MOSCOW, March 8, 2005 – Women’s Day.
One of the major holidays of the year; for women, probably second only to Russian New Year’s. They are showered with gifts, flowers, complements, praise – and even occasionally, appreciation.
It is also like Christmas for the ubiquitous Moscow flower venders, who peddle from 10 to 100 times their usual monthly sales. The in-laws of one of my students, Tanya, have been growing tulips in their apartment as a lucrative side-business since the ’80s. Every year they sell them all on the Women’s Day holiday.
Some up-scale flower boutiques take their final orders for Women’s Day on the 31st of December so they’ll be sure they have enough flowers to fill the orders.
The holiday stretched this year for three days – Sunday, Monday, and today, Tuesday, though Russians had to work on Saturday to compensate for their missed Mondays.
My Russian friends don’t understand why we don’t celebrate it in America. Actually, I read today in Everyday Life in Early America that Ladies’ Day on March 25 was one of the four holidays that were celebrated throughout England in the 17th century, but apparently it didn’t get transferred to the colonies.
Sergei has been bored and listless with no job and without Andrei or other playmates, along with my spending most of my time with students -- even when I’m home. I’ve actually begun worrying about him.
So yesterday he asked if he could buy a Sony playstation – apparently some gadget that hooks up to the TV that you can play computer games on. It will also let me work on the computer while he plays computer games on his playstation.
“How much do they cost?”
“3,500 rubles” – about 120 bucksi. “I’ll be back in 40 minutes,” he said as he left about 2:30.
When 4:00 came and he wasn’t back, I began to get a little uneasy. Then 5, 6, 7. I began to conjure the dire consequences: Either he’s gotten picked up by the bandit cops or he’s spent my 0 on gambling. Okay, that’s it. I’m not going to live with an addicted gambler that I can’t trust with money. It’s off to Stavropol with him – or to Svetlograd.
My old fantasy Vasiliy Kochin arrived about 8 p.m. He just turned 27, and he’s not as adorable as he was when I first met him at Mendeleev University 6 years ago. His dark hair is thinning and his high cheekbones look a little gaunt. But he’s still very pretty and personable – and still straight!
Finally about 9:30 Sergei called. “I’ll be home in half an hour.” “Uh-huh.” I would save my lectures and mete out my punishment when he got home..
When he arrived half an hour later, he was bubbling, dancing on air, walking on the ceiling. “You remember I showed you the picture of my friend Andrei when we were in Svetlograd?”
Yes, I remembered. Sergei had been in love with him. “The most beautiful boy I ever saw,” he had said, and the only one he had ever loved. Apparently our tastes differ, but still he was good looking enough from his picture. After graduating, he had gotten into some kind of trouble with the cops and had gone off to jail.
After leaving here yesterday afternoon, Sergei had gone to see his friend Kolya, who told him that Andrei was in Moscow. They had managed to find each other and Sergei had spent the afternoon and evening with him. He hadn’t realized how late it had become.
In the middle of his effervescent ebullience, he confided, “Maybe he’ll have sex with you.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Maybe not the first time you meet, but later.”
All is forgiven.
He is coming over for supper tonight. I have lots of vodka.
Another sign of cracks in Russia’s ruling structure has come to light with the public excoriation by influential and powerful Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov of United Russia, Putin’s party and the ruling bloc in the Russia’s Congress, or Duma.
He has accused the leadership of the party -- of which he is also a member -- of failing to comply with a party conference vote last November removing a clause aimed at weakening local leaders like Luzhkov. He has demanded that the party investigate what he called “a forgery of party documents” and kick out of the party those responsible for the error.
While it’s hardly earth-shattering, it does look like a devious attempt to further extend Kremlin control over local politics. Luzhkov’s willingness – or eagerness – to wash the party’s dirty laundry so publicly suggests that Luzhkov no longer feels under the yoke of Putin’s weakening Kremlin, say Kremlin watchers. “His position seems to be stronger than before, now that the federal authorities and United Russia’s leadrship have weakened themselves by their handling of unpopular reforms; and he has not.”
Of course Luzhkov’s protest is completely self-serving. The controversial clause could mean appointment to the city council of deputies not completely loyal to him, which would weaken his control over les affaires Moscvu and diminish his chances of perpetuating his dynasty in 2008.
The Bolshoi is about to premiere a pornographic opera, insist some Duma members, and that august body is demanding an inquiry.
According to the Moscow Times, coal miner and United Russia Deputy Sergei Neverov was alerted to the threat against Moscow’s innocence by a television report on the opera, “The Children of Rosenthal,” described by the Times as “a witty tale of cloned classical composers who have hit hard times.”
The Times continues: “It tells the story of Tchaikovsky, Moussorgsky, Wagner, Verdi, and Mozart, cloned by a scientist in the Soviet Union, who are thrown into poverty after the Soviet break-up and resort to busking on Komsomolskaya Ploschad.”
A glance at the librettist perhaps explains the real target: It was written by Vladimir Sorokin, a controversial and satirical writer against whom Putin’s youth stooges, “Marching Together,” forced an unsuccessful prosecution on charges of pornography two years ago in connection with his book, Gay Lard, one scene of which has Joe Stalin and Niki Kruschev getting it on together.
Well, I never!
11:25 p.m.: Sergei just came home with Andrei. Andrei and I immediately started playing smacky mouth and Sergei was jealous! I reminded him that he said last night that Andrei and I could have sex.
They also brought at least 0 worth of booze. Where’d it come from? “That’s not the question you should be asking,” Sergei admonished. “You should just say thank you.” Among the bottles is what they said was a bottle of wine and a bottle of expensive champagne. Plus there’s Grant’s scotch and two bottles of something that looks like absinthe.
Something very strange is going on. “Ask me when I’m sober,” Sergei said. They asked for 500 rubles to pay for the cab and another 500 rubles to pay for another cab, saying they’d be back in half an hour.
Very strange. But Andrei definitely lives up to his billing. I’m sure we will have sex if Sergei will let us.
Chapt. # 110 – 1192 words
Columns :: Women’s Day; Sergei finds a fantasy from the past
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