#25 | December 30, 1997 - January 13, 1998  

by Abram Kalashnikov

Little kids love Christmas morning. They still believe in Santa Claus and still think toys are cool. But Mom and Pop can't wait for the whole thing to be over with. Nothing will bring a middle-aged couple closer to divorce more quickly than another year of dragging themselves over to the tree, tearing open their packages with feigned enthusiasm, and flashing brittle smiles at one another before exclaiming: "Another tie! Thanks, honey!"

There is no better evidence of the intellectual malaise within the foreign press community in Moscow than the year-after-year repetition of the same old "holiday season" stories. The kids back home may still love them, but the hacks who have been here growing spare tires for years have long ago reached the brittle-smile stage of their romance with Russia. How much longer can it last? How many more years can we spend the winter exchanging the same old ties and blenders?

Think I'm being a scrooge? Let's check out the old tie rack and see. Take this simple test: which of the following "Christmas in Russia is rapidly becoming Westernized" stories was written in December 1995, which in December 1996, and which in December 1997?

a) "Festive lights line store windows, and crowds have been gathering in shops and markets during the past few weekends frantically buying gifts. Christmas decorations imported from the West line the shelves of many stores. Christmas jingles can be heard on the radio. And Christmas trees, or yolki, and Russian Santas can be found at department stores around the city."

b) "Over the last few years, Russia has been flooded with Western-style marketing ideas, from simple mass-media advertising to shopping via television. Now comes the mother of them all, the West's crowning achievement in marketing events: the Christmas blitz...the idea of a full-blown, American-style commercialized Christmas is quickly coming of age. A walk down Moscow's central Tverskaya Ulitsa reveals shop window after shop window strung with garlands, special seasonal advertisements from multinationals Coca-Cola and Nestle, and even a few window signs promising seasonal price mark-downs."

c) "Many shops have Santa decorations, largely because they were provided free by suppliers of Western goods. And shops selling imported Santa Claus tree ornaments, candles and chocolates have been doing a brisk trade."

The correct answers are a) Lynn Berry, AP, December 1997, b) Marc Champion, Moscow Times, December 1995, and c) Astrid Wendlandt, Moscow Times, December 1996.

You can't tell the difference between holiday stories in Russia that were done this year and last year; they are the same every year. Let's take another test, comparing a few of the annual "Drunken Russians left to die of exposure by socially insensitive Moscow municipal government" stories. Which of the following was written by the lowest-paid American reporter in Moscow in December 1996-and which was written by the city's highest-paid British reporter in December 1997?

a) "After one of the balmiest autumns on record, winter has blown into Moscow with a vengeance, putting lives at risk and the goodwill of Muscovites to the test.

By late Thursday afternoon, the temperature had dropped to minus 24 degrees Celsius, a numbing cold that immediately began taking its toll on the city's less fortunate residents.

On Thursday alone, 40 frostbite sufferers were taken to hospitals, where two of them died...38 people were hospitalized for hypothermia, or severe exposure, and five deaths since the cold snap began last weekend.

Many of the victims are bomzhi, or homeless drifters, among them a nameless man whose lonely death on a Moscow street Tuesday was recorded by the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. 'Eighteen degrees of frost turned out to be too strong for the sick old man with neither a passport nor a hope in life,' the paper said."

b) "Muscovites yesterday were locked in a bitter battle with the elements, as extreme cold gripped the capital, causing deaths and injuries and forcing most people to stay indoors.

As temperatures fell to -30C, the coldest recorded December for nearly a century in the capital, hospitals reported a flood of victims, including 50 people suffering from frostbite and hundreds more admitted with hypothermia or fractures caused by slipping on the icy pavements.

At least nine people have died since the cold weather set in at the weekend, one when he was struck on the head by a giant icicle which fell from the top of a high-rise building.

Most of the victims, however, were from the ranks of the thousands of homeless and alcoholics in Moscow, who have little chance of survival unless they can find warmth and shelter for the night."

The correct answers are a) entry-level Moscow Times reporter Greg Miller, December, 1996, and b) Times of London bureau chief Richard Beeston, December 1997.

While the Russian newspapers and a few lone responsible Western outlets-most notably a thing called the Jamestown Foundation Monitor-were doing their jobs, investigating real breaking stories like the apparent leak of privileged Russian tax information to IMF managing director Michel Camdessus and World Bank president James Wolfensohn, the heavyweights of the Western press were lazing around, searching for a new angle on the same tired old stories they've been doing every year.

Apparently imbued by the Christmas spirit, Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times decided to give her own holiday turkey to the Tiny Tims and Bob Cratchits of Russia in her own death-by-exposure story, published just after Beeston's:

"When the flaps are down, it is too cold for Russian-made cars, Zhigulis and Ladas, to start. Which means that the streets of Moscow, normally as jammed and brutish as downtown Lagos, Nigeria, are miraculously free and clear: Only Volvo and Mercedes engines can rev themselves awake in this kind of weather. When it is really freezing, foreigners and rich Russians rule the highways-winter joy rides for the Happy Few. The outer lanes are littered with stalled cars, looking a little like carrion abandoned in the desert.

"The City Ambulance Service announced today that last week three people died of exposure and another 138 were rushed to the hospital. Russians read between the lines and find some solace in the sobering news: At least the ambulances are working."

Ho, ho, ho! Beeston, meanwhile, evaded the IMF story by doing yet another "cold-death-exposure" story entitled Freezing Russians Put their Trust in Vodka," this one blaming unsensible Russians for their deaths by accusing them of drinking too much:

"Flying in the face of scientific research and basic common sense, millions of Russians, including some of their pets, are getting through the cold snap with the help of the country's favorite drink."

Never mind that both Beeston's Britain and Stanley's America are countries populated by hundreds of thousands of homeless who also die of exposure in the dozes every year, despite much higher median temperatures. And never mind that homeless people in the West, just as in in Russia, tend to be heavy drinkers-that's how they got there in the first place.

The point is that the creme de la creme of the Moscow journalism community simply doesn't do a whole lot of work. When you're a hack, you know that there are a few stories you can always do when things get slow-the exposure story, the Santa vs. Ded Moroz story, the collapse of Russian science story, the Slavic sex slaves story, the Yeltsin successor story, and so on, and so on, and so on...

You don't have to do any work for these-your neighbor in the next bureau did it last week, or you might even have done it yourself the year before. So why bother doing the extra work? It's not like your salary is going to drop if you don't.

In any case, Happy New Year from the eXile. And don't forget to keep those Zhigulis off the roads this holiday season...