners which is still visible today. Many Russians that I met during my various trips there were friendly, kind and welcoming. Russia does however contain some of the most racist people I have met. During one stay, I was thrown out of my flat for being a "dirty Indian".

2007 is The Year of China in Russia. The project may have achieved some of its economic goals, but in terms of its social goals it still has a long way to go. In recent years there has been an influx of immigrants from China. Some legal, most illegal. The average Russian doesn't like this. He sees the schools being overrun my immigrant children, jobs being taken over by their parents and cheap Chinese imports being sold instead of Russian ones. A popular Russian joke goes "It is the year 2100. All is quite on the Finland-China border." The average Russian is not only angry, he is afraid that there will be no Russians left soon. Admittedly, it is partly the Russian's fault. The birthrate has been dropping and there are more abortions than live births. This means that the average Russia had better get busy, or face facts and rely on immigration.

Russians have however adopted one thing from China: the food. In St Petersburg and Moscow, restaurants selling Chinese food are everywhere. I hope that the same will happen with Indian food. Although there are many in Moscow, there is only one decent one in St Petersburg.

During Soviet Times, Russian TV used to show Bollywood films dubbed in Russian. There is a certain generation of women who will swoon when you mention the words Rishi Kapoor. It's helped create a positive image of Indians in Russia, although I'm not sure if Russians believe that we run around dancing in wet saris when we find our soul mate. I used to get stopped on the street by people asking if I was from India. After a while, it got boring explaining everything so my usual answer, especially to the ugly Russian eager to take me home with him, was that I was from outer space and went to a university on the moon. I had great fun with a provincial woman, who was probably from one of the former USSR states, whilst waiting to see Lenin . She went further than everyone else and began asking personal questions. I ended up telling her that I was no one, I didn't exist, India wasn't a country and that it was all a figment of her imagination.

Despite my concerns about Russians welcoming Indians and their culture into their country in 2009, I am looking forward to observing how it all turns out. I hope there is some cultural collaboration as well as business collaboration between the two countries. A bollywood version of Anna Karenina would be well worth seeing. Tolstoy's work has all the prerequisites for a bollywood film - a love story and a running time of at least 3 hours.