Issue #24/49, October 10 - 22, 1998  

By Kevin McElwee

Now that the overwhelming majority of Western journalists has finally warmed to the idea of referring to Russia's current situation as a crisis, it seems we are left with little choice but to up the ante again. We're gonna get Biblical on all your asses with the scoop of the millennium: the apocalypse is coming, and it's starting right here.

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel..."

So begins the Book of Revelations, whose stated purpose is nothing less than to prophesy the final battle between good and evil, the world's fiery end, and other miscellaneous sub-adventures of the human comedy.

I probably would never have given the matter another thought were it not for that section of War and Peace in which Pierre-fresh from a crash course in Freemasonry-becomes convinced that the prophesied final battle is now at hand. He starts dabbling in apocalyptic numerology, often with little concern for the soundness of his logic or even the correctness of the spellings he's using in his manipulations. Split rational and theological hairs if you like, but to Pierre the numbers relate a distinct message: Napoleon is the anti-Christ, and Pierre himself is the chosen one whose destiny is to defeat the dark prince.

Anyone who has seen Naked is aware of the part about Wormwood (Chernobyl) poisoning one-third of the earth's waters (VIII: 11), but the coincidences don't stop there.

Could the four angels let loose from the river Euphrates (IX: 14) be connected with our friend Saddam? And what about all that bizarre blowjob imagery with the "book" that tastes sweet in the mouth but becomes bitter in the belly (X: 9), some lukewarm person being "spued" out of someone's mouth, and especially that sword-mouthed avenging angel who hates the doctrine of "Nicolaitanes," i.e., an anagram of "Clinton" and some superfluous vowels which we'll just ignore (II: 15-16). The only thing missing is a cigar and a certain stained dress.

So we know the end is nigh. But wouldn't it be kind of nice to know the exact date?

First we need to choose a starting point and an effective system. For me, the moment of recognition came the first time I heard that quip about Yeltsin replacing a prime minister who couldn't do anything in five months with one who couldn't do anything in five years. Is this numerical parallel just a coincidence, or could events be following some externally dictated schematic?

Let's take a closer look. Viktor Chernomyrdin became Prime Minister in late 1992 and was dismissed this past March-a term of just over five years. Sergei Kiriyenko was appointed to the post on March 23 and dismissed on August 23-exactly five months.

Biblical scholars will no doubt find it tempting to equate Kiriyenko's five months in office with the so-called "first woe" (IX: 3-11): a swarm of hybrid locusts from deep within the earth with orders to leave grass, plant, and tree alone and hurt only those humans who do not carry God's seal on their foreheads. This torment is ordered to last precisely five months. One could further equate the tormented humans with Russia's oligarchs, who themselves found Kiriyenko's stewardship of the government too oppressive and restricting for their tastes. The locusts are ruled by a king; his name is Abaddon in Hebrew, Apollyon in Greek. A case could be made for identifying this king with Anatoly Chubais.

Based on the precedent provided in the apocalyptic "second woe" (the four angels bound in the river Euphrates are given an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men [IX: 14-16]), it stands to reason that the next term in the series should be approximately five days.

Obviously, this does not correspond to Chernomyrdin's tenure as acting prime minister (which lasted about 17 days), so an alternative interpretation must be found. On the one hand we could argue quite successfully that Chernomyrdin's actual authority had completely disintegrated by the end of the week. Or it could be that Chernomyrdin's return to the government was a smoke-screen meant to disguise some political puppet master who was pulling the strings all along-Boris Berezovsky perhaps. In this case it would be Berezovsky's actual power that had disintegrated after just five days.

The next term in the series should be five hours and that it took place at some point on Friday, August 28. It's difficult to say whom this five hours corresponds to. Chernomyrdin and Berezovsky are again strong possibilities. Not that it matters, as the inevitable disintegration of the receding series tells us that the process would have necessarily played itself out to nothing within the next hour, at which point the government in its current form ceased to exist as an actively working body.

Who or what has been directing the country's true government in the month and a half since August 28? Perhaps even more importantly, is this form of government also subject to some kind of numerical influence?

Forming a rough mental image of the timeline of Russian history, we will probably be tempted to seek out the existence of a similar receding series operating on a larger scale.

First, we must identify the starting point of Russian history, which is not as simple as one might imagine [Rurik, Vladimir, etc.].

By my reckoning, two key events are most directly responsible for the country's uniquely paradoxical soul. One is 1142, the founding of Moscow. The second is the arrival of the Mongols in 1219, an occupation that didn't end for over 200 years, forever separating Russia from the West and setting it on a different course of "development." Assuming the halfway point between these two key events to be the approximate beginning of Russia as we know it, we get 1183.

Various events in Tsarist history could be selected as key transition points, but these all pale in significance compared with the two revolutions of 1917. Subtracting 1183 from 1917, we obtain the total length of Russian Imperial history and the first term in the potential series-734 years. The Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991, yielding a second term of just over 74 years. The similarity between the two terms is eerily reminiscent of the Prime Minister series. The ratio of reduction followed by the series will be approximately 10-to-1.

Based on the precedents of the Revelations second woe series and the Prime Minister series, I will assume that the further reductions will occur according to temporal unit rather than by strict numerical procession (i.e., by the 10-to-1 ratio). Thus, the sequence of increasingly short-lived post-Yeltsin regimes will be as follows: 7 months and 13 days, 7 days and 11 hours, 7 hours and 27 minutes, 7 minutes and 27 seconds, and 7.4 seconds, and so on for about one more second-a second that could very well look like the Book of Revelations itself. Altogether then, post-Yeltsin Russia will last for 7 months, 20 days, 18 hours, 34 minutes, and 35 seconds. In other words, RUSSIA WILL CEASE TO EXIST IN LATE DECEMBER 1999. This would appear to be the point at which "there should be time no longer," as Chapter X of Revelations predicts. Incidentally, it is interesting that the prophesies refer several times to "them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan." This prediction is a striking inversion of the numerous Russian political figures and businessmen who are Jews, and say they are not. And the part about them belonging to the synagogue of Satan would appear to apply to quite a few of the Jewish refuseniks in question. Further proof that Russia's celebrated capacity for doing things backward knows no bounds.

The stark finality of that date seems to confute the conventional wisdom that Russia's collapse will ultimately have little effect on the global economy. So ready or not, prepare to say "zdravstvuite" to Jesus. There's a good chance He's brushing up on His Russian even as we speak.