Old drunk: “Why did I live this long? Why did I live to see such times?”
Smartass in baseball hat: “It’s what God decided.”
Archive for the ‘Russia’ Category
They haven’t yet invented anything better than spring
April 22, 2012Especially in a town like Moscow.
The grass is green again. Little boys wear hoods with ears.
Poster for “Katya, Vitya, Dima”
April 18, 2012
As designed by the lovely Elena Shalkina, who is an artist and filmmaker here in Moscow.
The movie is up for an award in Istanbul next month – in the international category at the TRT Documentary Awards. Alexey and I are really excited to be included in this competition. We’re planning on being in Istanbul in the first week of May for the festival.
Annnnnnd here’s a two-in-one trailer that festival organizers have made available on YouTube:
You know, I’ve been trying really hard to find the right words as to how this movie should be described – and then someone at a party one night just said the following film: “It’s an art house flick – Rural Russia-style.” And that’s a very good – and succinct – way of saying what I’ve wanted to say about it for a while. There’s a tremendous amount of beauty and sadness portrayed here, in very unexpected ways, I would argue, and I’m happy and proud that I’ve been a part of this project (although to be perfectly honest, when my husband says, “We are so doing this” – it’s impossible to say no).
Fun fact
April 16, 2012I’ve written a brilliant pop song, called “Such a cutie.” Unfortunately, I can only sing it to Lev to the tune of “Where’s your head at.”
He doesn’t seem to mind.
P.S. When I’m not cuddling him in my free time, I’m writing stuff like this. People keep telling me that it’s hard for them to reconcile my status as a young mother with the kind of columns I write. But I don’t think it ought to be. Young mothers need to keep their eyes on the ghosts. And the darkness.
Look homeward
April 3, 2012I was in the U.S. Embassy applying for a new passport for Lyovka the other day.
If you’ve been in Moscow long enough, you’re struck by how efficient and friendly the staff at the U.S. Embassy tend to be (on a sidenote: when my Russian husband and I were getting our paperwork approved at the Foreign Ministry in order to get married on Russian soil, everyone was also really efficient and friendly as well – and that’s when it strikes you, the huge difference between the Foreign Ministry and the Federal Migration Service. The former is alright. The latter is Mordor). Nobody’s angry at you for showing up. If you couldn’t print the PDF form, they just provide you with one. There are comfy chairs in the waiting room. There’s a playroom too – where I nursed Lyovka last August.
At the security post. U.S. Marines watch you with their feet propped up. You wonder how they get on in the city. You want to go home. You remember that you no longer have one. “We’re women, our choices are never easy.”
I always knew that I would leave North Carolina one day, but not before it rewrote my DNA, made the arrow in my inner compass point ever westward. North Carolina is a chronic illness. The outbreaks are always inconvenient.
And there is so much death on the news. You want it to be meaningful – it is not. You want to mythologize death – it will not be mythologized. Planes fall out of the sky. Doctors kill infants through neglect – and grandly tell the mother frozen in the hospital corridor that “but you gave birth to a very sick child, we have all of the necessary paperwork – that we just made up to cover our asses.” People spend their days killing other people and go home to their families in the evening – talk shows scream from the windows of their apartments. The old are always burying the young.
You need permits to do anything, permits to live, permits to breathe – and yet no one needs a permit to stomp a bloody trail through someone else’s life. It just happens. These things happen. “We wanted what was best – it turned out like always.” Shrug.
When he sleeps in his mustard-colored pajamas, Lyovka looks a bit like a squash. After we put him to bed, we drink wine. If my husband is off working on a movie, I’ll write. Self-righteous middle-aged American women who may or may not drive SUV’s but tend to have “accepted Christ as their personal savior” send me nasty messages on Facebook – because I became a mother without asking Sallie Mae for permission. “I would have never had children if I were still in debt!” “Enjoy your rootless existence, watching your child grow up without a home!”
Lyovka’s concept of home is currently defined by me and his father. When he made his first trip to the Embassy, he spent most of it sleeping in his sling, tied tightly to my body like a baby kangaroo. “Can I see him?” The consular staff member asked. I came closer to the glass. This was official procedure. His birth was being recorded – we were notifying the government of his existence.
“Wow. What a peaceful sleeper.”
Two countries mingled within him, borders rearranged, and he slept on.
Obligatory media post-mortems
April 1, 2012Of one particularly high-profile tragedy in Bryansk. (I do think this particular case could have happened anywhere. But the domestic violence component is particularly troubling – as I have serious doubts that the mother in question could have gotten help even if she wanted to.)
And of the case of Oksana Makar in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. As I told Jessica Reed over at The Guardian – you write something like that, and then you need a hot shower and an opportunity to burst into tears without anyone looking.
All in a week’s work.
