Pieter
As to judge the appearance of Eric, I would have thought perhaps, he was Swiss. I would have never thought of him as Jewish. The reason of my perception of thought, is: My first wife was Swiss, and so, I am familiar with the features of Swiss. And so, with many of us mortals, we are familiar with what we are accustomed to believe.
Charles
It's quite interesting... the majority of my ethnicity is German on both sides, but I have ancestors that cover almost the entire European continent - from Wales to Russia.
Eric,
There is nothing wrong with a German background, the only negative aspect of it is that people in some countries have something agianst it from their personal heritage (Some Israeli's, Poles, French, Russians and Duch) and, because of the cliché's younger people get from Germans and Germany via the series and movies on their television.
Living in the Netherlands, and in the border region with Germany, I have three friends with a German mother, know Germans who live in Holland
(and speak Duch in daily life), I grew up learning German on highschool,
reading German literature and seeing German movies, German television,
and detectives like "der Alte", Derreck and Tatort.
I was not influenced by my father who had anti-German sentiments,
and my mother, who did not like visiting Germany.
The German culture was one of the great heritages of Europe, and I like the
fact that I can understand, read and write the language that is spoken by 1 out of three Europeans. German is the language I communicated with my Polish grandparents. What other European backgrounds do you have accept
German, Welsh and Russian? How did your family became so multi-ethnic?
Why did you become so interested in Russia, and not for instance in Germany? Do you speak German?
In Russian literary and cultural tradition you have an European (Western)
oriented movement and an Eastern (Slavophile) direction.
Since you live in that magnificant St.Petersburg, symbol of the European
Russia, with it's French, Italian, Duch, German, Finish influences, what can
you tell me of your fascination, fondness or even love for mother Russia?
Do you have that Russian soul, that longing for Mother Russia, that deep
cultural heritage or roots that connects Russians everywhere with Russia
(Russians in Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Cape Town, Tel Aviv and New York
miss Russia very much, even if they deliberatly choose to live abroad).
I witnessed it in my Amsterdam years in 1990, 1991 and 1992 when I had contact with Russians regulary via a Spanish girlfriend who knew them and a Duch-German girlfriend of mine who had a relation with a Russian.
They had left Russia during Perestroijka and Glasnost, because they said that law and order had gone and Russia (Moscow) had became the place of maffia and gangsters. That was their view, and I could not check that objectively. All I know is that I liked their Russian or Sovjet parties where they played Russian, Ukranian, Jiddish and Gypsy music and songs from the Sovjet-Union they came from. They told me that the Breznjew years were prosporus, and that decline came after that. It was comparable with the Gieriek years in Poland. Gieriek had good ties with the West, the Russians
and the Polish people. He was better than Gomulka before him and Jaruzelski after him. For many Russians Gorbastjow was a disaster, because the Sovjet-Union, and the economical system collapsed with that.
Many Russians immigrated away from the New Russian Federation, because chaos, corruption and crime grew worse than under communism.
Ex Spetnaz, KGB people, sportspeople, scientists and even lawjers became part of the well organised Russian maffia, who was active in Moscow,
St. Petersburg, Warszawa, Budapest, Prague, Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam,
Tel Aviv, New York, Miami, Tbilisi, Jerevan, and Bogota (Columbia).
The Russian parties which were nice in the beginning became less nice later
on when my Russian friend said that they, the other people (the guys with the thick necks, leather coats and platinum blond girlfriends; the Mob)
came in and changed the nice atmosphere into that of an obscure one of an old Maffia movie. It was time to leave, I never went back.
The Russians managed to survive in the Netherlands by selling paintings near popular Museums (like in Monmarte in Paris), by their exellent computer skills (like all former People republics, the Russians have good technical skills, due to their exellent Polythechnic schools and Scientific
Research institutes. They were often good Beta's, good in Math, in playing chess -some cliché's are true-), and strong Networks.
Some of them managed to devellop good ties with Duch companies and got a job their in the roaring ITC (Information technology Communication)
ninetees. Others stayed in the Anarchistic Russian Underground with Squat houses, flexible jobs, making music and art. They had their ways.
After leaving Amsterdam and losing contact with the Spanish girl, the Russian element in my life disappeared. My Duch-German girlfriend got
another boyfriend (an Indonesian halfblood guy instaid of the Russian Mischa), so Mischa Korbytsin also went away.
My only possibility to learn Polish via the Russian who gave me Polish lessons also disappeared. I have to say that I miss that Amsterdam years
sometimes, because although these Russians were strange fellows sometimes, it was a fascinating, vibrant, cultural life.
Pieter