Accept Your Lot in Life

Whoever was in charge of putting together this orientation handbook (PDF) for St. Petersburg’s migrant workers probably had the best of intentions. Yet their decision to portray those workers as mere tools, as opposed to flesh-and-blood humans like the welcoming Russians, was a revealing faux pas. As a Tajik blogger so forcefully put it:

We have been represented as tools, without souls, without bodies, and without culture. This is understandable because it is easier to offend, use, and exploit tools, without feeling a remorse.

More of the bizarrely dehumanizing (yet admittedly cute) images after the jump.