Issue #06/61, March 25 - April 7, 1999  

LIFE'S A PEACH

[sic],
The problem ain't so much the peach, but where it was grown. Let's say this particular fruit's anguished loss of faith in, well, everything appeared in Russian, authored by Maksim Persikov of Taganrog. How would it read? How many eyebrows would it raise? And whose?

While I essentially agree with your objections, it seems that the real issue lies elsewhere. Sure, Peach is a lousy seer. Then again, pick your event, sit down with Lexus/Nexus, and you'll find that prognostication and intelligence have about as much in common as education and NCAA basketball. Somehow related, but something basic doesn't tally. As for condemning all citizens of the Russian Federation to decades of misery after learning a few greedheads at the Central Bank decided to dabble in scumbaggery with the freely convertible coffers ... well, I'd alter the orphanage scenario a bit. Sure, the staff was whacking off to home-made snuff flicks for years, but now that I know they were cooking the books, hell with the tots. Let em rot.

The real problem here is perspective. I don't know who the hell Jean MacKenzie is, but I've heard the phrase "dark and savage" applied to Russia countless times from people who don't know a word of English and have never been za rubezhom. (Actually, "ignorant and brutal" is a more accurate translation.) Are they Russophobes? If they were Americans and we were speaking English, I might use the word. But in Russian, the concept of Russophobia crops up too often on the pages of such august publications as Zavtra, where it's commonly imputed to people whose last names end in -man, -gart, or -shtein.

In a perfect world, none of this would matter. But as it stands, perspective is all-important. I grew up in a Russian-speaking home and all of my ancestry goes back to the grand old Russian Empire, but I was born and came of age in America. If my family had stayed here, and as Daniil Denisovich Khimich I said "we Russians will never achieve anything until we develop a sense of respect for the individual and acquire a work ethic," I would simply be continuing a certain tradition of the Russian intelligentsia. But if Daniel Kimmage, lucky holder of an American passport, says "you will never achieve anything until ..." that's very different.

Take the eXile. Writing in Itogi, Denis Dragunskii called it "insulting", "offensive", and a couple of other things (if memory serves; I don't have the issue at hand). Is he right? There is no answer, unfortunately. The eXile relies on a variety of English-language humor that doesn't translate into Russian very well. Doesn't mean it's necessarily insulting and offensive, but it can very, very easily spark misunderstandings.

Don't get me wrong - polemics are good, clean fun. And I'm always pleased to see someone beat up on the Moscow or Petersburg Times (they both remind me of college newspapers at some hypothetical Expat U. - stultifying mediocrity leavened with self-importance and incompetence). But if you'll forgive me, skewering a dipshit is easy (if satisfying). The perspective stuff is a harder nut. No answers here, unfortunately. Just thought I'd bother you with an opinion.

Best wishes, Daniel

Dear Daniel,
"Perspective stuff"? Are you joking? What is this, Physics 1A?! Are you the Carl Sagan of the Russian diaspora? And don't think that playing the "I'm a Russian, therefore I get out of argument free" card will freeze us in our tracks. We have reason to be suspicious. Chances are, with a name like "Daniel", you're a rootless cosmopolitan, so everything you say must be taken with a grain of salt.

eX-PEACH-MENT!

Dear Mr. Ames:
Once again, thanks this time for you piece on Peach. Although I have not read the Moscow Times since leaving some five years, I am only too familiar with the same journalist hack-pack beahviour and the MT's own blend of completely unoriginal writing with its weird, condescending, and feigned lighthearted cooing and oohing and aahhing at "those wacky Russians in the cages." The crap about the anti-semitism is particularly annoying since I remember that story back in the late 1980s, the burgeoning neo-Nazi movement that was Pamiat' etc. etc. Let alone the school-marmish finger waving "that's it, that's the last straw" tone that always accompanies these pieces, threatening to cut off all "aid" etc., as if that aid and the presence of people like Peach were the last shining things in that dark and savage country.

M. Reynolds

Dear M,
The thought just sprang in our minds... what if Gary Peach looks like Marilyn Manson, only with short, groomed hair and freshly-pressed J. Crew slacks? That would explain a lot, wouldn't it?

PEACH FUZZ

(The following screed was posted on Johnson's Russia List in response to Mark Ames' "Peaches 'N Hate" article)

Like Mark Ames I was surprised by Gary Peach's writing off all of Russia for 30-40 years. Nevertheless, I'd like to defend Peach from Ames's ad hominum attack, even if I agree with Ames in some ways.

The FIMACO scandal that Peach wrote about is a very complex matter. I feel a bit sorry for journalists who must explain this difficult material to the general reader in a short column.

Peach's reaction that "if the entire system is so [...] hopelessly corrupt [...], then let Russia wallow in its own misery for another century. The country deserves no better," is certainly understandable in this context. Corruption in the central bank is the worst possible corruption - at least for a financial analyst - and the cover-up of the scandal only makes it worse. Peach's admittedly emotional piece seems to simply be an overreaction by somebody who believed in a Russian economic miracle being on the horizon, but who has seen this belief smashed.

In short, the article could have been more professional. Ames, however, sets himself up as the arbiter of journalistic professionalism in Moscow and follows with a personal attack on Peach. Ames lecturing on journalistic professionalism? Unbelievable, but true. Mark, please leave the serious work to Taibbi. Ames's goal in his articles in The eXile seems to be to tell his readers how to get drunk and get laid in Moscow. This goal may not be very challenging, but it fits Ames's talents very well. Venturing outside of his special area, Ames only shows his own unprofessionalism.

