Categories: random
Tags: TV, Russia, documentary
Date: 30 November 2005 12:48:20
This is a 7-yearly documentary following the same group of kids at 7 year intervals as they grow up - we've had the series in Britain for some time (the most recent, if I recall correctly, was "49 Up"), and a few years back they started the same thing following a group of kids born in the Soviet Union. When the series started it was still (just) the Soviet Union, but 14 Up (shown 7 years ago, obviously), and last night's 21 Up detail life in the new states following the breakup of the Union. Of course, although it is first and foremost a series of individual stories, it is also a much wider chronicle of the times, and I found the lack of hope and general dinginess really quite depressing. I chatted about it a bit with my Russian teacher this morning, he'd not seen it but said he wasn't surprised that they only show the depressing things - since when was TV about middle class people doing well for themselves good TV? Which is true of course, but I do think that the underlying sense of life as a struggle, everyone for themselves, and realising the harsh realities of life in the market economy was pretty representative, from the little I've seen of the former Soviet Union.
Of course some of the individual stories were heartbreaking, but I think what moved me most was the clips from earlier episodes, when they were 7 and 14 as well as now they are 21, looking at their childhood hopes and dreams and now the realities. There was a strong sense of wasted childhoods and wasted youth, although I was encouraged to see that many of them still seemed to profess such love for their homeland despite its problems. The particularly heart-wrenching one for me was the girl whose father was the village Orthodox priest, who since she was a small child was working to look after her 10 brothers and sisters and working in the house and church (lots of clips of her looking after babies and milking cows and suchlike). They showed a clip of her at 7 being asked what her greatest wish was, and she looked really sad and whispered "To play. To play."
I remembered many of the children from watching the "14 Up" programme 7 years ago, but I'm sure there was one who wasn't featured in "21 Up". Maybe it's my imagination, but I'm sure I remember a young lad, from (I think) one of the Baltic states (Lithuania I think) who at 14 was getting smashed at parties and being really reckless, parties and joyriding and stuff. I wonder what happened to him.