I need to thank the people who have taken care of me during this bizarre time. The conflict my family is embroiled in is a big one, and the other side doesn’t seem to have very many scruples (and as soon as I’m well enough, I’m going to the police station and giving a statement on the matter), but I’m trying to do everything in my power to make sure that this doesn’t harm my health or the health of my baby. I have needed a whole lot of help though, and I am glad that there are people, friends, neighbours, and colleagues, who are willing to give that help – from holding my hand in the ambulance to letting me stay the night to putting money on my phone when I’m not well enough to do it myself. Thank you so much. I’m also grateful for the actions of the police that night, because they saw the situation exactly for what it was. With both my mother and fiance having been out of the country, I was home alone and vulnerable as hell (and it needs to be said, pregnancy can make you vulnerable – before you know it, your blood pressure has shot up and you can’t move. Never had that happen before! And what do you know – it’s exactly as unpleasant as it sounds!). I’ve been in scary situations before, but it becomes way scarier when it’s you and your baby, and you suddenly have no idea if either one of you is going to be OK. So yeah. Strange days and all that.
Kushchevskaya massacre: why it happened
I’ve avoided this topic in the last few weeks, while the reports of the utter lawlessness and horror out of Kushchevskaya and the surrounding region kept coming. The almost total power of the criminals operating there is startling, the details are like something out of good movie combined with a bad dream: how breaking down doors at the local medical college and raping female students became a norm, how the graves of murdered people were desecrated over and over again as a means of “discouraging” their relatives from so much as moving on with their lives and starting over, how one of the few people who tried to defy the gang in spite of local government and police collusion was first imprisoned then literally driven insane, how one gang member actually bragged about the 11 rape complains filed against him within 24 hours… Is it at all surprising that finally, a massacre of this magnitude happened here?
Olga Bogacheva was one of the few people to speak with Russkiy Reporter on record – she did so because she has nothing to lose. A few years ago, the gang, headed by Nikolai and then Sergei Tsapok, murdered her husband and son. Now, Bogacheva has lost her sister and nephew in the massacre. A former successful businesswoman, she works as a sales clerk at a store – the gang took away her business, along with the people she loved, long ago.
At first, the journalists arriving in Kushchevskaya kept asking the same question – how could Sergei Tsapok be so stupid? Didn’t he realize that massacring 12 people, destroying three families, may cause a national uproar?
Bogacheva explained Tsapok’s actions when she spoke with Dmitry Sokolov-Mitrich for Russkiy Reporter (translation mine):
“You have to understand – impunity is not just an advantage over others, it’s also a progressive disease. A person who is in no way limited by others very soon reaches a state of utter idiocy. These are lawless people for whom lawlessness has become an ideology. We’re tsars, we’re members of a supreme race – everyone else is redneck scum. They liked this feeling, they didn’t want to have to stop feeling this way. They simply lost the ability to live or to think differently. These people have grown so stupid, that they were not able to realize that sooner or later, lawlessness will devour the very people who perpetrate it.”
I have no words as to the suffering this woman has endured. The fact that she spoke to a journalist about this is a testament to her strength and courage. This gang, aided by corrupt officials and policemen, took away everything from her (need I even point out the fact that the murders of her son and husband were never actually solved?), but didn’t break her.
In his piece, Dmitry Sokolov-Mitrich pointed out that although the Krasnodar krai (or region), where Kuschevskaya is located, has enjoyed growing prosperity, it did so at the expense of social institutions, of freedom of the press, of public conscience. The local paper in Kushchevskaya, Vpered (meaning, ironically enough, “Forward”) DIDN’T WRITE A SINGLE REPORT about the November 4th massacre. Today, Vpered mostly publishes statements by public officials condemning the way in which the village and the region have been “tarnished” by other media outlets.
When you consider the fact that the editor-in-chief was forced to leave Kuschevskaya when she dared publish damning reports about the mass rapes and other crimes committed by the Tsapok gang a few years ago, at a time when the governor had made a solemn promise to crack down on the gang (similar solemn promises have been made following the events of November 4th, of course), and was then “forgiven” and allowed to come back for as long as she played nice – the situation ceases to be remotely surprising, and starts to feel downright hopeless.
Novaya Gazeta reports that from 1998 to 2002 the Tsapok gang was most active in forcibly taking away land from farmers. Boris Moskvich became the head of the Kushchevskaya region around this time. His official slogan was “We won’t give the criminals an inch of land.” Moskvich was murdered in 2002. Naturally, despite a whole lot of rhetoric from Krasnodar governor, Alexander Tkachyov, his murder has remained unsolved, though it’s pretty obvious who killed him.
