Psychological portraits of cities

A Story by Anatoly Nekrasov

It turns out that every city can be viewed from a psychological point of view just like a man... or a woman!

Who Is Happy, He Is Right!

By Anatoly Nekrasov

Psychological portraits of cities

(excerpt)

It is a pleasure to leave in a city you love! Everything brings joy there: streets, buildings, people… Even some negative moments are not so visible and cause no strain. Does everyone love their cities? Not everyone and not always. Then it is much harder to live and work, everything seems annoying. Like in an unloved home where one does not want to come back. Why live this way? Why deprive oneself from a significant part of happiness? What to do if you cannot leave and have to live there?

Even in this case there is a solution �" to fall in love with your city! It is possible and real for everyone. I have had this experience. Once I did not like Moscow, but then I moved there and learned how to love it, because I understood that one cannot leave in a city without love, and more so in Moscow. Precisely learned, I did much for it. And the city replied to my love with many gifts.

How to learn to love your city? Simply! One needs to learn it in all possible directions. Its history, culture, visit all important and beautiful places and walk much. There are also excursions on foot. But it is very important to walk alone to feel the city as deep as you can. I remember being on a business trip in Alma-Ata about 40 years ago. I bought a map and walked the city far and wide. It took a month! I loved this city so much that even after all these years it is still native to me.

In this chapter, I offer to take a one more step over the horizon �" yet again in this book! �" and love your city, village, your small fatherhood even more. Love not only the locality, but a living organism that it is! A love for a living creature is different and special! Only this kind of love lets build an even deeper interaction and fill oneself with even more love.

I often travel Russia and have visited more than a hundred cities, and everywhere I study them much deeper than an ordinary guest does. I share my thoughts so that citizens and officials (who are also citizens), using my experience and knowledge, treated their living space with more wisdom, deeper understanding, respect and love. Thus, mental and energy atmosphere in these cities will change for the good.

What is a “mental-energy atmosphere”? It has a scientific definition “egregor”. (I have a book called “Egregors”.) Almost every collective has its own energy information space, which combines itself out of energies, states, wishes, ideas, conduct and deeds of all of its members. The same we can see in a city and in any locality. States too have their egregors… Thus, the theory of creation and development of egregors relates to the space where we live.

I have knowledge that I can share to develop the social programs of the cities, to create in them a more harmonious, modern, comfortable and happy living space. Here I present only short sketches that convey my different facets of my studies. Thus, using a mental energy portrait of a city, it is possible to achieve a greater result in raising the quality of life with less effort.

Cities and villages, like people, have their faces. Some have bright, the others �" unnoticeable, inexpressive, unclear, and pale. Like people, cities have their characters, distinctive conduct and their own lives, and sometimes very alike, again, as with people, “like everyone”. There is nothing surprising about the analogy between cities’ and people’s essence �" people create cities, people live there and create a corresponding egregor out of the combined energies of past and present inhabitants. This is why it is possible to view localities as living creatures vested with human qualities, and thus it is possible to create a psychological, or, more precisely, a mental energy portrait of a city, town or village.

It is not only possible but also necessary! Why? There are several reasons. First, with understanding of the character, state, and destination of your city-living being you can determine whether it corresponds to your state, promotes your growth and development, whether or not it slows you down, how to build relations with it, what to do there and whether to live there at all. Second, if you understand deeply the state of this living being, you can achieve the highest results in your realization and in life as a whole. Third, having determined the character and destination of the locality, one can consciously eliminate the useless qualities and develop the qualities that it needs, and thus raise its effectiveness and that of the people living there. Fourth, knowing the development strategy of this living being one can correctly determine their own life strategy in this place and thus gain additional resources.

To put it simply, if you understand what kind of “man” it is, you can strike up a friendship and improve your life significantly. As we see, such an aware approach to living in one’s city or village opens new possibilities for realization and better life both for oneself and the locality as a whole.

What comprises and forms the image of a living organism �" the city?

The quality of earth’s energies. It is an important basic index. In ancient times, the localities were created with reference to the energy of a space, and it was mostly natural. People felt nature and lived in “good” and not “bad” places. Later, especially in the Soviet times, many cities were created out of mind, out of state concerns and often disregarding the energetic component of a place. As an example, some nuclear power plants, in particular the Chernobyl NPP, were built on energy sinks, cracks, and breaks. Places for cities were chosen near ore, coal, power plants and not out of concerns of comfortable living. This is why many populated localities are artificial on Earth.

