Author: Dane Lowell
Submitted by: redadmin

Chapt. 10 - 1857 words
Columns :: Key to happiness, but not on the table!

MOSCOW, Oct. 4, 2003 -- Comments:   Ratings:

Misha gets his Czech visa
A lot of money demands
Sending money to Misha via WU
Superstitions



MOSCOW, Oct. 4, 2003 -- When I tried to hand Misha the 0 bill, he wouldn’t take it.

“Put it on the table,” he instructed.

This happens every time I give him money, but it’s so irrational I always forget: In Russia, you must never hand anybody money directly. It’s bad luck.

Even venders often refuse to take money unless you put it on the tray.

Nobody seems to remember what will happen to you, just don’t do it.

The 0 was the first step in Misha’s solution to the Misha Problem. He’s going to go to the Czech Republic and is never coming back.

Maybe.


I am not happy about this. In fact, I am sad. I still love him. I am afraid of what might happen to him. Despite his 26 years, he’s as naive as a child and very vulnerable. But at the same time, my sadness is tempered with some relief.

Misha has been high maintenance and expensive. He has had countless emergencies that could only be resolved with money. And I’m still not sure where it’s all gone.

This 0 emergency arose because in order to get a visa to the Czech Republic he said he had to go to his birthplace, St. Peterburg, and get documents. He’s already gotten those documents for his international passport, so why must he get them again?

But one is reluctant to probe irrationalities too deeply in Russia, especially when one isn’t fluent in the language. Russia is, after all, held together with multiple layers of inane red tape; and just because it’s pointless doesn’t mean it’s not necessary. So it seems sort of useless to replay the “why” button. For one thing, how do you know when you’ve got the real answer?

So I gave him the 0.

That ate another hole in the reserve I was trying to build, which was first tapped to give Shurik 0 to get his international passport last weekend. I had planned to use that to buy groceries today, but what the hell? I’d just popped into my pocket from a private lesson last night, so that would go for groceries.


And then Misha called with another emergency:

“My papers are taking longer than I thought. I have to stay in St. Peterburg another week. I need 2000 rubles. Can you send it tomorrow by Western Union?”

“Misha!” was the only response I could muster.

“What else can I do?” I could hear him shrugging.

And what else could I do? Who wants to be responsible for Misha’s not getting his papers so he can emigrate to the Czech Republic and find eternal work, relationships, and happiness? Not me. Even the real likelihood of his actually being able to emigrate is virtually nil. But I don’t want to be the cork in the bottle.

“How soon can you send it?”

“I’m not even sure you can send money by Western Union within the country,” I replied.

“Yes, you can. You did it last year.”

“I’m still not sure. I’ll know by noon. Call me at noon.”

That would give me time to clean up the kitchen and go to the bank and send the money and be back before beautiful “Guess-What” Volodya came for his lesson at 1 p.m.


Fifteen minutes later came a call from my 40-some-year-old student Valera, who has been on vacation and hasn’t been to a lesson for a couple of months. “Can I come tomorrow at 10:30?”

Well, there goes my morning run to the bank.

And then “Kreutz”: “Can I come to see you for a few minutes at 10?”

And Saturday’s supposed to be my laid-back day!

So Valera showed up early and had just settled into the kitchen table when the house phone rang again. Kreutz.

I ushered Kreutz into the living room, where Sasha was still sleeping. Sasha and I had slept there last night because Misha’s in St. Pete and Yegor had gone to “The Three Monkeys” gay night club. Kreutz and Sasha had a brief fling a few months ago and are still close friends, so I didn’t feel any hostess guilt in leaving them unattended.

“I only have a minute,” I told Kreutz as I led him to a chair. “What do you need?”

“I have gastritis. I have to see a doctor for tests. Can you ‘lend’ me 1000 rubles?”

Am I going to say no? I love Kreutz. At 24, he’s absolutely adorable – sweet, intelligent, conscientious, industrious, and he’s got the biggest most beautiful uncut cock I’ve ever seen. He did a strip dance on our kitchen table one drunken night. I’ve lusted after him ever since, but it’s been a one-way street. We’re very affectionate with each other, but he’s got a streak of young American in him: Or maybe it’s the German from which the “Kreutz” came. Anyway, he won’t have sex with me.

Anyway, there went the rest of the grocery money. That means another dip into the reserve.

Fortunately, Valera paid me 100 bucksi in advance, so we’ll eat till Tuesday, which is payday.


There are no Western Union offices in Moscow. All WU transactions are handled by banks. So I wheedled Anton -- whom I had told last night it was none of his business when he asked why Misha was asking for money -- into calling Alfa-Bank. Yes, they send rubles to other cities within Russia.

