Some social awareness... or lack thereof

For those of you counting at home, classes finally went well today, although I'm pretty sure I pulled a muscle in movement class that I didn't know I had - and happily so! Since I have an evening off, I just wanted to write a bit about some of the things that have impacted me about post-soviet Moscow and how it seems to treat their citizens. I need to take a picture of this first thing, because it's probably hard to believe unless you've been here to see such a thing; behind the MXAT dorms where we're staying (and many other places, I'm sure), there are living quarters for immigrant workers. As far as I understand, these are issued by the government, and they are literally freight cars stacked on top of each other with tin corrugated roofs and a thin wire fence surrounding the small compound. Most don't have any form of a window, and only a small door with a deadbolt lock on it. I see people coming in and out at all times of the day, and I notice them sleeping under the trees that surround the area, most likely to escape the heat of the stifling rooms. I'm positive there is no electricity or any sort of plumbing... I wouldn't like to see a dog in there. Some of our professors and tour guides have talked to us a bit about living through the evolution from the Soviet Union to present-day Russia. While most everyone sees Russia today as a place of freedom and hope, they all admit that it had to get pretty dirty to get to this place. Here there does not seem to be anything the likes of Social Security, and when Communism collapsed, any persons not able to work anymore (the retired, mainly) were considered completely worthless. Unless they had family to care for them, countless senior citizens basically had the rug pulled out from them and ended up homeless. Now, they recieve an average monthly pension of $200 (in one of the most expensive countries in the world) and we see babushkas - Russian for 'old lady' - angry and begging on the streets all over the place. At one point, a tour guide - likely in her 50's - was telling us that in 1980 when the Olympic Games were held in Moscow, she most remembers finally being able to have imported bananas and chocolate to eat at the games - not the games themselves. She said they were very near starving in some places at some points. Some of our male actors on the trip who have become aquainted with other Russian male... er, actors... at you know, Russian,... male, actor clubs were talking about Pride Fest a few weeks ago. From what I understand, there were under 50 actual attendees, over twice as many cops, and countless more protestors. I guess it turned into the cops beating up a lot of people in the end... so sad. Being homosexual in Russia was illegal until 1997, by the way. In general, it seems like human rights are kind of not a thing in Russia. The KGB doesn't technically still exist, but I'm pretty sure you don't get to just call your lawyer if you get taken in for something (ESPECIALLY as a forigner!). The newest observation of surreal Russian societal mores occured yesterday evening when a few of us trecked down to Red Square, as I spoke about a little bit earlier. I'm still just impressed by the immense military presence, and our interpreter/main liason (a lovely lady named Nastia) said that it was primarily because when you get tons of Russians in large crowds, fighting and rioting just tends to happen. Sounds like a stereotype, but she said it - not me. So in a nutshell, those are some of my impressions on how strange it is that a country so big and so proud is still finding it's footing on how to even take care of it's own people. Craziness....