the eXile - [sic]

Issue #15/96, August 3 - 17, 2000

A COWARD SQUEALS!

Moscow, 1 August 2000

Dear Mark,

Just to set the record straight, of my twelve trips to Chechnya not one of them was on an official Rosiformcenter junket. One was with Maskhadov's presidential guard, two with a car hired from the provisional Chechen government, two with Russian journalists in their own transport, three hitching in with MVD units, one with a Chechen provisional government delegation who gave me a lift on their helicopter, one by train to Gudermes, one with a Chechen driver from Nazran. True, on one ocasion I did talk my way on to a Rosinformcenter day trip to Staraya Sunzha, but not as part of the official herd. For details, take a look at my piece in Brill's Content.

Cheers

Owen Matthews

Newsweek

Dear Mr. Owen,

Vijay Maheswhari replies: "That's really cool that you got something published in Brill's, man. I've been speaking to an editor there, and they're really into the stuff I'm working on. Mark's just jealous of real journalists like you and me. I went to Chechnya too, man, and it was awesome, like Blade Runner or something. Let's meet up sometime soon in the Baltics. The girls there aren't bitches like the Russian girls. We can score model-level babes there much easier than here."

DYORK

Hi from overseas reader.

Reading your "bardak" section I was puzzled by the word "dyev" mentioned there multiple times. It can be deduced from the context that the word somehow designates females; however, its meaning remained unclear. Having found what it stands for I thought you might enjoy a couple of guesses we came up with, like "Desperate Young Ex-Females" or 'Do You Ever Vote?" I'd like to mention that being Russian and frequently using transliteration, I never use "y" in "dyevushki" and I've never seen anybody do this.

Regards to adored-by-all-dyevs Mr. Vijay Maheshwari.

Sincerely

Yuriy Shevchenko, PhD

Dear Dr. Shevchenko,

Good thing you're putting that PhD of yours to valuable work--you should apply for another grant to study the "y" in "dyev" question. Ah, what a shame Russia had to lose a talent like you to the U.S. Brain drain indeed!

RIP VAN WINKIE

Dear Dr. Dolan,

Hi. I just came across your piece "Do Fries Come with this Tripe?" [issue 92] and thought it was brilliant. Thomas Friedman really gets under my skin. He came and spoke in Seattle and I questioned him about his editorial saying we should bomb Yugoslavia back to 1389. Unfortunately, I got angry and cited facts that, while true, allowed him to dismiss me as one of those "conspiracy theorists." I wish I had your wit, as he really needed to be put in his place as the ridiculous person he is. It was really sad at this lecture -- people were eating up his banal theories and namedropping, without a clue as to the destructiveness of the interests he defends. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for confirming my opinion of Friedman while also making me laugh, which is hard to do when you are coming to realize that your country is an evil empire.

Cheers.

Dwight Van Winkle

Dear Mr. Van Winkle,

Do you realize that you have one of the stupidest names in the English-speaking world? How does that make you feel? Probably pretty angry. Angry enough to stalk a lead-brained corporate dick-sucker like Friedman, right? But why stop at stalking, Van Winkle, when you have the means in your very hands to, er, put him to sleep for eternity? Put Friedman to sleep, and you'll earn a cool 1000 bucks from the folks at the eXile. And a Roundeye T-shirt.

ANOTHER SAD UKRAINIAN

Dear Editors,

In your response to my letter you wrote:

"Dear Baibai, Our prediction: in 10 years, you_ll learn to spell _proletariat_ correctly."

That's "Babai" boys.

Why is it that Russians and Russophils such as yourselves can't help but distort others' languages. But what can one expect from those speaking a language which is essentially an ebonics version of Ukrainian. In a letter to his friend Maksymovych, the Ukrainian author Mykola Hohol (the corrupted version of his name, Nikolai Gogol, can only remind me of say a black man "aksing me fo' fitty cent") wrote about "staru babu Moskvu" where "krim shchiv ta matukiv nichoho ne pochuyesh".

Of course Hohol unlike you guys couldn't appreciate the joys of fucking teenage Russian girls up the ass.

As for Limonov - that clown and wasted pseudo-talent - his exercises at revolutions will come to nothing. Russia has always been ruled by a shifting horde, whether Mongol or Romanov or "Soviet". Intellectual degenerates such as Trotsky, Bukharin, etc (and lesser creatures such as Limonov) ultimately disappear once their usefulness has passed.

It's funny how these shifts occur. My friends from the old pre-90's elite complain contemptiously about the total lack of class of New Russians, their violence, etc. in a tone I'm sure was echoed about their own anscestors by exiled White Guardists in Paris and the West following the Revolution.

This political fact is of course unfortunate because 1000 empty-eyed, fat and bloated, banal consumer-driven Americans are not worth one decent Russian paren'.

the best,

Babai

Dear Baibai,

Sure Gogol was a Ukrainian. And did you know that Jesus was black? A black, disabled lesbian. Didn't exactly walk on water as wheel on water. While munching Cleopatra's box. [S]He's supposedly living on some island right now with Bruce Lee and Jim Morrison. And Hohol. And while it may be arguable that 1000 fat etc. Americans aren't worth one decent Russian paren', it's also true that the entire nation of Ukraine isn't worth the market capitalization value of one single mid-cap NASDAQ company. As the West might say to your sorry homeland, "Babai!".