As Russia’s war against Ukraine grinds into its second ghastly year, I have gotten an upfront view on its impact on the lives of numerous ordinary people from both countries.
My fascination with Russia dates to my teen years when I became an ardent fan of the great Russian novelists including Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev and Mikhail Bulgakov. Though I began traveling in Eastern Europe in the 1980s, it seemed an impossible dream I would ever get into Russia or other parts of the Soviet Union. Following the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991, that dream quickly became a reality in 1992 when my job at Chicago’s City Hall netted me an invitation from Moscow city government to visit as part of an exchange program for municipal government finance officials.
My trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg was a potent eye-opener plainly showing what 68-plus years of communist rule had wrought in these imposing but bedraggled cities. A year into Russia’s abrupt shift to capitalism, private enterprise was still scant and local governments were desperately trying to piece together coherent, market-based tax and regulatory policies. Nevertheless, I was inspired to try to work with ordinary Russians in any way I could to help them build a free and fair society.