Special natural conditions. The presence of a river, lake, mountain, big parks adds to the positive qualities of a city. For example, the merge of three rivers in Nizhniy Novgorod �" Oka, Kama and Volga �" creates the unrepeatable character of the city. Yenisei defines the qualities of Krasnoyarsk and its citizens. Ob has enlivened the unremarkable Novosibirsk and helped it become so important. The seven hills of Moscow put much in its character. The swamps and water around St-Petersburg influenced the city’s life deeply…

The idea of the city, including the metaphysical and state strategy. It is also an important index and sometimes determinant. Very often ideas put into cities were wrong, made out of need, through violence over man and nature, and this violence returned into the lives of the cities, in the next generations. For example, Magnitogorsk was built around a mountain, which was to be processed and melted into metal. Now there is no mountain and a pit instead of it. The idea has exhausted itself… The life of the city is like that of a worker who has worked his entire life and does not know what to do in retirement.

An idea to create St-Petersburg on a swamp and on the bones proved very costly for the city and its people �" floods, consumption, and the blockade. The result was the uneasy fate of the city and its citizens. The idea of Yekaterinburg was also based on violence, and this violence still halloos to the city. Wrong ideas are in the basis of many inhabited localities and their citizens carry their ancestors’ mistakes on their shoulders. Some are in these places precisely because they were those ancestors in past lives! And now they ripe their fruits…

Historic events. Important events, especially connected with the mass death of people, record in the energy information space of a city and reveal themselves in its consecutive life. Volgograd still carries in it the harsh days of the Battle of Stalingrad. Yaroslavl has lost its true name in the times of Ivan the Terrible and still lives in historic lie. The shooting of the tsar family still affects the fate of Yekaterinburg. A lot of important, even if less noticeable, events are there in the lives of cities and people, and they too must be considered when creating a psychological portrait of every city. This is why it is important to know well the history of the place where you live.

State, worldview and the quality of life of people. On the one hand, people find themselves in a certain locality thanks to the aforementioned factors; on the other hand, their state and their lives significantly influence the portrait of the city. This factor is the most dynamic, the easiest to change, and that is why it needs special attention. Even one person can change and develop so much that it will change the image and energy of the city. This is why in India where the role of energies in life gets deeper understanding, there is a tradition to invite a saint, a guru, a yogin who harmonizes the space by his presence. A couple, loving and aware man and a woman, a happy family influences the space even more powerfully. And several such families can change much in their city and significantly change its portrait, especially if they act in accord.

These are the key factors that create the mental energy portrait of a city and influence its citizens’ character and lives. Let us go deeper in the matter. And it is truly deep! If a city is a living being, like human, it must have a sex! And it is truly so. Natural principles also act here �" life is always defined by the interaction of masculine and feminine energies.

Out of these principles, we can say that inside a city, masculine and feminine energies also live and act that make its inner life, just like in a human being. Moreover, energy practitioners know that places of power, energetically strong points on the planet also have strongly marked masculine and feminine energies. Although in an inhabited locality, the state of citizens, their masculine and feminine qualities mostly define the state of the city. The combined manifestation of these qualities creates the city’s sex.

This factor �" domination of masculine or feminine energies �" should be considered when interacting with the city. In any relation, it is important to know whether a man or a woman is before you. Out of this, you build your conduct. The same is with the city. This approach may seem unreal and fantastic, but it is in fact very real and has a practical application. Let me give an example.

A team who had won mayor’s election in a big industrial city approached me. The mayor and his deputies were young, in their thirties. They came with a modern, interesting and effective development program that truly opened perspective. However, they met misunderstanding and difficulties “out of the blue” and could not understand why their truly good intentions were not accepted. We created a psychological portrait of the city, and everything became clear.

The city is a man in his sixties who has worked much and saw much in his life, all-sufficient and deserved. This is why it did not accept the young folks’ “reciprocating swoop” with their ultra-modern methods. Having understood this they treated the city’s achievements with more respect, reviewed the development program, made it milder, met people from different walks of life including pensioners, and… here they go! The man-city accepted them, the population supported their actions, and the obstacles vanished.

There are plenty of examples when citizens, having understood who is before them, built relations with their cities differently and thanks to it managed to solve their problems �" housing, business, their destination, moving to another city…this knowledge opens big new opportunities.

When we see a city as a human being, we can see even more resources. For examples, cities, like people, can be friends. It is not an accident that there is a good tradition to setup a friendship between cities by calling them sister cities. What if the cities are male? In this case, it is possible to call them brother cities. And lovers �" in they are of the opposite sex.

Here, with a wise approach to choosing partners, we can promote even more the development of cities and, therefore, people. This can create powerful energy interaction between cities and countries. Looks like it is truly so, and studies of the history of the cities may provide evidence. It is a theme for deeper studies.

