Conversation 3

March 4, 2014           
My third conversation with Anastasia was extremely interesting.  It occurred at the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine and Russia had already begun its process of the annexation of the Crimea.  I was curious as to how Anastasia, a Russian citizen felt about everything.  This topic dominated the majority of our conversation.

            Anastasia did not know what to think about.  She told me in Russia that the government controls the main news source and expressed the opinion of Putin and his government.  There is only one news station that is against the government and is only watched by young people.  Her grandmother watches the government-controlled news and believes everything she hears from that and has the same opinion as the government.  Anastasia does not believe this news source and does not trust any source to tell the complete truth about what is truly going on.  Her main concern about the annexation of the Crimea was the chain reaction it could potentially start.  Her home region of Russia once belonged to Germany and she is worried that Germany could just take it back.  That was her example, but she is worried world leaders might start taking any land they have previously controlled or have strong ties to.

            We talked about the possibility of war and what that would mean.  We also discussed the first sanctions that were imposed on Russian officials.  All of these sanctions were financial and she said the Russian people welcomed these sanctions, because everyone in power are extremely wealthy and the Russian population does not get to share this wealth and are happy to see the greedy politicians lose money.

            I thought about what it would like to live in a nation with censorship.  The government could say whatever it wanted and political opposition would be hard to see in public life.  I could not imagine living in a nation where the media was controlled by the government, but the media in America is controlled my corporations.  These corporation’s views are expressed through their news stories and anchor’s opinions.  It is hard to find an unbiased news source, because everyone has an opinion. A government, corporation, or single person simply to push their beliefs on others can skew a story.

            While I was pondering biased news sources and who controlled them, Anastasia ended our conversation with a question about Obamacare.  She had no idea what it was or what it did, but she had to give a debate about it soon.  I tried to help her as much as I can by telling her what I knew about it and the actual name so she could research more about it.  I thought about how hard it would be to debate about a foreign government’s healthcare act, especially when living in a nation with socialized medicine your whole life and had no idea what medical insurance was.  Our differences in culture were becoming clearer, but our opinions about the Ukraine crisis were similar and prove that just because two people come from different cultures and nations, we don’t have to side with our nations and declare enemies based on what the government says.  Even though she hears Putin call Americans enemies on the news back home she has formed her own opinion and learned to integrate her culture with a new one.  She has learned from the people she’s met here and has begun to learn from me as we establish a greater understanding of each other’s beliefs and where we came from