Can't Be Bothered
St. Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow 1989
I love this photo. It doesn’t show St. Basil’s but it shows the power of government. The pink wall looming as a backdrop is the wall of the Kremlin.
Here we have a thin, anxious looking woman who seems to be requesting permission from the bored guard to enter the doorway behind him. Look at the way she clasps her hands. Maybe she has lost her purse, or got separated from her family, or her bus is on the other side of the square and is about to leave. She looks like someone from the suburbs if not the village and naturally she would be worried. Even her perky little kerchief seems to emphasize her anxiety.
The man seems to be entirely uninterested in helping her. He doesn’t do her the courtesy of looking at her. He slouches in his chair, where he sits all day…that’s his job…and stairs at his shoes. Maybe he has refused her request. And she has re-phrased it and put it before him again. Again he has refused and on and on. He has power. He could let her enter, but it might require an effort on his part, so he doesn’t bother. He does not see her as a person, but an annoyance.
This is big government. It is large and powerful and the citizen is small and helpless. We don’t like it when we are made to feel small and helpless. We want to control our own destiny, don’t we?
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