#8 | May 22 - June 4, 1997  

by Abram Kalashnikov

I have often wondered why so many newspapers are called "the something-or-other Times." A scholar might argue that the name ascends to the classic moan -O tempora, o mores! Staffers of the newspapers themselves have at various times contended that it is merely a misspelling of "dimes" which underpaid copy editors missed. Masochists see it as a barely disguised plea: "Tie Me, Sweetheart."

One might think it impossible to beat Russian newspaper names for stupidity. Take, for example, Komsomolskaya Pravda, which means "the Truth of the Communist Youth Union." The newspaper is still proud of the name despite the demise of the Komsomol and the awkwardness of publishing anything but the truth under such a masthead. Or think about Segodnya, or Today ("I read it in yesterday's Today.") But some Times-based newspaper names are even more baffling. Take, for instance, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. A literal-minded person would interpret that word combination to mean "the moments when someone calls for the body of Christ," but in fact the newspaper mostly concerns itself with news from a particular part of Texas. Consider also the Sunday Times, which writes about things that happened on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Publications that have the word "time" in their names differ radically from each other. One might even think they have nothing in common except that element of their mastheads. But in fact, there is one other major similarity: the way these publications cover Russia. From London to New York to LA they use the same mocking, patronizing tone. The same feature stories get done by their reporters at different times, but from the same angle. Everyone has done "Magnitogorsk: the Rectum of the Universe" or "The Filthy New Rich Who Can Afford What I, an American, Can't Afford."

Recently, the LA Times decided to break with the tradition of doing the same stories from Moscow that all the other Times do. It ran someone else's product instead - the Associated Press' take on "Downtown Moscow: Former Communist Citadel Embracing Commerce."

"Across from Lenin's mausoleum in Red Square sits the reborn GUM shopping center, whose bright signs for Christian Dior and Levi's rival the red stars still atop the Kremlin towers," AP's Maura Reynolds writes. "The transformation is impressive but not yet complete. Remnants of Soviet times mix oddly with the new consumer trade. A few hundred yards from Red Square, a statue of Karl Marx still proclaims, Proletariat of the World-Unite. Across the street, an electronic billboard flashes ads for Swiss watches and slot machines."

Everyone knows the graffiti-covered statue. People hoping to "complete" the transformation of Moscow's center from a Communist stronghold into a respectable shopping area regularly inscribe it with slogans like "Anarchy Rules" and "F***." But it would take more than that for Moscow to make the grade in Ms Reynolds' eyes. The statue and the Kremlin stars would have to go down, and Lenin's tomb should sport billboards. Then the place would finally be sufficiently Westernized to resemble Moscow, Idaho. And once that happened, the AP would close its Moscow bureau and Ms Reynolds would go home and give the poor Commies a break.

But until that blessed day Red Square sometimes hosts holdovers from the Soviet era, like the Victory Day parade. "To the rolling strains of a military band and the thundering march of thousands of goose-stepping soldiers, Russia's elite yesterday turned out to mark the nation's victory over Hitler, and also to ponder its military decline," writes Moscow correspondent Richard Beeston in the Times of London. "Although the soldiers on parade were well drilled and smartly turned out, the display paled by comparison with previous anniversaries, when the city streets shook with the rumble of tanks and the air vibrated with the roar of jets: gaps in the ceremony had to be filled with incongruous ballroom dancers and folk-singers who pranced uneasily between the serried ranks of troops."

Poor Russia. It does not have enough "smartly turned out" men in its 1.7 million-strong military to fill Red Square. All its tanks have been sold to private farmers to be turned into tractors, and all its jets have been shot down by handgun-toting Chechen guerrillas. All this miserable nation has to show the world is ballroom dancers and folk singers. And, of course, the real reason Yeltsin and his entourage turned out for the celebration was to ponder the military's decline.

Thank the Moscow mayor who dug such a huge hole in the middle of Manezh Square that tanks would have to plow over the construction site to get to Red Square.

The West has always been impressed by shows of Russia's military might, and there have always been plenty of talented parade organizers to put on these shows. Ex-defense minister Pavel Grachev did an especially good job two years ago. Tanks crawled and jets roared just as the Russian military suffered defeat after defeat in Chechnya. Now that that war is over and the nation is trying to project a more peaceful image, the jaded Mr. Beeston is not impressed. Tanks in the streets-even when they are only part of a parade-tend to make members of a bored press corps feel as though they are reporting from a war theater and not just a dirty city with shopping malls and ads for Swiss watches.

The only thing that can awaken Western reporters from their lethargy is a good Russian screw-up. Awakened, they produce stories like the recent one in Time magazine (written, of course, by some bigwig in New York named Jeffrey Kluger, with a Moscow correspondent getting just a credit line at the bottom of the story).

"American astronaut Jerry Linenger was under no illusion that he was flying the world's most reliable spacecraft," Kluger writes. "He was nonetheless startled not long ago when it suddenly burst into flame." This is about a fire on the Mir orbital station, which "has been falling apart at an alarming rate, and the cash-poor Russians have been unable to do much about it."

How about a lead like this, then: "The American astronauts aboard the Challenger entertained the illusion that they were flying a reliable spacecraft. But not for long. And wealthy Americans were unable to do much about that."

Callous? Sure. But then, relatives of the Challenger crew do not read this column, and Russians do not as a rule read Kluger. Who goes on to say this: "Despite some successes, some in Washington are wondering whether it's safe for any American to set foot aboard the rickety ship." And who cares about the Russians, Germans and others on Mir. The important thing is that Americans are safe, like that day above Cape Canaveral.

This week's award-for The Most Profound Idea-goes to LA Times columnist Randy Harvey for a commentary on the recent murder of the head of the Russian Hockey Federation. "It would take a book to even begin to sort out who's behind the murders, kidnapping and extortion," writes Harvey, who goes on to explain that he made some phone calls on the story but got no answers worth writing down. "In a few paragraphs, all I can hope to convey is that even intense playoff games such as the one Tuesday night at the Pond between the Ducks and Detroit are merely that, games, to the eight Russian players involved."

I wonder what it would take to prove to Americans that hockey is just a game.