Pete Ekman (Peter D. Ekman is professor of finance at the American Institute of Business and Economics in Moscow)

Dear Pete,
Speaking about goals, was it always your goal to be a "professor" at the shady "institute" you teach at? Let's face it: a part-time sosh lecturer at Acorn State sounds more credible, and promising, than your job title. Our advice to you is to do what your parents did: get a real job, sir!

CONSPIRACY THEORY

Dear editor,
I wonder: Who are you paying to? Apparently you are not harassed by the authorities nor by contract killers. You have really published a lot of scandal and abuses MK would never dream of. And yet - no reaction !! Reaction - I mean, the Russian way. Limonov doesn't seem to be all that powerful. Then you must be an FSB project, really. Yeah, contrary to whatever you claim - your purpose is perhaps to make the Americans think - "They are still there... mmm... means the place is REALLY tolerant and all that".

Tovarish polkovnik Taibbi! That must be it.

Kirill

Dear Kirill,
Actually, we're Mossad agents acting on behalf of the worldwide Zionist conspiracy. The hours are tough, but the pay's pretty decent.

PRATT 'N ALL THAT

Dear Editors:
Could you kindly pass this advice along to Stuart Pratt:

Dear Stuart:
Yeah, yeah I know opinions are like STD's: everybody gets them and nobody can keep them to themselves, but you need some assistance. First of all, what kind of a self-respecting expat dates a girl named "Amy"? She sounds American for fuck's sake. Please don't tell me you brought her with. You need a young, supple nymph called Tatiana the Titfucker who doesn't even realize that men are capable of cooking or cleaning.

However, if you truly love this ache in the asspipe girlfriend and insist on continuing your affaire d'amour, you should brush up on your skills. If your lady can even consider allowing you to, much less "making" you, sleep on the couch... well, you just aren't doing your job swinging the meat. Take your ass down to one of Moscow's finest walkers of the ulitsa and have a few afternoon training sessions to learn how to properly pleasure your woman. Then, the next time she mentions the couch, you spin her around, bend her over it and wax that ass like Rain Dance. Maybe then she'll remember why she's living with her boyfriend instead of a fucking parakeet.

Failing that, put her on a plane. Then, you could shave down that beard into a Lenin goat and go trolling for sturdy, old communist babes. Or, you could just screw your fucking head on and use that semi-prime space in that semi-newspaper for what it was intended: pulling dyevs!!!

trying to help,
Raymond

Dear Raymond,
Stuart Pratt replies:
1. I happen to think that "Amy" is a beautiful name rich in meaning (it comes from the word for "love" and "soul" in French), and I resent you taking umbrage with her name.

6. My beard is not a topic for discussion.

KEEP AWAY

Dear eXile,
Knock 'em dead! It's like Russia was some American experiment gone haywire because it didn't come out the way we wanted it to do. It wasn't our experiment, nor should it ever be. And these so highly qualified scientists knew so much about Russia before they got there, didn't need to make any observations of what was really there and when looking at the current set of results they decided that 20/20 was their vision alone--do they even look at all? Can they see? Have they opened their chrome domes while they have been in Russia -- do they know any more now?

Keep on, keeping on,
Stuart Ferency

Dear Stuart,
It seems someone's been spiking your coffee with bongwater, and it's stinking up your prose. Only that could explain a sign-off like "keep on, keeping on". Keep away, please.

LEGGO MY TAGO

Dear Mr. Ames,
Aren't you quaint yourself? If you like Russia and I don't have anything against Russia then why do you have to insult me by calling me a citizen of "quaint little city-state like Estonia". From which quaint country are you from?

Tago Holsting

Dear Tago,
Ames comes from America and lives in Russia. One conquered you and stomped your people's balls for 300 years, and the other blew precious tax dollars to help free you. So sit down, shuttup and be grateful that he didn't refer to your country as "that ridiculous Finnish whorehouse."

CRAZY IN CANADA

I love the shit you do! Can you send me a ticket so that I can come work with you instead of rotting in Canada for the rest of my life. I can report/edit/etc. and my stepfather is a crazy Slovak who made me drink Slivovica when I was a child.

Thanks,
Jeff

Dear Jeff,
If your stepfather had done something truly crazy like touched you in places that made you ashamed and confused, then we might consider you. Come up with a better story and get back to us.

TURNING JAPANESE

Dear Exile,
What's wrong with you guys? Is Johnny Chen back yet? When you start liking Scooter, I know something's up. I'm sure the Estonian elections are a great story, but that's not what you're here for. The readers have outdone you again. You should be writing stories about how "they all swallowed" (which is a lie - they rushed to the bathroom and spat). If you want to write for the Moscow Times why don't you send off your resume - they need someone with a foot in the real world. I'm fucking going to Japan. The girls may be short, but at least they're not all called Yulia, and they buy their own drinks.

Shtoshto

Dear Shtoshto,
Yeah, but the girls there also have sideways snappers, so you can have 'em.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, [sic] IT TO ME!

I don't get it people. If you think that Russia suck that much, then just leave! Go back to where you came from, and never ever come back!!! And you know what - this country and us, it's people, won't even ever miss you at all. If you don't respect the country you live in, don't expect any respect to you nor to your shitty magazin from it's people.

Mud Pizduk'

Dear Mud,
How can we respect a guy who took the time out to write a letter to a newspaper complaining that he isn't being respected. Mud, you're a classic bitch. Go drink a Pepsi.