They sell greeting cards at the bookstore I pass by everyday on my way home from school. The selection isn't as good as your neighborhood CVS--only two display racks by the checkout counter as opposed to a whole aisle. Most of them are blank inside and I only found one or two that told jokes. They also have those generic birthday cards for every five year increment (5s and 0s I mean) just like we do. I always love looking through those to see how the wording and presentation changes with the audience. "Happy 10th" is bright orange splattered with skateboards and basketballs and pencils and the Cheetos cat wearing those sunglasses that Slater wears in Saved By the Bell. Happy 80th is a deep-green-colored card tastefully (well, that was the idea) adorned with silver linings and carnations and candles and a glass of champagne, half full. The reason I'm tell you all this is because I noticed that they didn't have one for 80. They don't even have 70. Anyone want to take a guess at where they stopped?
60. That's right, 60.
Maybe its cultural--there are plenty of older folks here; maybe the Russians just think its rude to remind people over sixty of their age. But I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with the puzzlingly low average life expectancy in Russia, currently 59 for men and 63 for women. I was shocked when I heard this. Apparently it was't much higher in Soviet times either. In case Vladimir Putin (President Bush's reported nickname for him, "Pooty Poot", caused a furor here) is reading, I'm not writing this to humiliate Russia (a ubiquitous accusation against foreigners these days). I've been interested in this question ever since I saw my Economics professor at Williams give a presentation on the puzzling decline in life-expectancy which took place during the 1990s (she confessed that she hadn't solved it yet).
How do you explain these two little numbers? What do they say about Russian culture (in the West they say that the individual doesn't matter in Russia), the bureaucracy, the transition from the USSR (the health system famously fared poorly), and the inner health of Russia as it makes it makes it boisterous return to the world stage?
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3 comments:
I blame smetana, tvorog, vodka, and reckless driving. I mean, seriously. I saw a car smash into another on Naulichnaya the day after I moved in. Also, people that are sixty have lived through the blockade. Malnutrition takes it toll, what?
Smetana is Czech.
So according to the world bank "Poor diet and alcohol consumption have long blighted Russians' live". If current ill health and disability continue, the life expectancy of Russian males will fall to 53 years, the WB experts concluded.
Wow - I'd be dead by now.
Your aging aunt Penny
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