A trusted friend told me the other day that “you do this better than the light stuff.” He’s right – but I don’t know why he is right. Or maybe I do know – but don’t wish to say it to myself, or to anyone else, for that matter.
Alexei Kozlov found guilty yesterday
March 16, 2012My article on this outrageous case in today’s edition of The Moscow News.
I was able to attend the court proceedings on Tuesday – and our correspondent, Yulia Ponomareva, was there for the verdict yesterday – and I can tell you that this case is as nightmarish as it seems. It goes beyond the personalities of Alexei Kozlov and Olga Romanova (some would argue that a wealthy realtor and his high-profile journalist wife are very dishonest and very manipulative, respectively) – it’s a warning to all of us. Once a case has reached a Moscow city criminal court, a conviction is practically inevitable, facts and arguments be damned.
If you wanted to argue that Jesus was actually a corrupt pedophile involved in the casino racket – you’d go through the Moscow criminal courts, after getting investigators, who traditionally have very strong links to judges, to initiate a criminal case for a reasonable fee. The judges themselves don’t have to be corrupt – all they have to do is maintain the status quo. No one needs to bribe them to do that.
That’s because people fear judges – and the judges want to be feared. Being feared – as opposed to respected – is a true mark of prestige around here. And yet more and more people are getting angrier and angrier about this. Even Alexei Kudrin, a strong ally of the establishment and a moderate in almost every sense, tweeted yesterday that the case against Kozlov was “unconvincing.”
The story of Alexei Kozlov breaks my heart
March 9, 2012I know I recently wrote that his wife is someone we should celebrate – and I stand by that – but his overall situation fills me with dread. It’s the story of a man with every piece of evidence on his side – and yet he was in prison and is most likely going back to prison. All because the feudal Moscow City court system needs to keep the balance of power in check. We all have to remember that bureaucracy is bigger than human beings. The sacred right of the bureaucrats to destroy lives and break apart families must be preserved. Otherwise, it will be just like 1917 again – and Russia doesn’t need another bloody revolution!
People in Moscow kid themselves when they argue that Kozlov’s case is special, because he’s a businessman. “I don’t have a business, so it couldn’t happen to me!” Sorry, no, it can. It can happen to anyone who has become, for any reason, “inconvenient.” Or to anyone who has the cops set upon them for any reason (there is a famous story of a taxi driver arrested after a brawl – cops falsified testimony and evidence after his family couldn’t bribe them quickly enough. It was all over the news in Russia – but the Moscow City court system prevailed. The people at the top of that system can never lose face – that’s why it prevails).
There is no real presumption of evidence within the courts. The criminal justice system presents a kind of meat-grinder, which exists solely to sustain and serve private interests – whether getting rid of a former business partner, or simply ticking a box (as in, when President Medvedev declared war on pedophilia, everyone suddenly started rounding up pedophiles – with or without evidence). It’s not tied to any principles or laws – laws themselves being contradictory and poorly written at times. The people who preside over it are mostly middle-aged women, deeply conscious of how prestigious their jobs are, and very eager to retain this prestige, which is at least partly derived from the terrorizing effect the courts have on the populace. The only saving grace of this system is the fact that it cannot sentence people to death – the moratorium on the death penalty stands.
Though “getting rid” of someone in prison is easy enough. “Unfortunate accidents” and “suicides” happen with some regularity.
In Russia, it’s the election
March 4, 2012Lyovka woke up early today – which was my excuse to set to work early and interview people. I’ve discovered that being a journalist/parent to an adorable, bug-eyed infant is highly convenient. People suddenly want to talk to you.
I spoke to an impoverished pensioner who said she voted for billionaire Prokhorov, and to a young law enforcement official who expressed solidarity with the Communists and Sergei Udaltsov, whom he referred to as a “righteous dude.” Those were the comments that really stood out for me. All of the people I know, including those who are voting for Vladimir Putin, are highly uncertain of the future. An old friend of mine who’s a Putin supporter told me that he’s being “realistic” about having Putin in office for the third term, and expressed disdain for the ruling United Russia party, which Putin is “ultimately too good for.” Strange times are upon us, either way you look at it.
My raging pharyngitis finally got the best of me, and I had to retreat homeward and call a doctor. A hot young doctor showed up and was horrified to discover that I was not in bed, but tending to Lyovka. “You need your rest!” He exclaimed dramatically. “You look like a corpse!”
Sigh. There was a time when hot guys didn’t say such things to me.
Snow is falling lightly on Novogireyevo now. My husband drove out to film polling stations in villages – and waved to me from a webcam. And proceeded to yell health advice from said webcam. The nanny has shown up, hearing I was in distress, and has taken Lyovka off my hands for a bit.
The lights are coming on in the khrushchyovkas. The world is changing. It’s just another day.