We shall now look at mental energy portraits of several cities in which one can see new sides of their city, discover new approaches to actual tasks and use new opportunities for the development of cities and raise of the quality of life. It is necessary to take into consideration that city portraits are usually dynamic �" the change can be rapid, especially in the recent time. Even the change of a mayor, that is one man, can completely change the city’s image. The aware citizens can also make a big change in it. Family Councils are one of the most effective instruments at this scale.

Moscow

Moscow �" how much is in this word! Truly, this city is in the heart and in the mind of every Russian. An ambiguous city. Moscow is really the capital of a great country �" this leaves no doubt. By taking Moscow as a living being, we can see interesting things invisible from the first sight.

Natural energies of the place where the city emerged are neutral, with a slight prevailing of male. The city was founded by men, and first it was a man, a boyar becoming ever richer. (We already mentioned that the name of the city and its sex sometimes do not correlate.) Although it was only until Peter I. Peter I shaved beards not only from the faces of boyars, but also from the city. It was a great humiliation of men, and then the penalty of guardsmen followed…

As a result of Peter’s rule, Moscow became a city-woman! She stayed woman until Perestroika. We got used to it in this role. Poems and songs were written about Moscow, a woman. Everyone in Russia perceived Moscow in their thoughts and words as a woman. “Moscow the beautiful”, “gold-headed”, “white stone”… And by the end of the XX century, before Perestroika, Moscow has weakened profoundly, it was a decrepit woman around 70 years old. This was one of the reasons the Soyuz republics gave up this “aged” woman �" it was not an authority anymore.

Perestroika made serious change not only in the economy and social sphere, but also in the consciousness of people, in the mental energy space of the country and, in particular, Moscow. Young and energetic rulers came to all levels of government; the people with Western mentality, not always scaled and adequate, local “bosses” started to “cut” the space according to their rules.

As a result, Moscow changed its sex again and shortly became younger �" it took an image of a 40-year-old oligarch, impudent, caddish, energetic, ready for everything for money, even to the prejudice of the country and Moscow itself. This image caused negative reaction of the whole Russia. Moscow lost feminine traits and generally lost culture and harmony. What harmony and culture could one expect from “crimson jackets” and a “mayor in a cap”? Infill development, Moscow City, Zeretely sculptures and much more spoiled her face. Inner disharmony and aggression of the man-city, its arrogance and bad treatment of the regions drew to it many problems including terrorism. There is an ancient wisdom: do not hard others and there will be not harm upon you.

This state lasted for 20 years, and only with the departure of Luzhkov and some other circumstances, Moscow started to return to its female image. Now it is a 40-year-old woman, although not harmonious and cultured yet. A lot of women from the regions and former USSR republics make its image unusual, resembling of a centaur �" a Ukrainian-Moldovan torso with the rear part of a horse.

The requirements to the woman-capital are high, but there are little to no examples in Russia and in Moscow itself. There is no first lady in the country, no according first lady in the city. There are no proper images on TV and in the movies. The women of Moscow themselves can bring harmony and culture to the city, as they unfold their femininity, with the help of men.

It is a long process of social development, but it goes on. We can help it with a wiser home policy and a literal government. The resources are enormous here. For example, treating the city as a living being, we should not increase its size, but raise the quality. For a woman-Moscow it would be useful not to grow in size, but to take transport and air flows out of the city, create a special hub.

To the south, there are three airports �" Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Bykovo �" they can be included in that hub. Railways and stations can be also moved there. Leave Sheremetyevo for internal airlines. Remove some of the plants �" it is not a woman’s business… Thus, huge territories will be freed in Moscow, transport flows will go, station dirt and incivility. Connect Moscow to this hub with a high-speed magnetic levitation train. For example, in Shanghai, such a train goes at 400 km/h, and it can deliver passengers in 15 minutes! Let the city remain in the borders of the Ring Road, and let us raise its quality so that it was truly the capital and a beautiful woman!

According to the prevailing feminine energies, we should bring into close relation a strong male city. It is well-known that if a woman sees an interesting man, she can do much to develop herself.

Sister cities were fashionable in Soviet times. We can increase the effect of good deed by choosing cities with corresponding energies, especially male and female. In this case, the two cities will develop much more effectively and will become more harmonious. Meetings of mayors, cultural exchange, joint projects, the interaction of non-governmental organizations �" there are many forms of collaboration, and the closer it be, the more the quality of life in these cities will rise. For a woman-Moscow, to my mind, with her qualities and status, the best pair is Rome! The friendship between these cities will be useful for everyone.