WHEN THE SOVIET UNION dissolved in 1991, Russians followed a familiar
pattern in their history. Needing a model for the future, they looked in two
directions: outward toward other countries, in particular the West, and in-
ward toward their own roots. The Russians were searching not so much for
an economic model, although that was important to them, as for a spiritual
model, a way to "be." This was not the first time they had faced the choice
of following their own way, adopting foreign ways, or, inevitably, of finding
some combination of the two that suited them.

Deep in the past, Russians had been pagan, worshiping old gods such as
Perun, Dazhbog, Khors, Simargl, Stribog, and Mokosh, whose idols Prince
Vladimir erected in the capital city of Kiev in the year 980. The principal
god was Perun, a god whose symbol was an ax. Dazhbog and Khors were
sun gods. Mokosh was a female, who may have been associated with the idea
of Mother Earth. People continued to believe in these and other old gods
long after Russia became Christian and pagan rituals became intertwined
with Christian ones: some ancient traditions survived into the early twentieth
century. The largely agrarian peasant population held firmly to several rituals
connected with the earth itself, which they called Mother Damp Earth. The
peasants reportedly sealed oaths by swallowing dirt and even asked the earth's
forgiveness before death. The idea of the land, the earth, as female, is still
seen in the expressions "mother-native land" and "Mother Russia." Peasants

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