This is the cover of The eXile Issue #3, published in March 1997.

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AIG Insurance
eXile: Hello? Irina?
AIG: Yes?
eXile: Yes, hello, I was given your number. My name is Michael B-.
AIG: Pleased to meet you.
eXile: Likewise. I’m calling because I’m interested in acquiring a life insurance policy.
AIG: I see. And you are a citizen of what country?
eXile: USA-
AIG: Because I’m not entirely sure that we insure anybody except Russian citizens.
eXile: I’m well known in Moscow. I’m friends with Paul Tatum, Paul Glotser…
AIG: What?
eXile: It’s just that I’ve been here a long time, which is why I’m calling a Russian agency.
(Fifteen minutes later) (more…)

There was an earlier version of this very column that was much better. But it got spiked. Matt didn’t like it, and nowadays, what Matt says, goes. See, I sold him the eXile for a song-or rather, a dirge. And lemme tell ya folks, that song I sold myself for ain’t gonna hit the turntables of Russkiye Gvozdy anytime soon.

I nearly had a stroke when I heard that Matt Taibbi was going to be the newly-installed rival editor at Living Here-or rather, Night of the Living Here-the Freddy Krueger of local publications. That paper has risen from the dead so many times that even Jesus must be getting nervous. Hey, those punks are stealing my schtick! I had a monopoly on this resurrection thing for 2000 years, and now look at ‘em! Yaweh, can’t we do something? They’re making us look bad! Give ‘em the old fire and thunder! (more…)

Russian prisoners looking to escape may not have to wait much longer for a choice opportunity. The press service of the GenProkuratura announced this week that more than 100 prison guards last year killed themselves, at a rate roughly analogous to that of the prisoners themselves. (more…)

On February 4, at 12 noon, I have visited Mr. Dmitri Runzhe, head of Department of Press and Information in Moscow’s Media, in his office on 19th floor of skyscraper on Novy Arbat. His office was new, comfortable, with modern furniture, even pencils were foreign. It contrasted drastically with my own office of Editor-in-Chief of radical newspaper “Limonka.” My so-called “office” have a look of revolutionary committee headquarters in 1918’s Russia. It’s located in a basement. But even from that totally awful place we are under menace of eviction now. Radical bureaucrats asking me to pay a “debt” of 137 millions of rubles. So I came to Mr. Runzhe in attempt to get some financial help. I have received no help, but we talked for an hour. (more…)

In the old days, back when I worked for a different Moscow newspaper, I used to be visited by a lanky, chainsmoking Azerbaidjani named Fakhrid Tairov. Tairov dressed in cheap ties and sport jackets, which he hid under a huge gray down overcoat that looked like a ski jacket stretched for a giant Cat-in-the-Hat puppet. The jacket was also good for hiding a huge ream of folders; Tairov was a dealer in kompromat, or compromising information. (more…)