Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007 -- As happens every few years, Easter Sunday fell this year on the same day for the Russian Orthodox and the Western Christian churches.
We had our only little private Easter. It didn’t involve the Easter cakes or colored eggs or dried-fruit-filled cottage cheese of the traditional Russian Easter, but rather a big dinner with vodka to celebrate the “resurrection” of Missy, our uniquely Russian mutt (see photo).
Missy getting the royal treatment after wandering Moscow's mean streets all night on an unauthorized leave of absence. Igor miraculously found her several blocks away -- hungry and filthy, but unharmed. Newly fed and bathed, she basks here in her homecoming on Igor's and my bed and tries to bite the hand that feeds her.
When I first got up this morning, the first thing I missed was the patter of feet in the hallway, followed nanoseconds later by the plunging of front legs and paws into my defenseless balls – Missy’s charming way of saying “good morning.”
Strange, I thought. Is she sleeping so soundly? But when I looked, she wasn’t in bed with Sergei and Tanya, nor with Denis.
She’s simply not here. Did somebody finally get their fill of mopping and cleaning up after her? Of snatching shoes, socks, and shorts out of her reach? Of rescuing mobile phones and TV remote controls from her gnawing jaws?
As they awoke, one by one, I was almost afraid to ask the question: “Where’s Missy?”
First Denis, then Tanya, then Sergei, and finally Igor: “I don’t know.”
By 3 p.m., they had all resurrected. Everybody was looking at everybody else? Where’s Missy?
An unseasonable Easter snow flurry transformed the buds on the poplar trees outside my window into an ethereal scene more reminiscent of Christmas than Easter.
Finally Igor hopped on my bicycle and went searching. He found her several blocks away near the Perekrostok Supermarket. Miraculously, she was alive – hungry, filthy, but unharmed.
Apparently she had somehow slipped out the door as someone was coming in last night, then waited at the entryway downstairs until someone opened it to doggy freedom, and tore out past them.
This afternoon she bounded into the apartment, overjoyed. I fed her. Tanya gave her a bath. She’s now wallowing in the adulation of all the important people of her short life.
As my friend Grover Ellis in Wash., D.C., used to say, “she’s a happy whomp.”
We all are!
A nice Easter present.
As interest increasingly focuses on protests announced for Moscow next Saturday, authorities are scurrying to try to make sure that no embarrassing show of political unrest makes obvious the growing dissatisfaction of rank-and-file Russians with Tsar Putin’s rule.
The Other Russia, a coalition of opposition groups whose application for a permit to march from Pushkin Square to Teatralnaya Ploschad near Red Square was rejected by city officials last week (Chapt. 241), has declared it will defy the ban. So has Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front and Mikhail Kasyanov’s Popular Democratic Union.
Police have put down similar protests in St. Peterburg and Nizhny Novgorod with massive force and arrests (Chapt. 240, 241), and will certainly repeat their strong-arm tactics next Saturday.
In the meantime, another protest involving about 2,500 Communists, liberals, and National Bolsheviks was held last weekend to protest displacement of thousands of residents by illegal office building construction, the draft, and housing reform.
Kasparov, the former world chess champion turned Putin oppositionist, told local reporters that “it is obvious that as authorities take a harder line, the chances increase that (Putin’s) power vertical will simply collapse.” It sounds like wishful thinking, but he may be on to something.
In the meantime, the Moscow City Council, or Duma, is coming up with more roadblocks to future political protests with a law that would prohibit demonstrations near any monument or historical building.
Since there’s hardly a building in downtown Moscow that isn’t historical, the proposed legislation would make illegal virtually any demonstration in the center of the city.
Even if you somehow found a non-historic site, the new law would further limit the number of participants to two people per square meter, in essence making every outdoor public gathering illegal.
Okay, just move the protests inside!
But the law would also make it illegal for more people to congregate in a hall or building than there are chairs for!
This preoccupation with preventing protests simply underscores, say critics, how scared the Kremlin is running these days. This seems particularly strange, since polls say Putin has something like a 70% approval rate. Are the polls lying? Does the Kremlin know something the rest of Russia doesn’t?
“If the authorities really have this large public support that they are constantly talking about on TV, what are they so scared of?” asked a liberal deputy after the Duma meeting last week.
Marina Litvinovich, spokeswoman for Kasparov’s United Civil Front, contended the bill was clearly aimed at making political protest more difficult “at a time when the opposition is waking up.”
As we noted earlier, the oppositionists have little hope of keeping Putin or his designated successor from power, but they will make sure that the eyes and ears of the world are well focused on the massive displays of police force created to prevent the public display of any real widespread opposition.