For women, even as much as walking down the street in Kushchevskaya could be a problem. Want to walk to the store alone? A gang member could drive up next to you, drag you into his car, kidnap you, rape you, and get clean away with it. In fact, according to some Novaya Gazeta sources, it was exactly these mass rapes that eventually lead to the assassination of Sergei Tsapok’s vicious older brother Nikolai, at which point Sergei headed the gang alongside his mother, a Lady Macbeth-type figure whom locals refer to as “Tsapchikha.”
Zhenia Gurov, one of the first men to be arrested in connection with the Kushchevskaya massacre, was apparently especially beloved in the upper echelons of the gang. Zhenia was not only a brutal rapist – he enjoyed beating his victims within an inch of their lives. If you sit around long enough on various Kuban and Krasnodar forums, you’ll see his girlfriend come up – apparently, she’s a 17-year-old who knew about the things that Gurov has done, and has given statements to the police. Locals claim that this girl started dating Gurov because by the time she realized he liked her, she had already heard about the various gang rapes he and his friends were responsible for, and was too scared to reject him.
Under Sergei’s leadership, rapes became no less common, but the criminals were less blatant about it. For example, instead of kicking down dormitory doors, they’d just snatch up girls at the entrance of the medical college. After all, Sergei was more commercially minded than his beast of an older brother, and wanted to bring a touch of class to his gang.
Oh, and need we even mention the fact that Sergei was, naturally, a member of the regional government for a while – before being replaced by a friend and “business associate”? Sergei even bragged about having been at the inauguration of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev back in 2008.
Ingeniously, the Tsapok gang recruited members at the local secondary school, filled to the brim with abandoned and orphaned children. They were taken care of, encouraged to take up sports, trained, discouraged from alcoholism. The government doesn’t know what to do with these children, but criminals are often more resourceful in that regard. Yelena Kostyuchenko and Anna Artemyeva, writing from Kushchevskaya for Novaya Gazeta, point out that young orphans remain loyal to the Tsapok gang, and incredulous at the very idea that the gang would be responsible for raping girls or knifing children.
Of course they are. The Tsapok gang is probably the only real authority they have ever known.
A Norwegian TV show does “Let It Be.” Succeeds.
When you first watch this, you’re not quite sure what it is you’re seeing – but you know it’s freaking awesome. I mean, Sheryl Lee shows up. And Leslie Nielsen (RIP). AND STEVE GUTTENBERG!!!!!!!!!!!! And they’re all digitally superimposed onto a beach, singing one of the best songs of all time.
The TV show, apparently, has a retro theme and is dedicated to profiling people who were pretty famous back in the day, but are mostly straight up chilling out of the public eye nowadays. Or, you know, straight up chilling to the extent that such a thing is possible (in the case of Pam Anderson, Mickey Rourke, etc.).
I don’t know whose idea it was to bring “Let It Be” into all of this, but that person deserves a Nobel Prize in a category they need to make up exclusively for such attacks of random genius. I mean, this video made me smile when Tonya Harding appeared. The people who made it knew what they were doing. Ave.
Because bullshit NYT “trend pieces” suck
Infidelity, Russian-style
Hell yeah. World Cup.
But anyway…
I read Julia Ioffe’s piece on infidelity in Russia with great interest, particular because it was for Slate’s DoubleX, and I never really know what the hell I am supposed to make of that particular outfit. A part of me despises it, a part of me is continually intrigued.
Not surprisingly, I guess, I would up having mixed feelings about Julia’s piece as well. I thought it was spot-on about the habits of married men, particularly upper-class married men – but I was disappointed that there was so little mention of women cheating. It’s true that a woman telling a potential lover “hey, I’m married” won’t stop him, and Julia was right to point that out – but once again, women were presented as passive, pursued by dudes with no morals.
This isn’t the view I have of life in Russia at all, and while the plural of anecdote is not data (neither when it comes to Julia’s piece, not when it comes to what the rest of us encounter), it seems to me that a whole lot of married Russian women cheat. Most of my mother’s middle-aged friends admit to past and/or ongoing affairs. And even when it comes to the wives of the sought-after wealthy men profiled in Julia’s piece – those wives do get bored. I don’t know a whole lot of rich Russian dudes, but all of the ones I’ve been in regular contact with have the same story to share, and it’s a variant of “we got married, and then I was away on business a lot, and suddenly, she was sleeping with someone else.”
One guy I know had to confront his wife over a pregnancy that obviously had nothing to do with him, the husband. She wound up raising the baby with someone else – a self-help guru. And that’s just how some people roll.
The main difference is – the wives of wealthy Russian men don’t tend to brag about their escapades. If you’re in it because you have a sugar-daddy, you don’t want to spoil the entire thing by blabbing about your “extracurricular activities.” The man who has the financial power, on the other hand, feels more comfortable with asserting his ability to do whatever the hell he wants, because he’s just that fly!… Or so he thinks, anyway. Also, the risk of a male spouse getting violent over revelations of cheating is greater than the other way around. And let’s face it, there’s also the fact that because we live in a patriarchy, male egos are inevitably constructed as more fragile. Women, who mostly have an inferior social status, learn to sublimate their own egos while buttering up the men’s. As one of my young married friends put it, “I don’t want him to find out that I cheat, because it will freak him out and humiliate him way more than such a scenario could possibly freak out or humiliate me.”
