The City #13

It is 68 degrees this morning and the humidity is so high (and thick) that I’m sweating! Yuck.
So, I was on the subway going home last night and a new crop of people came into the car. I was sitting and reading and noticed a youngish woman caring a couple things. I looked up and thought, “Is she pregnant?” Well, being the chivalrous person that I am, I would certainly give up my seat to a pregnant woman! I started to get up and she said, “No, I’m not pregnant.” Ouch!
I am amazed at the number of Russians in this country (or at least in New York City). I think back and remember growing up in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. I think about the fall of Communism and the rise of the various republics that made up the Soviet Union, and then there is (or was) the East Block, the Iron Curtain, and can’t remember what the “alliance” was actually called.
What must these people think? Here they are living and working in their formerly sworn enemies and amongst the capital pigs. Of course, I’m thinking of the truly devoted Marxist/Leninists who still protest in Russian and call for the return of a Communist Russia. The place I get my hair cut is run by Russians, as are a number of other hair cutting places.
I remember stepping into the grand plaza in East Berlin right as the Wall was falling. This was the equivalent to West Berlin’s main plaza and there was no comparison. I know of East Berliners who first stepped into West Berlin when the whole in the Wall finally appeared and saw first-hand the vast differences between the two societies. They were shocked to see that the reports of Western prosperity were true, after being told time and again that it was all Western propaganda. They realized their whole system was a lie and their government deceived them from the beginning.
Now, the try to come to the West, even as the Russian rulers are stepping back from democratic systems. Where will it all end, I wonder?