Putin has painted himself into a corner, asserted political analyst Anders Aslund, senior fellow at the Peterson Inst. for International Economics, last month.
In destroying all opposition while declaring that he will honor the Russian constitution and not run for a third term, he is assuring that the various bitter factions that now operate behind the scenes will become even more bitter and competitive.
“…According to most accounts, the relationships between his underlings are on the verge of open warfare,” Aslund wrote in a Moscow Times op-ed piece. “Whomever Putin chooses as his successor will be seen as a dangerous enemy by his or her colleagues….
“Regardless of who takes over, many of Putin’s top officials will likely fear the loss of their fortunes and will do whatever they can – meaning a lot – to ensure that a real transition does not take place….”
As in any case where you run into a dead-end, Aslund asserts, Putin has no option but to put his machine into reverse , “which in this case leads back to the road of democratic principles….Hitting reverse makes more sense than crashing.”
But it seems Putin may see another way out.
The speaker of the Federation Council, Russia’s piss-poor imitation of a Senate, has called for a constitutional amendment that would let Putin stay in office for three terms and would extend the present four-year limit to five.
This is an echo of an earlier clamor, but Putin has consistently insisted he will abide by the constitution. This newest call, say some, is simply some more self-serving bleating of a Putinist. Kasparov himself interpreted it as “hysterical weeping” by a Putin loyalist afraid of losing his job when Putin leaves office.
But others see it as the beginning of a new organized campaign move to avert the otherwise inevitable succession crisis by assuring that Putin remains in office for a third term.
“In this nation, where there is no real parliament and the Cabinet is weak, a lame-duck president would mean anarchy,” observed Nikolai Petov of the Carnegie Moscow Center.
On the other hand, say analysts, if Putin did remain in power after his repeated assurances that he would step down, it would vastly decrease his legitimacy in the West.
But there’s not much legitimacy left anyway, and will be even less after the next election – if there is one – in which any meaningful opposition will be rendered impotent; so I for one don’t see any great moaning and wringing of hands by the Putinists worried about the legitimacy of their illegitimate dictatorship – now or in the future.
In any case, Putin will wind up doing whatever he thinks is good for Putin. Just what that is remains to be seen.
The newspaper Kommersant has been warned not to print the words “National Bolshevik Party” in its pages.
The Putin administration has been paranoid about the National Bolsheviks almost from the beginning, but became almost screamingly maniacal after the group repeatedly embarrassed the administration – mostly with relatively harmless pranks (Chapt. 161; photo, Chapt. 213).
The peak was reached when they invaded the Presidential Administration office a couple of years ago, hung flags calling for Putin’s resignation out the window, and defied the brutal cops.
Since then they have been de-registered as a party by stooge election officials, and the Duma has made it a crime to print the words “National Bolshevik Party,” but this appears the first instance in which action has actually been taken.
National Bolshevik Party spokesman Alexander Averin asserts the obvious: Authorities are trying to impose a media blackout on dissent.
What next Saturday’s protestors seem determined to do is to defy that blackout. They will certainly succeed on the international front, and just may – through internet news and blogs – manage to succeed on the domestic scene despite a blackout of coverage on Russian TV channels or major Russian newspapers.
Igor had promised we would “play” on Monday night, but he had a headache (Chapt. 241).
On Tuesday night his stomach hurt.
On Wednesday night when he came to bed, I hugged and kissed him as usual. “Would you like to play?”
Umm-hmm.
He was lying on his side, fiddling with the camera. I stroked his stomach, and he turned on his back. I started manipulating his dick through his shorts, then with some help from him pulled them down. He was still playing with the camera, which was intermittently flashing, like a flashlight.
“Flash it on your dick,” I said.
He did. And there it lay, the protective foreskin leaving just a tiny tunnel through which – with the light of the camera – I could peer down at the head of his cock.
“Take a picture.”
He did. It was very sexy.
By this time his dick was getting hard and I held it straight up toward the ceiling.
“Take a picture of it standing,” I said.
He did. Very nice. He took two or three more. What nice shots to put on the red queen, I thought, before turning my full attention to the task at hand.
The procedure was pretty much the same. At some point, we shifted sides so that I was on his right, which provided a better angle for deep-throating. At last I felt the relentless stiffening and the slight jerk of his body and rammed my throat down full over his throbbing cock to feel the exploding surges of the smooth, sweet ejaculations.
As before, I didn’t come until the next morning, when I awoke and found his cock – not as hard of course, but bulging and slightly swelling. While he slept, I jerked off to the sensation of his cock in my hand and the memory of the exotic pictures of it from the night before.
“Could you give me some money?” he asked the next (Wednesday) afternoon
How much, what for?