All of this makes female infidelity less visible, but no less real.
Meanwhile, this part of Julia’s article struck me as plain odd:
Tanya, for her part, couldn’t take the knowledge that her husband was cheating on her. She divorced him even though she is 30 and has a child, which makes a woman essentially unmarriageable in Russia.
Do I live in some parallel version of Russia? Off the top of my head, I can think of something like dozens of examples among friends, relatives and casual acquaintances that prove this statement to be an extreme exaggeration.
Most of my older friends, both male and female, are partnered up. However, the majority of them are on their second or third marriage already. Most of them also tend to have kids from previous relationships. Many felt pressured to marry young and have kids – and then realized that “oh crap, this isn’t going to work out.” It’s a common phenomenon in Russia and elsewhere.
And kids come first, too. Particularly if you’re a woman. When I went through a huge break-up last year, I once lamented to a friend about how I may never fall in love again. “But you can still have a kid,” he replied. “Kid’ll love you, and you’ll love the kid – and that’s the most important thing, no?” “But I don’t want to do it alone!” I wailed. “Well, nobody wants to do it alone, but for you it’s better to be a single parent than single and childless!” He retorted. “You’ll have plenty of love in your life, that way.”
Now that I am, indeed, pregnant, none of my Russian friends or relatives even bother to ask me if I’m getting married. To them, that’s not the important thing. Their reaction is – “Hell yes! Natalia’s finally decided to procreate! Let’s drink in her honour while she eyes our beers jealously!”
Many people don’t get married again after having kids and then getting divorced – but a lot of them also don’t want to. An older woman in particular may not necessarily want to adopt a traditionally feminine role anymore. After three kids and two divorces, my aunt is amused by the propositions her boyfriends make: “He wants me to move in with him! Is he out of his mind?!” She’s middle-aged, and not conventionally attractive, but she still gets enough play – a good example of how life extend far beyond the stereotypes of “subservient, attractive young Russian woman” and “scary, sexless Soviet baba with a mustache on her upper lip.”
For a lot of Russian men, a single woman with children signifies a kind of normalcy that, I would argue, many American men do not see. I think that for a lot of Americans, particularly those of us who hail from more conservative parts of the country, a single mom signifies that SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED IN THIS WOMAN’S LIFE!!! I feel that a lot of Russians, in urban areas in particular, have a more casual approach. “Oh,” they’ll say, “Guess her previous relationship didn’t work out.”
If anything, I feel that it’s single and childless women in Russia who really get the short end of the stick. There’s not a whole lot wrong with you if your marriage didn’t work out. But you’re ZOMG A VICTIM if you don’t have kids. Or better yet, you’re ZOMG A SELFISH MONSTER. In an odd way, it’s certain Orthodox scholars who have attempted to change this attitude, some of them writing pamphlets such as “Female solitude: why does everyone treat it like it’s horrible?” Of course, in their view, a single, childless woman should be in a convent, or at least way, way devoted to religion – but their refusal to plainly demonize such women is already a step in the right direction.
I think that Julia’s observation that Russian hedonism was first preempted by Russian consumerism is a good one – but I also feel that it applies to a certain segment of the population, as opposed to Russia on the whole. Even under the Soviet regime, the Russian artistic community, for example, was fairly freewheeling when it comes to relationships (when a famous playwright died in Moscow recently, I wound up in a room full of people who were all eagerly reminiscing about his mistresses and his wife’s lovers). And for your average middle-class Russian, the ability to stock up on colourful pairs of Uggs for the winter (I have discovered, way behind everyone else, that Uggs are perfect for Russia) does not translate into applying the same mentality to lovers.
Overall, I feel that the reality of relationships in Russia is much more mundane than it is portrayed in Julia’s piece. I see a lot of truth in what she says – I mean, since coming to Russia, I myself have been the Other Woman. Twice. And it’s not as if I haven’t been cheated on as well. But I also feel that tales of Russian hedonism are so popular among Western publications precisely of how outlandish they ultimately are. I feel that there is a certain level of projection there. “Those Russians! So barbaric! And kind of badass! In a barbaric way! When they’re not cheating on their wives, they’re busy putting out horrible Belomorkanal cigarettes on tiny baby kittens!” I mean, back in the States, you see a whole lot of cheating and divorce as well – to the point that no one’s really surprised by it. Maybe the real difference is that Russian society deals with failed relationships in a more offhand way. I don’t know if this necessarily proves Julia’s point – that infidelity is accepted in Russia. I think a whole lot of people just view it as the devil they know.
Natalia A. 