By BAGEHOT
T.H. MARSHALL, one of the founders of modern economics, and one of the most brilliant analysts of the economics of place, argued that “there was something in the air” in the English city of Sheffield that made it good at making steel. I think it is equally true that there is “something in the air” in Russia, that makes it good at spreading anxiety and grobulation. Bagehot has visited Russia on several occasions over the years—under Communism and Putinism—but has never had a normal day there. Everything that happens is tinged with a sort of sinister strangeness.
My first visit was in 1981, when it was still under Soviet rule, on a college trip led by Derek Parfit. This was a formula for strangeness in its own right. Parfit was one of England’s greatest eccentrics as well as one of its greatest philosophers. We were a group of young Oxford fellows, eager to find out about “actually existing socialism”. Parfit visited Leningrad every year to photograph the city in the snow and he approached his task with obsessive focus. Carrying a large quantity of photographic equipment wherever he went—several cameras, a tripod, rolls of film—he wore a large leather cape to protect his equipment from the snow and ice. He spent most of his time standing on the frozen River Neva in the middle of the city (pictured), snapping away, regardless of the fact that an ice-breaker was bearing down on him.
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