300 rubles. I want to meet someone.
A girlfriend?
Yes.
I thought for a moment. I have no problem with seeing that he has food, clothes, and the necessities of everyday living. But I don’t feel any obligation to finance his plugging every slut-hole in Moscow.
But if I don’t give him the money, I’ll look like a scheming, manipulating old queen, and my secret will be out :-). It will only make him hate me and drive him more towards her.
“Okay.”
I was asleep when he came to bed about 1:30.
“Did you have a good time?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
“Nastya.” Oh boy, another nasty Nastya. “Do you want to see her picture?”
“Sure.”
He hopped up and got the camera. She seemed to be attractive enough, except for her traffic-light-red dyed hair – very stylish among Russian teenagers but not to my taste.
There was also the photo of a guy.
“This is her friend. He’s gay too.”
Too? Who else is gay? I guess he’s talking about me. Sergei told me a long time ago that Igor knows I’m gay, so I guess it’s not news that he knows. But for a straight boy, he seems remarkably contended living, sleeping with, and getting his cock sucked by an old faggot!
“Can I ask you a question? “ I asked. “Did you have sex with her?”
He laughed. “No.”
“Then would you like to play now?” and I slipped my hand to his shorts to feel the soft lump in his crotch.
“Tomorrow,” he promised.
“Did you erase the pictures we took of your dick last night?”
He laughed. “Of course.”
“Too bad,” I said. “They were beautiful.”
“We’ll take some more later, some better ones. Those weren’t very good.”
So maybe I’ll have some pictures of his dick to show you after all. Can hardly wait!
Then the subject turned to money for his mom. He mentioned $ 200, and said Denis had promised to come up with half of it.
“I think if you wait for Denis you’ll have a very long wait.”
What was the $ 200 for? $ 150 for the remainder of what he owed somebody for his passport (Chapt. 240) so they wouldn’t threaten or harm his mother, and another $ 50 for her to buy groceries and other necessities.
The $ 150 can wait, I said, “but Sunday is Easter, and we promised your mother we’d send her another $ 50. She probably needs it to buy food and stuff for Easter. Tomorrow, we’ll send her $ 50.
He reached over and kissed me hard on the lips.
I slept well.
When “tomorrow night” came, he was true to his word.
“Can I play?” I asked when he came to bed.
“Umm-hmm.”
I think he’s beginning to enjoy it more. Usually it doesn’t get hard until I start manipulating it with my tongue and mouth, but Friday night it was raging while I was still fingering and stroking it.
The pre-cum also started earlier, and he came quicker. These are hints that he’s beginning to relax and enjoy it. I didn’t tell him that it’s probably the last time we’ll have sex – or whatever we’re having – until after Zhorik leaves.
When I was telling Zhorik about Andrei’s latest assault (Chapt. 229) a couple of months ago, he mentioned that he was angry with Andrei “for what he did to Papa.”
“What did he do?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you when I come home on leave.”
Wednesday night Sergei told me what Andrei had done. Last summer Andrei asked his father to borrow 40,000 rubles – somewhere around 1500 bucksi – from the bank. Of course, Andrei promised he’d pay it back.
After talking with his father last night on the mobile phone (we had tried to reach Zhorik, but as might be expected, he was out “gulyating”), Sergei told me that Andrei has of course not paid a kopek of it back and now his the bank’s threatening to take legal action.
To con me out of $ 20,000 is one thing. I’ll survive. But to con his own father, who makes $ 100 a month as a driver and mechanic, out of $ 1500 and leave him with a bank debt that he can’t possibly pay is another.
All three of the boys have expressed their deep love and admiration for the man who was both father and mother to them after their mother was committed to an institution for the criminally insane for stabbing their teenage sister to death (Chapt. 122). For Andrei to do this means that he has lost all respect – not only for his father but for himself – and that there is nothing too low or despicable for him to do to feed his drug habit.
He has no conscience and no personal dignity left.
Sergei said he saw Andrei Friday in our courtyard. Of course Andrei was trying to con Sergei into once again covering for him or letting him into the apartment or some other such scurvy flim-flam. Sergei said he told Andrei that Andrei had made his choice, and Sergei, his.
“You have your life, I have mine. I want to live with Tanya and Dane for the rest of my life. I don’t want you interfering in my life any more.”
But it’s too late to protect his dad from the rotten little bastard.
Speaking of rotten little bastards, I had an SMS from Andrei Tioufline, the little con artist who stole my apartment eight years ago (Chap. 91).
“Can you call me?” he wrote.
I had received it unnoticed three days before. When I called there was no answer. A couple of days later I tried again. He was in Kiev for a couple of weeks, he said, visiting with friends. He’ll call me when he gets back.
