Valentine’s Day Meeting In Moscow

Russia’s everyday reality through the eyes of my friend

Moscow. Some hints of Valentine’s Day atmosphere are still evident. Photo by the author

On February 14, the world celebrates Valentine’s Day, a festival dedicated to love, with lots of flowers, chocolates, and Valentine’s cards. I am not celebrating this holiday because of my location; I am currently in Moscow. The Russian authorities have long discouraged public sympathy for Western culture and values here.

According to local officials, Valentine’s Day, like Halloween, is “bad for the soul and not a Russian tradition.” Therefore, they say, it shouldn’t be celebrated.

So, instead of celebrating St. Valentine’s Day, I met my old friend in the center of Moscow, a city I hadn’t been to in six months. She is a lawyer and criminal investigator with a background in the Ministry of Justice. Our meeting promises to be interesting. I arrived in Moscow from London a few days ago, and I need new impressions and more details about how life has changed for Russians recently. I study everyday reality and social change as a historian and political analyst. For me, personal conversations and interviews are an invaluable source of information.

In my personal experience, many things have changed in Moscow, but the basic framework of the sociopolitical situation remains the same. People normally don’t discuss politics and…