#28 | February 12 - 19, 1998  

by Abram Kalashnikov

My colleagues at the eXile have just informed me, during a break in their disgustingly self-congratulatory 1st anniversary preparations, that a self-styled Rambo went berserk in the woods outside St. Petersburg this week, forcing whole battalions of border guards, FSB troops, and hillbilly cops to hunt him down and trap him in a four-hour night gun battle.

I am a married man and consequently no longer interested in most things in life, but this story interests me, for obvious reasons. I imagine it would also interest many Americans. We'll never know, however, because the Western press corps has decided to take a different tack. They've decided that, instead of covering this grotesque, thrilling, fresh-off-the-press, tragicomic action tale with an immediately recognizable American movie angle, they'll just send home the same asinine articles they've been sending every single day for six consecutive years.

A huge amount of energy has been expended in this special issue to celebrate the influence the eXile has had in the expatriate community in its first year. There will be none of that in my column. Because the truth is that all the violent personal abuse I've been hurling at the foreign press corps in this city has achieved exactly this in my first year: Nothing. Zero. Zilch.

Here's proof. One of the first columns I wrote for this newspaper described probably the most obvious and offensive practice of Western reporters in Russia-the use of the "Times Have Changed Since Communism" lead. This is the news-gathering method that involves a reporter blindfolding himself, wandering 400 paces in any direction, opening his eyes, and then taking pen to paper to describe how his surroundings have changed since communism collapsed six years before.

Please note that my last sentence ended with the phrase "six years before." Simple subtraction shows that, if this column had been written one year ago, that sentence would have ended "five years ago." Amazingly, the same process is repeatable a full four more times-with each "time" representing an entire year in which reporters were writing the very same lead over and over again!

In connection with all of this, attentive readers of American news last week were able to witness a unique change of the guard. Six months ago, Carol J. Williams of the Los Angeles Times was singled out in this space for her reliance on the "Times Have Changed Since Communism" lead.

Six months later, Williams is retiring from that paper's Moscow bureau, leaving Vanora Bennett as the senior correspondent in town. But the "Times Have Changed Since Communism" lead has already survived the personnel change. Here's the lead from Bennett's recent 2,000-word piece on the state of Russian arts:

"MOSCOW-Downstairs, scruffy musicians are picking up violins to start their daily rehearsal.
"Upstairs, the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra's general manager, Alexander Krauter, is picking up the phone to start his daily battle-to extract money from unwilling government officials to keep the orchestra going. "If we don't get financing, the orchestra will have to close in three months," he says sadly. "State officials don't understand that if they let Russia's culture die, all they'll be left with is a nation of bandits."

Six months ago, Williams did exactly the same story, only she set it in a different city and in a different field:

"Akademgorodok, Russia-After long days in the emptying institutes of this birch-shaded Siberian enclave, the academic elite of post-communist Russia can be seen loosening their ties and reaching for the buckets and shovels..."

It may seem gratuitous to go after Williams and Bennett again-both were featured in the last issue. But a 2,000-word "Times Have Changed Since Communism" piece in the year 1998 is just too conspicuous to ignore. 2,000 words is a lot of words for a reporter. Putting that many words together can require up to a week of preparation and research-sometimes two. You can't just toss it off under deadline. You have to think about it.

And in this case, the Bennett piece-which went on to show that donations from the new rich are now keeping the arts alive-is proof that the LA Times, after all these years, is still consciously committed to its vision of Russia progressing toward a market economy.

Just listen to the following passage:
"The marriage of convenience between wealthy patrons and artistic proteges suits both parties. As arts administrators such as Krauter learn to court the rich, Russia's rough-diamond newcomers to wealth are settling down in their new life, and many want a highbrow cultural cause to patronize. In their search for a more sophisticated image, these donors are not even discouraged by the Russian government's failure to give tax breaks for their gifts.
"Among Krauter's sponsors is one of Russia's top millionaires, Vladimir Gusinsky of the Most banking and media group, whose empire is paying for a series of concerts for the disabled this spring."

Let's start with a reminder. Vladimir Gusinsky, shown here as a kind patron nobly willing to tolerate the Russian government's inexcusable lack of tax breaks, is one of the seven bankers and industrialists who collectively share most of the responsibility for the mess we call modern Russia. Gusinsky presided over a key stretch of the dissolution of modern Russian press freedom in the television medium: he took NTV and turned it into a shameless mouthpiece first for the government, then for the anti-Anatoly-Chubais oligarchical forces. He also rescued Chubais through staunch television support in spring 1996, when Chubais cronies were caught hauling a half-million dollars out of the White House in a cardboard box. He is well known as perhaps modern Russia's most energetic dealer in kompromat-in fact, many Russian writers consider him the architect of the kompromat system of political warfare.

In short, this is a person who has contributed in a major way to the almost total collapse of public confidence in government and media in this country. But the only hint of this in the Bennett piece is the phrase "rough-diamond newcomers to wealth."

So what, right? No one should be obligated to drag the history of NTV into a story about the Russian arts. But wait, there's a point:
"Private art galleries and auction houses have sprung up, selling antique silver, furniture and paintings to the wealthy. The Gelos auction house, Russia's answer to Sotheby's, even offers crash courses in fine arts, patronized mostly by the wives of new millionaires."

Well, maybe there really wasn't a pointÉ there was some logical reason all of this offended me, but it escapes me now. Maybe I just don't see the return, as a consumer, in reading about how the wives of millionaires are helping to fill the void left by communism and Vladimir Gusinsky is helping to fill the void left by communism and even George Soros-who also put in his obligatory appearance in the piece-is helping to fill the void left by communism. Do those people really need any more free p.r.? And haven't we read all of this before? We're coming up on seven years of this stuff! Call in Rambo!