He has mentioned before that he is willing to give me some money if I’m through trying to sue him. Obviously I am, because he has weaseled his way through all the court orders and demands to pay the $ 30,000 the court says he owes me.
Is he really willing to make some recompense for what he has done? Deep down somewhere, does he have a conscience? Or is he just cat-and-mousing me some more?
Zhorik and I have kept in pretty close mobile phone contact since he left for Svetlograd and Moscow last week (Chapt. 242).
We have communicated by SMS. However, apparently he has also been making a lot of phone calls using his “Roaming” feature. The problem with Roaming, as I discovered in Spain, is that it’s incredibly expensive. Every phone call goes through your registered center. So if he makes a phone call to someone else in Svetlograd, it is routed a few thousand kilometers to Novosibirsk then another few thousand back to Svetlograd. Big rubles.
I”ve asked him not to use it for calling, but only for SMS. Obviously he’s ignored by request. He asked me Friday to put another nearly 500 rubles ($ 19) on his phone. I did, but said that would be the last till he got to Moscow. So last night he SMS’d to put another 300.
I was annoyed, because I think he has been unnecessarily calling when he should have been SMSing, but I’m trying to be cool and not let that interfere with a joyful reunion when he comes, which he now says will be on Tuesday.
I still have to break the news to Igor that Zhorik will be kicking him out of my bed.
Moscow’s health and sanitation facilities rank 201 out of 215 world cities, according to a new survey released by Mercer Human Resources Consulting, a U.S. based company that advises international companies on pay and perk issues for Americans working in foreign countries.
Among Russian cities, Moscow’s health infrastructure was deemed worse that St. Peterburg’s (184), Kazan’s (174), and even Novosibirsk’s (182), the Siberian capital where I spent the first days of 2007 huddled against the cold with Zhorik (Chapt. 232).
The world’s best health and sanitation facilities were found in Calgary, Honolulu, and Helsinki.
Ranking at the bottom, 14 spots below Moscow, was Baku, the oil-rich capital of Azerbaijan, trailing even Haiti’s Port au Prince.
This does not give me great comfort in my ongoing battle against high blood pressure and strokes. But so far, so good. I’ve found a good doctor and effective treatment, so I’ll try not to let the new statistics create enough stress to cause another stroke.
One of my students at the Inst. of Diplomacy told the story of Sergei Karalyov, inventor of the rocket that put Yuri Gagarin into space. He was a very superstitious man and had two coins that he kept as good luck charms. He was never without them.
One day he realized he’d left his good luck charms at home, and the fear of what might happen caused him so much stress he had a heart attack and died.
I’ll try not to let that happen.
I don’t know how Dostoevsky came up in my Saturday morning lesson with my brilliant student Valera, but it did. “I don’t know much about the theme of Dostoevsky’s work,” I said. “What was his main idea?”
And Valera proceeded to launch into an uncanny description of a chapter out of my own life. Dostoevsky’s main theme, he said, was facing the deep moral crises of life, in which one is plunged into the abyss of hell, into confronting the very existential meaning of life itself.
And then somehow he survives the unbearable “deep ache of the soul” and out of the ashes of personal ruin confronts the imperative of rebirth, the complete rebuilding of life and everything it stands for.
I sat in awe, almost numb, as he painted in graphic terms the heart-wrenching moment in my own life when I was forced to face the ultimate question: Is life worth continuing? Is the personal pain of ongoing existence simply too great? Or can I somehow use this as a lesson, a building block, in the creation of a new, useful, productive, and vibrant life?
Does it end here, or do I somehow make a new entity out of the unbearable shambles which now suffocate my being?
That Dostoevsky performed his task so eloquently explains why he remains as one of the life-defining authors of the last two centuries, a touchstone for scores of writers and philosophers who have followed and tried to emulate him.
And, when you get right down to it, perhaps that is the real meaning of Easter: The rebuilding of a meaningful life out of despair, shame, and personal ruin too painful to talk about, the ultimate moral crisis of life which most of us are forced to confront at some time.
So, what, exactly, happened to me?
Sorry dahlings, you’ll just have to wait for the book :-). Or the movie :-):-).
In the meantime, Happy Easter from me and Dostoevsky.
And Missy.
See also related pages:
Chapt. #244 - Zhorik interlude proves frustrating
Chapt. #242 - Is Peter fantasy becoming reality?
Chapt. #241 - Fade out Moldova, fade in sex
Chapt. #240 - Extreme poverty, one-holers, and pretty boys
Chapt. #232 - Reunion with Zhorik nails down future
Chapt. #161 - Red Queen’s global family; Russia’s energy non-crisis
