The new draftee leaves home in terror. Babushka has been weeping hysterically and pushing all sorts of useless packages at him; even as he took them he still had to fight past her flailing clutches to reach the door. Mama at the moment of truth stood staring at him in silent concern, tears welling up in her eyes. She spent the whole morning hugging and kissing her little Vanya, who she'd served plate after plate of oladuskhi with her special black currant preserves, and he'd eaten it all.
Such a good boy-and now he's going!As Vanya walks away from the house, he looks back through the window to spot papa, already sitting in sweatpants and slippers in his usual place in front of the TV, stirring a cup of tea. In a few years he'll sneak 50 grams out of a bottle hidden in the closet. His farewell to his son that morning had been a manlier one; a knowing wink in his son's direction as he leaned, a Belomor between his teeth, his frail tank-top clad shoulders against the wall in the kitchen. "Nichevo, spravishsya," he'd said, nodding.
Dad had never talked much about the army, but Vanya knew enough to worried. All those stories about dedovschina-enough to scare any village boy. After a short walk down the village dirt road he finally reaches the bus stop, where he takes once last look around. Soon afterward the bus arrives and Vanya, sighing and wide-eyed, steps on board and disappears down the road.
Eight years later, we can barely recognize frightened young Vanya in the busy and talkative Ivan Vasiliyech who is tinkering happily with his Lada in the lot behind his Moscow apartment building. He has a slight paunch now and is fairly bursting at the seams with helpful advice that he shares constantly with friends and strangers alike. If you're sick, Ivan will explain how putting a little mustard in your socks and drinking exactly 50 grams of vodka is a surefire cure. He'll help you understand why sitting on the ground causes sterility; he can educate you on all the nuances of world politics, share with you his insights on everything from the Davos conference to the real cause of the Kursk sinking to secret of Margaret Thatcher's appeal to the British people, surprise and intrigue you with tales of the little-known history of Russia's contribution to the invention of the airplane and the steam engine; he can open new doors to you by revealing shortcuts for driving through Moscow that will always save time, and if the first shortcut he shows you leads to a traffic jam, he can explain to you exactly what extraordinary and unforeseeable circumstances caused there to be traffic in that spot that particular day; in short, he has a wealth of life knowledge to share with you.
Then one day you mention to Ivan that you've been feeling tired lately. Helpful as always, he pokes his head out from under the hood of his Lada.
"Have you ever tried a Russian banya?" he asks. He pauses, watching closely for your reaction.
You shrug and say no. Well, actually, you went once, and didn't like it that much, but that was a long time ago, you can't really remember.
"You probably went to the wrong banya. Which one did you go to?"
You answer with the name of one Moscow's most prestigious banyas, that one in the center...
"No, that's not a real banya," he says immediately. "You've got to go to a real banya, like the one I go to. It's not far from my place. Come on, I'll take you this weekend. You'll sit in the steam, drink a beer, have some snacks.... I guarantee you, it'll cure that tiredness."
You pause and take a look at your friend. His cheeks are ruddy, his eyes bright, his body plump and flushed with vigor; his fat calloused fingers are busy as usual with his amazing expert repairs. You never learned to fix a car. And you do feel tired all the time, and depressed and unsure.... Ivan never seems depressed or unsure. What the hell; maybe the banya really will help. I'll put on a towel, hang out with the guys....
Whatever road he might choose to travel to find it out, there is one thing every visitor to Russia learns sooner or later. It pains us to say it, so we'll just say it. All Russian men are gay. We don't mean gay like that handful of all-the-way-out hairdresser types in leather pants who go to places like Studio. We mean fishing trips-and-cucumbers gay, gayness that hides in an ever-expanding closet spanning eleven time zones; we mean gay old men who dress up in white socks and ill-fitting suits to go to "party" gatherings and take turns clapping for each other, gay like the Supreme Soviet, the Central Committee, and the better part of the Duma. We mean gayness that stays outside all night dreamily fixing its car while its heavyset wife takes care of the children upstairs; gayness that pays elaborate chivalrous compliments to its women in public, calling them goddesses and princesses, even dropping to his knees to kiss their hands at parties, but which is always already off on a hunting trip in a small tent with three men when the goddess comes looking for him the next day.
