Daydreaming is part of the Russian character. We seem to be confident that things can only get better once we replace the ugly name of a railroad station with a new one that sounds quite euphonious. For example, we might rename the railroad station called Bolshaya Gryaz (which stands for Big Dirt in English) that really exists on the railroad linking Moscow and Saint Petersburg, call it Novoe Schastiye or New Happiness and think that life has become better indeed.
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Even those working for secret police tend to indulge themselves in wishful thinking like no foreign secret policemen would do under the circumstances. The following quotation belongs to Alexander Benkendorf, head of the secret police under the Russian Emperor Nicholas I: “Russia’s past is amazing, its present is more than splendid. As for the future of Russia, it is far beyond the most daring flight of imagination.”
The bird-like troika symbolizing Russia’s rapid movement in Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls is a typical symbol of the Russian self-deception and self-adoration. In actuality, the other nations do not rush “to make way for Russia.” For further references, take a closer look at the troubled history of Russia’s admission to the World Trade Organization, or entry visa formalities for Russian citizens traveling EU countries.
A slumbering mind gives birth to monsters
The dreamers who came to power in 1917 raised the ideals of a “slumbering mind” to a new Bolshevistic height. They were confident that they could turn on “Lenin’s light bulb” and shed light across the Russian darkness, they believed the world revolution was around the corner, and the “USSR was strong enough to catch up with the U.S.” It is worthy of notice the great expectations related to the collectivization of the village or the exploration of the Russian Far North or the construction of Baikal-Amur Railroad. There were other misbegotten plans including the turning of the Siberian rivers or “corn saga” initiated by Nikita Khrushchev in the late 1950s, which led to a twofold increase in the retail price of meat, not to mention the exploration of the “Virgin Lands”, the area currently owned by Kazakhstan.
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