WE'LL FUCK YOUR KIDS

Dear [sic],
I have been reading your website for some time now and I have to say that I find it very interesting. As a married criminal defense attorney in Southern California with three kids, two mortgages, etc., I read about your lives in Moscow with shock, horror, and of course barely controlled envy.

Keep up the good work! At least we suburban drudges can live vicariously. ... sort of.

Anyway I really did want to say thank you for one of the most unusual publications on the net. "Unusual" is probably an understatement, I suppose. Keep on truckin' and avoid the flatheads!

Jeff Aaron

Dear Jeff,
You want to introduce us to that wife of yours? Think she'd mind if we ass-fucked her? How about your kids? Any of them have pubes? Male or female, it's the same to us.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Dear [sic] ,
Excellent article on Vorkuta. Very disturbing, if not exactly surprising.

Just a comment on the tax issue: the 38% payroll tax is supposed to come out of the total wage bill (fond oplaty truda), and goes to the various off-budget funds like the pension fund and the compulsory medical insurance fund. Strictly speaking, it's not a federal tax, and is not collected by the State Tax Service but by the funds themselves. In addition, there's a 35% profits tax which is supposed to come out of profits, but, since may costs are not deductible under the current tax system, is in fact half way between a profits and a turnover tax. 22 percentage points of that go to the regional government, and 13 percentage points to the federal government, but it's all collected by the State Tax Service. The miners themselves are supposed to pay only income tax (at rates ranging from 12 to 35%) - all to regional governments, deducted from their paycheck by the coal company and payable to the State Tax Service - plus maybe 1 or 2% in some sort of fund contribution (I can't remember).

Economists will tell you that the burden of a tax does not depend on who actually pays it, but on the relative elasticities of supply and demand: in other words, that it does not make a difference whether the payroll tax is paid by the workers or by the company, since in either instance the miners receive the same "market clearing" post-tax wage. The problem in Vorkuta, it seems, is that the miners have no bargaining power because they have no outside option - nowhere to go if they leave or lose their jobs. So the company can get away with shifting the full burden of the payroll tax onto them, or, worse still, not paying them at all. Legally, of course, it makes a huge difference if you sign a contract to receive a certain post-tax wage and then find yourself receiving 38% less.
Rory MacFarquhar

Dear Rory,
Zzzzz...unh-what? Oh, you're done with your letter! Oh, right, of course. Good point. Come and get that t-shirt right away!

SENSITIVE GUY

Dear [sic],
I can't say this briefly, but I'll try not to take up too much of your time. THANK YOU for my subscription! Yours is truly a fine product! Allow me to indulge a parable. Twenty years ago, I was a card-carrying member of N.O.W., the National Organization for Women. I will caution that this should not be taken to mean that I am a "fellow passenger" with your detractors. It simply means that I think all people should be treated with respect, until they have proven themselves UNWORTHY of respect. I helped to set up a rape crisis center, a shelter for abused women and children, and a center to combat sexual harassment in the workplace. A few years later, I abandoned the organization altogether. While I supported, and still support, their GOALS, I realized that their METHODS had become so stridently confrontational with and hateful toward the 49% of us in the OTHER gender that they HURT, rather than helped, the causes they sought to advance.

THIS is my fear for your publication. If you lash out bitterly and angrily at everybody in sight, loyal supporters and misinformed or misguided detractors as well - if you threaten recriminations, however absurd - then you start to look too much like the REAL enemy, for whom your supporters would like you to reserve your potent and legendary energies.

To put it another way, someone who likes to "hang ten" on the risky leading edge of journalism probably doesn't want to look TOO much like Alyaksandr Lukashenka. (The Belarussian spelling is chosen simply because the man HATES it so!) I am NOT trying out for an apocryphal tee shirt, though I like tee shirts very much. I emphatically AM testing the waters of your detractors' assertion that to correspond with you AT ALL is to invite contempt and ridicule, rather than a thoughtful response, or at least a polite read-and-toss. Besides, if your READERS are afraid to become contributors, who WILL your contributors be?

Your contributors seem to like to see affiliations.

Unfortunately, many from both camps tend to use them as grounds for attack, rather than as clues to the writer's context or frame of reference. If my mentioning N.O.W. didn't give them enough ammunition, I'll toss in another. I am also a member of the Community for Eastern Europe AND [emphasis mine] Russia in NATO. Such an idea is anathema to the Establishments in Russia and the USA and many other countries. But the views it puts forth offer as much rich insight as any other view on the subject. For my own part, I embrace diversity of views just as much as I abhor political correctness [lowercase mine]. Thank you for your time, and for the work that you do.
Bart Etter
Kaunas, Lithuania

P.S. - Unlike some of your detractors, I am NOT anonymous. All the same, I'd just as soon you did NOT publish my email address if you decide to publish this. Only PAID contributors deserve THAT much grief! :-)

Dear Bart,
What do you mean, "apochryphal" t-shirt? Bart, big guy, we're not joking about these goddamn t-shirts. They're real. Look, I'll prove it to you. I'll go get one...Okay, I'm back. I'm holding it in my right hand. With my left, I'm unbuttoning my pants. Now I'm pulling them down, now they're down, and now I'm wiping my ass with the t-shirt. Look, do you see that brown streak? You couldn't see a streak like that if the t-shirt didn't exist. You'd just see right through to the floor.

I LIKE TO DRINK BEER

Hi racists !

Can you send me a bunch of T-shirts. I have heard that they are perfect to use as toilette paper.

What do you know about Russia when you don't even know soccer like the rest of the world. It was fun to see the US team being humiliated by Iran. It must be difficult not being No 1 in such a famous great sport like soccer. I understand if you want publish this mail.
He he he
Hekan G Hellman

Dear Hakan,
We've just got two words to say to you. "Olaf" and "Palme." That's dead Swedish for "Hey! I've just had the top of my head blown off in downtown Stockholm by some swarthy psycho, and I just realized... I don't have a single fucking bodyguard! Am I Prime Minister of a European nation, or the night shift manager at the Inglewood 7-11, huh?!" Olaf, by the way, was a big lover of soccer, and it's said that he was buried wearing a pair of his favorite cleats. His last, dying words were, "Uh... hel... me... uhhhhhhhhhhh."

BA-A-A-A-A-A-A-A

Dear [sic],
Your site is certainly different from the usual.

Lots of interesting bits.
From a New Zealander.
Rae

Dear Rae,
What's with the terse understatement? You think we're flattered? That by being understated, you actually MEAN what you say more than the other eXholes? Fuck you! Or as you people might say, "Piss off, cahnt."

SAD 'N LONELY

Dear exile!
I really enjoy your web page, and enjoyed your publication while in Moscow last year. In a few weeks I'll be returning there and was wondering if your newspapers have the same comprehensive guide to bars, clubs, and restaraunts. I was also wondering if you know of any resources for finding Russian chicks between the ages 0f 16-18? It seems as though Russians reject dating with men less than five years older than them on principle. That sad fact makes 19 year old college exile followers resolve to scoring like the nefarius Johnny Chen!!! Even if you know of penpal companies, that would be cool too. They say the best way to learn a language is to sleep with your dictionary.
-Matt

Dear Matt,
You just bummed us out with that email. If our newspaper is appealing to cheerful, half-literate, hairy-palmed nerds like you, then we're doing something wrong. We're going to close down and start all over.