Olya And Larisa

Chapter Summary

While Olya and Larisa recognize there are real differences between them, they have agreed, whether explicitly or tacitly, to disregard them. They claim to understand the other in all her difference. This chapter quotes at length Jaretts interview with Olya and Larisa in order to show the progression of ideas and how the negotiation of transgression and expectation gradually comes about in the midst of the interview. The understanding established through the obshchenie of friendship provides the moral basis for the two expectations Olya and Larisa have of each other and their other friends and family members, that is, the prediction of their behavior and a low expectation of transgression. What at first glance may appear to be, as Larisa puts it, a remnant of a so-called Soviet mentality, is perhaps better understood as a response to the particular post-Soviet institutional context predominant at the time.

Keywords: Jaretts interview; Larisa; obshchenie of friendship; Olya; Soviet mentality