What, no Obama-mania?

The visit of Obama to Moscow has come and gone, and it was truly not worth getting ones hopes up for. I've been trying to follow this as best as I can without a television or radio, and with internet access limited to about an hour a day (I honestly cannot spend any more time on the concrete floor where there's a free signal, or in the cafe below that has too many smokers and too much Euro pop even for me.) My teacher brought in a couple free newspapers for us (yes, I should have gone out and bought a newspaper the old-fashioned way to get more coverage), and I was surprised to read this story (lousy google translation): Sales of Russian dolls have been forbidden due to Barack Obama. I went down to the Kremlin that evening around 9 and in fact, did see a couple souvenir stalls:

If you check out the full size, you can verify that there are indeed, no souvenirs with Obama's likeness. These were the only two stands in a usually crowded square.

TV news tents

More TV news tents...

Frankly, there was nothing going on at the Kremlin. Maybe because I was late, maybe because no one cares. There were a few tourist groups, and a few young couples taking an evening walk.

When I heard the news in June that Obama would come when I was in Moscow, I was excited. But I have to put it in context: I was hearing this at my pre-departure orientation from the president of American Councils, whose excitement for the visit came from the much-desired regime change as it relates particularly to this small demographic: teachers of the Russian language in the United States. The relationship that blossomed and stagnated between Bush 42 and Putin left little to be desired in terms of encouraging Americans to actually go out and learn the language (or anything about Russians). Now we have a president who came for two days, spoke at a graduation, and even claimed to like Russian food (translation).

Still, Russians are wary of Americans. Of all foreigners. There's a new love affair with European imports, but they don't call Russia-made products "domestic" but "of the fatherland". There very well may be a lot in common between Russians and Americans, but there's a lot of mutual mistrust. And misunderstanding, as discussed in this article. And I can testify that the misunderstanding goes well beyond a lack of Russian speakers in the U.S. (I have to remind you of the reset button gaffe...what a nightmare, State Department!). Hopefully this program will get me one step closer to complete understanding.