The History of Apartment Vladimir and Ivan the umm... Strong Willed but Not so Bad

I am always fascinated by people's perceptions on various topics and can't help but ask their thoughts on various subjects.

We had an interesting chat with David regarding his views on Russia. Basically, he thinks it's about the same as before but with a bit more openess to allow people to travel. He describes that most of the politicians are former-KGB or communist party members and that they rule in much the same way as they did before. To him, it looks different on the surface but it's all the same. Interesting.

He described that journalists that disagree with the government either shut up or get knocked off. He apparently had an American journalist staying at Vladimir, the apartment that we're staying. He had been wounded after writing some pieces that weren't as supportive of the government as they wanted. He came back to investigate the matter and started talking to a lot of people. The government got wind of this and wanted to keep tabs on him.

David had come by after the journalist left to check out the apartment. When he arrived, his keys wouldn't work in the locks. He pushed on the door and it opened. Nothing was taken in the apartment, however, he suspects that the Russian intelligence agency had removed the locks, come in, taken their bugs out and left. Very interesting to know that this apartment had such a colorful past. We obviously will not even come close to providing such amusement for David or the current FSB.

He also mentioned that the Russians have great national pride. Even when things aren't working well, the government can count on people to be so proud of their country that they won't speak out. He said that it's easy to get people twisted off on the evils of other countries like the U.S. rather than believe that their problems might be due to their own country's challenges.

He spoke of the extreme prejudices that Russians have. We had known that they are very predudiced against other non-European ethnicities but he also mentioned that they are very prejudiced against homosexuals too. He described the Gay Pride parade that occured recently. Apparently the 70+ year old mayor didn't approve of the parade and insured that many church going people were there. These church people proceeded to 'stone' the parade participants in the name of their religion. We get a lot of protesting in our country but I haven't heard of a good stoning in a long time.

On our first trip enroute from the baby home, I talked to Vlad about Ivan the Terrible which I was sure was a rather 'safe' topic. I asked if he thought the rumor that Ivan had blinded the architect that built St. Basil's Cathedral was true. He thought it a fairy tale and proceeded to tell me that Ivan was not really Ivan the Terrible but rather Ivan the strong willed but a good guy really. I explained that I had not come up with the 'terrible ' part on my own and that even the tour guides at St. Basil's called him this. He seemed rather irritated by this. He was a good guy, he explained, who ruled Russia well. He killed far less people than your president has killed in Iraq. "Wasn't this due to the time period that these wars were undertaken", I asked. He then went on to explain that the French had killed far more people in the wars that they had fought during the same time period. He seemed a bit irritated by our discussion and this led me to re-think the topics that I would discuss in the future (safe topics might include how cool his electronic controls in his car are, the weather, his upcoming holiday and mongolian spots). Hmmm ... I had thought talking about Ivan the ... ummm ... strong willed would be safe but alas.

Our discussion caused me to research Ivan. This guy must be complex and I wanted to know more. So here's what I found out in a Tamara nutshell. It is true that Ivan the Grosny doesn't translate to Ivan the Terrible but rather to Ivan the Threatening (not quite as catchy though). And, have you seen his picture? He certainly looks like a pretty terrible person. Perhaps if he utilized a better stylist such misconceptions could have been prevented. He apparently had a very disagreeable personality which I think combined with his bad styling led people to believe that he wasn't just strong willed but rather less than pleasant to hang around with. The first part of Ivan's reign was really good. He annexed a bunch of land adding ethinicities and people to his kingdom and he opened up trade on the White Sea. Good stuff.

Ivan ran into some challenges in the later part of his reign. First, he had that pesky Livonian war thing to contend with and the burning of Moscow coupled with significant plague in his biggest cities. Then, one of his advisors defected to Lithoania and that hurt Ivan's feelings. This caused Ivan to loose his mind and he became physically disabled. He seemed to have some significant mood swings vascillating from deep prayer to orgies (he sounds like he couldn have been bi-polar and perhaps some medication could have helped but alas this was way before depacote was available). He beat his son's pregnant wife causing her to miscarry for wearing immodest clothing (their maternity-ware must've been a lot more attractive than the kind we have today). His son, upon confronting his father, was clubbed over the head with Ivan's pointy cane and died. These stories would leave me to believe that Ivan was indeed kind of terrible. He married seven times sometimes only keeping a wife for a week. He did not, however, blind his architect although I can totally see how such nasty rumors could've been started. I mean once you club your son to death and beat your pregant daughter-in-law, what would prevent you from blinding an architect (the architect for St. Basil's Cathedral actually went on to construct other buildings).

Ivan died playing chess. When his tomb was re-opened for renovations in 1960, his remains were examined and it was discovered that he had very high levels of mercury in his system. It is suspected that he might have been poisoned by his advisors after he tried to rape one of their wives and sister. Hmmm ... seems like if your closest advisors are trying to 'off you' then perhaps you really are terrible. Interestingly, mercury was also used to treat Syphilis in those days which Ivan is thought to have had. They say that he became increasingly paranoid and suffered from significant rheumatoid arthritis which is thought to be one of the signs of late stage Syphilis.

So .. while Ivan's Russian name might not literally translate, you decide for yourself - Ivan the Strong Willed or Ivan the Terrible?