Life Observations - Observation #2: What do I miss about being Russian?

“When I'm in Canada, I feel this is what the world should be like."

Jane Fonda

 
In 1998, I chose Canada and in 1999 Canada chose me back. Our “arranged engagement” happened at the Embassy of Canada in Poland, Warsaw. My knowledge of Canada was very limited then: it’s vast and located north of the USA, it has a red maple on its flag and it has two official languages. The Canadians I met in Dubai were extremely nice, but a bit boring to my Russian standards. A year after my “engagement” to Canada, I left familiar Kazakhstan with no expectations towards unfamiliar Canada. When I landed in Toronto, I knew that it was love at first sight…
 
What do I love about Canada? And what do I miss about being Russian (I am Kazakh, but by Russian I mean all people who lived in the USSR or now live in post-Soviet countries)?
 
Love for Canada
1. I love our beautiful vast and untouched land. Canada is the second largest country in the world, Kazakhstan is the ninth. My ancestors were pastoral nomads (it sounds so romantic, doesn’t it?) so I have this unexplainable fondness for vastness in my blood. I can easily imagine how almost 500 years ago Jacques Cartier, the French explorer, was shocked by the vastness of Canada’s territory when he first arrived here. Travelling along the St. Lawrence River, Cartier asked two aboriginal hunters where he was. The answered “kanata” which is the Iroquois-Huron word for village. I guess we are all just one big lovely village.
2. I love Canadian kindness. Kindness is natural here. Trying to understand why Canadians are so kind is the same as trying to understand the mythical and elusive Russian soul. It just exists. This kindness is so kind that it let me be ignorant of my own unintentional ignorance. This kindness is so kind that it makes be a kind person too (I am kind from time to time). This kindness is so kind that I don't have an urge to break the rules anymore (I keep this urge under control). This kindness is so kind that it makes me a better person despite my little faults (I may not have any faults left after almost 17 years of total kindness).
3. I love Canadian inclusiveness. Diversity, inclusion and cohesion were vital to me (I exaggerate here because I love the word “vital”) during Soviet era. And they are vital to me (I exaggerate again) now. They make our “Kanata” unique, comfy and welcoming. 
 
Nostalgia for being Russian
1. I miss partying a la Russe: when you start an evening with ridiculously fun people who know how to party, immediately forget about political correctness and oversensitivity, joke inappropriately non-stop, have a wild time, break a few rules and feel extremely alive!
2. I miss drinking a la Russe: when you enjoy the passionate late-night debates with your drinking companions about weird stuff that makes total sense at night and no sense at all next morning, feel the depth of yours and others’ souls, express emotions in their purest form, feel endless poetical love towards strangers and humanity, make crazy plans and remember to fulfil them in the future, wake up with a severe hangover, but feel extremely alive!
3. I miss living with a la Russe intensity: when you have and feel everything in exaggerated form, observe tragic sensibility and shocking frankness, act spontaneously and unpredictably, be more flashy and less underdressed, experience fierce loyalty and endless resourcefulness, ignore small talks and routineness, long for the unknown and uncertain, indulge in philosophical and dreamy laziness, show optimism and fatalism at the same time, embrace a sudden change of plans and new opportunities... and feel extremely alive!
 
Sir Winston Churchill once defined Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Do I still have the key to this riddle?!