How can an American love both Russia and Ukraine?

Anybody who knows me is well aware of how much I love Ukraine. Ukraine will always be my second home. She will forever have my heart and my loyalty. So I guess, given that love and the current political situation in Eastern Europe, I shouldn't be too surprised when people ask me how I could've gone to Russia this summer--isn't that somehow betraying my loyalty to Ukraine? And yet, that question does surprise me. Because I see in it the implication of the entire Russian nation in causing the unrest in Ukraine--the entire population as being somehow antagonistic to Ukraine. And, having now lived in Russia, that is a concept completely foreign and unfathomable to me. Because Russians are wonderful people! I know them. I have seen their hearts. My coworkers in Moscow are not responsible for my Crimean friends now claiming citizenship in the Russian Federation. My Russian friends didn't kindle unrest in cities in eastern Ukraine. The Russia I know is kind. It is peaceful. It is welcoming. And so is the Ukraine I know. There is political tension, yes. There is propoganda and mis-information on all sides. But underneath all that, we are all just people.

I don't even know how much questioning I underwent by well-meaning friends before my journey to Russia this summer: "Are you really going to Russia right now? Wow. You're brave." But in Russia, I hardly felt that my status as an American made a difference to these warm people. Sure, there was the occasional heated political conversation. And I frequently disagreed with people about politics or foreign policy or Ukraine's relationship with the US and Russia. But we left it at politics--we bonded on a deeper level than our political ideology, so nationality did not hinder friendship.

In Russia people asked me, "You came right now? With everything that they're saying to you about us there?" And they were touched by that. One man even begged me, "When you go home, tell everyone that Russians aren't as bad as the news is saying."

And so I am. And for the rest of my life I will attest to the goodness of the Russian people. And of the Ukrainian people.

Because people who haven't lived over there don't always grasp that--not everybody understands who Russians and Ukrainians are. And I think that's partially because we take in only what the media tells us and we too often equate a country with its political leaders. We think a nation is its system of government; every citizen is the same as the president. We vilanize a population because we despise the actions of a leader.

So I think that Americans, Russians, and Ukrainians could benefit from a little reflection on what exactly a country is.

Is it a president?

A parliament?

A political party?

Well, yes. And no. Those are parts of it. It has been said that a country deserves its leaders (and I sometimes agree with that). And politics definitely play a large role in the existence of a country.

But is that all? If a country is only its leaders and politics, then it is a fluid, shifting entity, scarce to be defined or recognized, subject to the whims of one leader after the other. Culture would be nonexistent, unless we were to count a personality cult surrounding whoever the leader happened to be at the time.

And I know of no country like that. No nation could survive as a mere political institution with no culture. In a nation there is music. There is dancing. There is poetry and laughter. There are memories of war. There are heroes and history. There are scientists and engineers. There are mothers, fathers, children. There is life. There is discussion of politics, literature, science. And somewhere, often in the background, there are leaders, acting as the face for millions of people to the other nations of the world. But these leaders are not--and should never be--the definition of a nation.

To me, Russia is not Putin. It is not the annexation of Crimea. It is not Lenin or Stalin. It is not the Gulag or oppression. It is not the tsars. And I likewise hope that my Russian friends understand that America is not Obama or the Trail of Tears or wars in the Middle East or inner city gang violence. It's not the presidency. Do those things all play in to what our nations are and have become? Of course. But that is not who an American is or who a Russian is. Our cultures are deeper, richer, and more meaningful.

Russia is people.

It's my friends. Coworkers. Fellow church members. Strangers on the street. Fellow students at my university.

Because no matter what nation we're from, we are all still people. Our similarities are greater than our differences. Especially our political differences.

Thus there is no discrepancy in loving Ukraine and Russia. And America. I have political opinions that are opposed to things being done in each of those nations right now. But my love and loyalty to these nations runs much deeper than mere politics.

So when people raise this issue with me and wonder how I could have gone to Russia in this time of political unrest, I just tell them, "I love the Russian people."

And I leave it at that.