There are people in this world who are gay but make it well into adulthood before they realize it, even though it has long been obvious to all his friends and even his family. Russia is a whole country that is gay but still doesn't know it. Worse, Russians historically were isolated for so long that they never had anyone around to break the news to them. The history of Russia's first contacts with Western travelers is littered with accounts of the foreigners' surprise at finding wide acceptance for the practice of homosexuality among Russian men of all classes. 16th and 17th-century European historians Sigismund von Heberstein, Adam Olearius, Juraj Krizhanich, and George Turberville all observed widespread tolerance for homosexual affection between men. Even as late as the 19th century, Russian historian Sergei Soloviev was moved to write that "nowhere, either in the Orient or in the West, was this vile, unnatural sin taken as lightly as in Russia."
Homophobia was probably a Western import. The Europeanization movement that started with Peter probably forced Russia to adopt the closet along with the uncomfortable clothes and the other gifts of the enlightenment. (The first Russian laws against homosexuality, pertaining to soldiers only, were adopted during Peter's reign). Like democracy and the rule of law, the closet was probably one of those Western ideas that Russians adopted even as they strongly suspected it was a sham. Laws barring civilians from practicing sodomy were eventually introduced into Tsarist Russia, but few people were ever prosecuted for it, and bisexuality among the Russian upper classes was common. By the late 1800s, the Russian army, particularly the Dragoon regiments, had become a celebrated haven for gay orgies. The good times might have lasted forever had not Lenin appeared on the scene. The new Soviet empire was created in the image of its first dictator, who as chance would have it was morbidly afraid of sexuality of any kind, a dedicated wallflower at the dance hall of life. His Bolshevik government actually decriminalized homosexuality from a legal standpoint, but the practical effect of Soviet rule was to drive all sexuality underground. Lenin created a society where men looked at centerfolds of threshers and combines instead of naked women. He also sent women to work in mines and on construction sites, dressed them in helmets and overalls, and endeavored to teach them the behavioral ideal of the "new socialist woman," which was to bark like angry dykes whenever they opened their mouths in public.
Russians endured this enforced atmosphere of creepy sexual neutrality for over 70 years. In that time, they developed some strange habits. The Soviet bureaucracy rewarded men who could eloquently babble nonsense at great length, and so whole generations of young males learned to babble like schoolgirls at all hours of the day, adopting elaborate opinions on every conceivable subject and unleashing them without mercy at the first break in any conversation. Soviet rule also taught whole generations the virtues of the double life; everything was bullshit on the surface, even the things you said, while your real life was a private inner one, hidden from view. Even straight people were in the closet under communism.
Then there were the other things; the pioneer camps, perverts' paradises, with all those little boys dressed in cravats; the May Day celebrations with their worship of giant missiles pulled through town; the long postings to polar ice stations; the network of secret tunnels built everywhere; the fascination with the Metro, an underground world; the endless succession of party leaders who looked like C-rate drag queens; the inevitable retreats into banyas and hunting lodges; the rearing by strict grandmothers; the beekeeping. Throw in all that military service, and you've come very close to describing paradise for the closeted gay man.
Finally, communism collapsed. What was the first thing the newly-freed Russian man did? He rushed out and bought every Queen, Marc Almond, Pet Shop Boys, and Depeche Mode album he could find. He started to carry a purse and dress in ribbed turtlenecks and tight black jeans. Finally freed of the burden of women, he stopped getting married and went into business instead, adopting a pare of coke-bottle glasses as his new life partner. Meanwhile, Russian women, who had suspected the truth all along, were left without even the appearance of a sex life, and forced to sell themselves like cattle to the excess unwanted heterosexuals of such dismal places as America, Germany, and the U.A.R.
Though humiliation on such a massive scale of their women aroused the patriotic ire of some Russian nationalists, the number of mushroom-hunting expeditions and afternoons under the hood never flagged for a minute. As planeload after planeload of drooling American half-wits with hard-ons in their pants arrived in Moscow to rape their girls in hotels, Russian men pulled out their trusty old utki and went on long fishing trips, leaving it to an obvious homosexual, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, to wrestle with the problem in public.
The question remains; what exactly do they do on those fishing trips? In other words, are Russian men still in the closet, or finding their way out? Will there come a day soon when Ivan goes to the banya and never comes back? When Russian men stop all that tinkering with cars and instead start spending all their days in bed together? What will the country look like then? The eXile believes the change would be for the better. No more evil empire; lots of great new musicals. None of the cars would work, but nobody would care. In the new Russia, everyone will be so happy, they won't mind walking. Besides, the women would eventually take care of it. They already do all the other work.
Olly Olly Oxen Free, Russia. Come out, come out, wherever you are. It's okay, you're among friends. We'll even throw a parade. But take your time, and remember: in or out, to us, you're still beautiful inside.