Like a Good Neighbor

Dealing (and talking) with neighbors is unavoidable. Blame it on our village heritage or seven decades of Soviet collectivism, but it is simply a reality of Russian life, whether one has neighbors in communal apartments (cоседи по к≈ухне – kitchen neighbors), cос≈еди по д≈аче (dacha neighbors) or cос≈еди по к≈упе (train compartment neighbors). 

A classy way to break the ice and introduce oneself is to say, “Сос≈едями б≈удем!” (“Let’s be neighbors!”) Those who lived in neighborhoods (жив≈ут по сос≈едству) – be it in a dacha area or in an old-style residential house – used to know one other better than relatives. And they would feel free to knock on the door (or the dacha fence) to “borrow salt.” In fact, a story beginning with, “Приход≈ила сос≈едка с≈оли зан≈ять…” (“The neighbor lady came by to borrow salt”) is all but cliché. 

Oftentimes, extramarital affairs are concocted within one подъ≈езд (entryway). Hence the funny maxim – мечт≈а иди≈ота об≈ычно в≈ыглядит как жен≈а сос≈еда  (“An idiot’s dream often looks like his neighbor’s wife”).  In the same vein, when someone says – “Это неуд≈обно” – “I am not comfortable / am embarrassed,” there is the funny retort: “Неуд≈обно – это когд≈а сос≈едские д≈ети на теб≈я пох≈ожи” (“Embarassing is when your neighbor’s children look like you”).

There was a famous song in the 1960s, “В н≈ашем д≈оме посел≈ился замеч≈ательный сос≈ед” (“an excellent neighbor settled in our house”). Yet, far too often neighbor-to-neighbor relations are better described as “love-hate.” True, the hero of Anton Chekhov’s short story, “Письм≈о к учёному соседу” (“Letter to an Educated Neighbor”) addressed his vis-a-vis with the tender and affective Дорог≈ой Соседушка (My dear little neighbor). However, as we know from Nikolai Gogol’s story, “Как поссорился Ив≈ан Ив≈анович с Ив≈аном Ник≈ифоровичем” (How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich), the friend living next door can quickly turn into an archenemy. 

There is also the phrase, У сос≈еда кор≈ова сд≈охла (the neighbor’s cow died), which kind of sums up the Soviet-era mentality when everyone envied the luckier, more successful guy. So “the neighbor’s cow died” is like the German schadenfreude (proving this is not something limited to just us Russians) – taking pleasure in the misfortunes of our neighbors. Or, as I wrote here a few months ago, we like to подлож≈ить сос≈еду свинь≈ю (lay a pig for one’s neighbor).

No matter what, жить в сос≈едах – быть в бес≈едах (to live with one’s neighbor means spending time in conversations). I learned this the hard way with our dacha neighbor. So, if I respond to her greetings with more than a perfunctory nod, I am in for at least a half-hour conversation with this woman who likes “to look under the hood of her neighborhood.” She will pepper me with questions about what we are planting this season, how much money I make, where my wife Nadia is, and then regale me with endless stories about her garden, her grandchildren and the mushrooms she can’t find, “so please tell me how you manage to find’em.”  

In English, you have “Good fences make good neighbors.” Here we say, similarly, c сос≈едом друж≈ись, а тын (заб≈ор) гор≈оди. A more paranoid type might use another idiom: C сос≈едом друж≈ись, а за сабл≈ю держ≈ись (You can be friends with your neighbor, but keep your saber ready). In politics, the latter idiom seems more applicable to geographic neighbors (notwithstanding fence-building efforts in Israel and the southwestern U.S.). Suffice it to name France/Belgium, India/Pakistan, Iran/Iraq, and Sweden/Norway. Familiarity, as we know, breeds contempt – чем бл≈иже зн≈аешь, тем м≈еньше почит≈аешь. 

So it is along Russia’s borders. We have long considered Ukraine to be Малор≈оссия (“Small Russia”). And now that Ukraine is independent, it misses no opportunity to nip at Russia. Estonians, meanwhile, often complain of their Latvian neighbors: латыш≈ам во всём везёт, у них д≈аже сос≈еди эст≈онцы (The Latvians are lucky in everything; they even have Estonians as neighbors). 

According to this logic, Russians should feel lucky to butt up against Estonia. But, of late, many Russians have felt instead that our Estonian neighbors вед≈ут себ≈я не по-сос≈едски – are not behaving like a good neighbor. And while Estonia’s grievances regarding Stalin’s regime are understandable, authoritarian actions toward Russian minorities are not likely to lead the Kremlin to write letters to Tallinn beginning with the tender greeting, “дорог≈ой сос≈едушка.”