ST. PETERSBURG,
Russia — The hospital's diagnoses, many years old, are Fyodor
Sozontov's backup plan. They can, he hopes, prove that something is
wrong with him.
He reads them out slowly, the medical conditions too difficult to
pronounce easily: osteochondrosis, arachnoiditis and cerebral
angiodystonia. Still, the draft board was skeptical. During his first
visit, obligatory for all boys in secondary school, the officers
declared him fit for military service.
"But that was kind of a surface examination," he said. "They
practically did not look into anything."
Fyodor, 17, soft-spoken and athletic, is embarking on a rite of passage
for young men in today's Russia: dodging the draft.
The experience shapes almost everything about his present life. He is
entering manhood with a desire to go to college, despite having no
concrete academic goal, or, failing that, to convince the authorities —
and at times, it seems, himself — that he is sick.
"It would be better," he said, "if the army were made up of people who
wanted to serve."
In theory, all Russian men 18 to 27 are required to serve two years in
the military. In practice, roughly 90
percent avoid it. Most
do so by
taking advantage of different kinds of deferments, including one for
going to college, or by failing the physical fitness exam.
Either supposedly can be obtained for a bribe, something Fyodor is
neither inclined nor, evidently, able to pay.
"They say you serve your motherland. You defend it," he said. "Well, it
is a difficult question. You have to live here awhile to understand it."
Fyodor is only slightly older than the new Russia that emerged from the
Soviet Union. He was born in 1987 in what was then Czechoslovakia,
where his parents worked briefly, his father an engineer at a Soviet
military base there. Two years later, he returned with them to
Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then named, as the Soviet domination
of Eastern Europe began to collapse along with the Soviet system.
He has grown up during a time when his country embraced, however
awkwardly, freedom, democracy and capitalism. His parents harbor little
nostalgia for Soviet times. Certainly he doesn't. But what has unfolded
in Russia under President Vladimir Putin fills him with little hope or
inspiration. In fact, it dismays him.
"We do not think it is much better than the Soviet Union," he said.
"What we have now is its legacy."
Corruption and bribery can infect schools, the medical system, the
police. He is not overtly political, but Fyodor complains that the
system has done little to end poverty, hunger and social inequities.
Worse, he said, society is driven now by a cold individualism.
"The government does
not care," he said. "Maybe Putin is trying to do
something, but for most people, the most important thing is to get
something for themselves, to get something into their pockets. They
only care about themselves."
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Russia,
for him, came into stark contrast last year when he made his
first trip abroad. A teacher at his school organized a two-week bus
trip to the Czech Republic. He loved it.
"It is cleaner there," he said. "People in the Czech Republic are more
responsive. And they have more understanding why they go to work, why
they earn money.
"In Russia, basically speaking, we have a bardak," he added, using the
slang for brothel and meaning a mess.
Fyodor lives in Kupchino, a neighborhood of bleak Soviet-era high-rises
far from St. Petersburg's beautiful historic center.
His apartment building's courtyard is an intimidating place, a hangout
for drunks and thugs and "people with very unhappy faces."
He is slightly built but fit. That is a result of his passion for
wushu, the Chinese martial art that emphasizes self-defense, precise
physical movement and intense mental discipline. He trains four times a
week.
He laments the quality of education in Russian schools, but by his own
admission, he is an average student. In fact, it is not clear he would
even be considering college were it not for it being a way to avoid the
draft. He calls it the greatest stimulant to higher education.
Fyodor's reasons for not wanting to be drafted are typical. He despises
authority, for example, especially that of the military. "I simply
cannot stand commands," he said. "If I was ordered to clean a toilet,
my answer would be, 'Go do it yourself.' "
Other reasons include the grinding war in Chechnya, a brutal system of
hazing among draftees and notorious cases of conscript abuse by
commanders.
Fyodor's best hope for avoiding the draft remains college, but as he
completes his final exams of high school this month, he has not earned
the gold or even silver medals for scholastic achievement that would
smooth his way to admission to college.
On his first of five exams he received the highest grade, a 5, but on
the second, only a 4. "Not bad," he said, "but not excellent." He does
not yet have the results for the third, and he must finish two more
before graduation on June 21. The university entrance exams come later
this summer.
The next few months are crucial in determining his future, which is why
his family has collected the old hospital diagnoses.
He is vague, when pressed, about what precisely ails him. He fell as an
infant, he says. When he was 10, he adds, he hit his head on the corner
of the bed. He also offered a list of other ailments. "I cannot stay in
classes too long," he said. "My nose bleeds. I have headaches." He
mentioned high blood pressure and "a bad adaptation to society."
His plans for the future are equally vague. After college, he said he
would like to become a master of wushu, teaching it to others. Wushu,
he said, has taught him a basic philosophy.
"The best warrior," he said, "knows that the best thing is to avoid a
fight." |