#12 | July 17 - 30, 1997  

by Abram Kalashnikov

The American comedian Richard Pryor once questioned America's traditional fear of Russia. "I don't know what the big deal about Russia is," he said. "I mean, if a Russian walk down the street, and he don't got that hat on, I don't know who the fuck he is."

Western journalists come up against that problem all the time. In order to sell their stories to the home audience, they go to great lengths, when they describe Russians, to put that hat on so that their readers can recognize them. It is a technique that Soviet journalists writing about America used to use; in every interview with an American, accessories ranging from cheeseburgers to burning crosses tended to figure heavily in the portraits, to help prevent communist readers from mistaking Americans for human beings like themselves.

Western journalists find the hat especially necessary when they toss in "man on the street" quotes to flesh out their text. No Russian mentioned in a Western article who doesn't have a government title can afford to be without his "hat"- otherwise, the folks at home won't know why he's being quoted. Michael Gordon of the New York Times demonstrates in a recent article in which he interviews Moscow housewife "Tanya Yesin" about housing subsidies:

"It is absolutely absurd," she sniffed, as she offered a cup of steaming tea and black currant jam to a visitor [which one? Gordon? Is he afraid of admitting to drinking tea? A.K.]. "They have to raise our wages and salaries if they want us to pay more."

Would Gordon write the same way at home? For instance: "I totally disagree with the OJ verdict," said Hick McFlabb, as he munched from a plate of crispy fried chicken and stared proudly out the window at his Ford Pickup truck. "I think he was probably guilty."

Who knows. Anyway, sometimes even the President needs a "hat," as Reuters proved last week:

"He [Yeltsin] said the water was cold but he warmed up in a Russian 'banya' steam bath, wielding traditional twig switches to invigorate the blood circulation."

So that's what those switches are for! Silly me- all these years I've been beating myself with them, and it turns out that all you need to do is wield them to get the blood flowing. Well, at least the President knows how to use them, and that's reassuring.

When Western journalists leave the hat off, it's usually because they want to write something nice about a Russian. In her recent bio on Boris Nemtsov, Carol J. Williams of the Los Angeles Times made sure there were no hats within a 10-mile radius of the Deputy Prime Minister, as it was important for her to convey Nemtsov's traditionally non-Russian qualities of honesty, youth, and charisma:

"NIZHNI NOVGOROD- He calls himself a kamikaze, and, indeed, many expect the brash Boris Yefimovich [Williams leaves the hat off but makes sure to keep the sidelocks on; subsequent Russians are identified in the article without patronymics] Nemtsov to quickly crash and burn.
"In the four months since he left the helm of this prosperous Volga river reform showcase to become first deputy prime minister in Moscow, the charismatic crusader has taken aim at the corrupt and the greedy who have made post-Soviet Russia a vast and terrifying gangland.
"The 37-year old former physicist has presided over the first promising signs of economic recovery since Russia jettisoned communism, and, to the cheers of the struggling masses, has waged war against government fat cats junketing in imported luxury cars and chartered planes."

I think I must not be getting out enough since I bought that VCR from Andrew Kramer of the San Francisco Chronicle. Where are these cheering, struggling masses Williams refers to? My own street is pretty quiet. In fact, I would be content with this story so far if there were one person somewhere in Russia who was actually physically cheering Nemtsov- someone besides Ms. Williams, that is. I somehow doubt it. She goes on:

"'First of all, kamizazes don't always end up dead,' Nemtsov said, fixing his interlocutor [maybe it was Williams Gordon saw receiving steaming tea and jam!] with the wide-eyed ebony gaze that has made him the darling of Russian politics, at least among Russian women."

Good thing Williams is at least clear on Nemtsov's good looks. She's a little murkier on his record against corruption. Interestingly, her belated effort to stick a fig-leaf of a "hat" on Nemtsov in order to prove her pro-Russian-ness ends in spectacular failure:

"Nemtsov was among the first to bare his personal finances, disclosing ownership of a two-room apartment here, a 5 year-old Russian-made Zhiguli compact, savings of $1,300 and a 1996 income of less than $16,000."

Never mind that Nemtsov's anti-corruption drive has widely been accepted to be a fraud: Williams forgot to check the trunk of Nemtsov's "Russian-made" Zhiguli. According to Kommersant Daily, Nemtsov's declaration actually listed an income of 853 million rubles, or more than $150,000.

My award for this issue, for Best Unsubstantiated Assertion, goes to John Grimond of the Economist. In an article in which hats are jettisoned for antennae as Russians from the town of Vorkuta become "Vorkutians," Grimond spends more than 1,000 words describing the horror of life in the arctic city. Vorkuta boasts "black smoke which belches into the air," "swirling coal dust," mafia wars, stalled factories, and a population so poor that they can't even afford to have sex- "I wouldn't have the 5,000 rubles for a packet of condoms," one Vorkutian is quoted as saying. In the second-to-last paragraph, we are still in a land of "excess vodka and early death"- "In Vorkuta," said one local, "we have twelve months of winter. The rest is summer."

Then, suddenly, in the last graph, Grismond defies the laws of rhetoric and changes his mind, seemingly without any reason.

"Vorkuta...voted to re-elect President Boris Yeltsin last year...It would not back him today. Is reform therefore doomed to fail? This survey would argue that, despite all the evidence of misery and despair, it is not. It may even succeed."

Well John, I take my hat off to that.