After Kreuts left, I asked Sasha if he could send the money to Misha for me, since Valera was still here, and Vlad would arrive at 1:00.

It turns out that Sasha hadn’t brought his passport with him – only his student ID. However, since it was my money, he reasoned, he should be able to use my passport to send it. Sasha is not only a native, but intelligent as well, and should have known better, especially since it seemed a sane and customer-oriented thing for a bank to do. That should have told him it was impossible.

When he returned two hours later, he conceded defeat: “You’ll have to send it yourself.”

Despite the pride it takes in calling itself a Western bank in the American model, Alfa-Bank remains hopelessly Russian. Last time Western Union and I crossed paths, it took me an hour to send 0 to Vanya in the Crimea near Yalta. On that occasion, Misha first carefully filled out my address in Russian, the amount, and Vanya’s address in Russian, and we waited in line until it was our turn to be processed, at which time the 200-pound babushka bellowed that we were supposed to fill out the addresses in English. No signs, of course, so that each aspiring customer had to go through the same infuriating bullshit.

So after we had properly re-filled the addresses in English, the money-gram was processed, and we were then told to go stand in another interminable line where we could eventually pay.

After that we returned to the first line for her to write the transaction number.

And then we had mis-spelled Dima’s last name, so we had to return the next day and do it all over!

Maybe that’s your punishment for not handing money to someone directly: You have to send a Western Union money-gram!

An American WU office that took an hour to send 0 would probably lose its franchise. But this was standard modus operandi for this “American style bank.”

I think the red tape and paper work have woven their way so deeply into their day-to-day existence over the centuries that Russians are reluctant to entirely forego it. Like I was when my ex-business partner and lover first tried to pry my fingers from the IBM Selectric onto a “word-processor” 15 years ago. “But I’m comfortable with the typewriter!”

If they got rid of the red tape, what would they do with all the free time?

But today there was no line and we had experience. It took only 15 or 20 minutes.


Superstition is as integral a part of the average Russian’s life as red tape. I think it’s because their life traditionally has been so unpredictable and their fate so dependent on the vagaries of forces ’way beyond anything they have any control over that the only thing that makes any sense is something as senseless as their lives.

Even most educated and middle-class Russians, for instance, are still really freaked out if you stash an empty beer or vodka bottle on the table. If you’re a newcomer and you do the unthinkable, you’re condescendingly forgiven, but the bottle will disappear from the table faster than your money in a Russian casino.

The penalty for placing an empty bottle on the table isn’t exactly spelled out, but it’s darkly whispered about, and involves very bad things. Death has even been hinted at. Interestingly, the curse doesn’t extend to beer cans, only bottles; and not to soft drink bottles, only alcohol bottles.

“In America, we always put our empty bottles on the table, and very bad things don’t happen to us,” I patiently point out.

And then I remember the 2004 election.


The taboos are endless. Don’t leave keys on the table.

Never, never, never try to shake hands with anybody across the threshold. It’ll cause you to have an argument. And if I get jerked across the threshold one more time by a superstitious Russian, the argument is going to start earlier than the superstition envisioned.

The no-no extends, of course, to kissing across interior thresholds. So no matter how eager you are to get at him, you must never kiss him before you’re fully into the room. After all, we wouldn’t want to have an unseemly argument before you’ve even got his trou unzipped, would we!


Nobody whistles in Russia. They believe that if you whistle, you will lose money. Turns out there’s a logical basis for this that goes back to the days of highway robbers. Seems the signal for accomplices was a shrill whistle, so if you heard Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs whistling whilst they worked, you could brace for the worst.

It’s probably just as well that too many crowns and bridges have demolished my once trilling warbler. I might be poorer than I am.

Interestingly enough, Russians have no fear of the number 13, nor does walking under a ladder pose any anxiety. But a black cat across your path will bring you as much bad luck in Moscow as it will in Seattle.

If you forget something and have to re-enter your home, you must immediately look in a mirror at the risk of dire bad luck. And if you’re going on a trip, you should sit quietly for a few seconds before you leave. It will assure a successful journey

Yegor says his grandmother used to always make the Orthodox sign of the cross on the door after she had locked it, to keep it safe. Yegor used to laugh at her.

He inherited the apartment when she died. The mafia managed to get it from him – no doubt because he didn’t make the sign of the cross. But is that superstition or religion? Is there a difference?

Anyway, it’s why he came to Moscow. Whatever dark spirits were responsible for this, we both want to thank them.