Squirrels, metaphorically speaking

Lily and I are trying to declutter. We'd been acquiring stuff in the way typical of many new-weds, for whom money isn't free-flowing and life plans change with the seasons. 'We'll take it' and 'we'll keep it, just in case' saw us become overwhelmed by possessions... two washing machines, three Christmas trees (yes, seriously), a printer for which we have no cables or adapter. Insane! Now... ebay if it's worth something, recycling if it's beyond repair in the damp cellar and charity for things that we can't be arsed to deal with any other way. All this got me thinking about stuff and the British and Russian attitudes.

A Siberian squirrel.

For Britain, I think there's the starting point of need/ practicality as the motivator - you need an sofa to sit on, a cooker to prepare food etc. Then there's the sociological - the ideas of your possessions being a sign or your status, keeping up with the Joneses. These link to the psychological - we associate objects with people and they form a part of our identity, which is why it's so hard to part with belongings after someone's died or we cling on to items from our childhood.

The combination of falling prices in relation to income and increasing disposable incomes means that many items are more affordable and even if they're not within your price range, there's always credit. We're now in a position to fulfill our hunter-gatherer needs to the extreme and we're certainly doing that as a society: we confuse want and need and our houses are so overflowing that we pay for storage. We are drowning in stuff that we have replaced, that we never use, that we wouldn't remember it if someone threw it out without our permission. I think that this has much to do with the inability to separate us and our belongings, they have come to define us and throwing something away is disposing of a part of ourselves.

In Russia, the situation's very different. Prices often remain high in relation to spending power and there's none of the discount culture and price wars in Russian stores that you get in the UK. Earnings outside major cities or places associated with natural resources tend to be low . The credit culture has only just begun and the interest is prohibitively extortionate. The underlying reasons for spending are the same but the financial practicality of the 'want versus need' question falls heavily on the side of need: even in the Russian middle classes, there is not much question of replacing the TV for a newer model simply because it's 2 inches wider and ½ inch thinner; when it blows up is the time for a replacement.

Many Russians do, however, have a habit of hoarding. Not for fear of somehow losing a part of themselves but for the fear of it not being available. Old, Soviet-era habits die hard: in a time when many everyday objects could be hard or impossible to acquire, people kept things, often resourcefully improvising with whatever they had. People often grew their own food, frequently pickling it or making jam to last the winter - you needed a place to store it. As a result, garages sometimes double up as a storage place or get rented solely for that purpose, many flats have a closet filled with what other people what non-euphemistically describe as crap and a Russian kitchen isn't really a 'Russian kitchen' if there aren't pickling jars, full or empty, lurking in cupboards or hiding behind the TV on top of the fridge.

In conclusion, we have personally been guilty of both squirreling away anything and everything and of being reluctant to part with unnecessary items, a mix of the Russian and British attitudes, I guess. In Russia now, the market economy ensures the supply of goods, so one can offload things secure in the knowledge you'll get it again should you ever really need it. Here in the UK, our possession have become a burden and it's liberating to rid yourself of what you don't need anymore and free up space physically and psychologically.

Now, there's one last thing I should go and declutter... time to liberate some of the home-made raspberry jam, onto bread for supper.