Author: Dane Lowell
Submitted by: redadmin

Chapt. 263 – 4,165 words
Columns :: The KGB IS the State

MOSCOW, August 28, 2007 -- Comments:   Ratings:
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Igor still here
Despite turns for the worse
My classes – and money – return
Volodya almost brings new “gift,” new problem
Igor and I resume sex
The Economist unveils Russia
…The KGB is the government
…God told them to
…greatest Danger is from the West
…a huge ego with a huge inferiority complex
Come on Baby, light my fire – Russian style



MOSCOW, August 28, 2007 -- Igor is still here, still in pain but unable to decide when and how to get back to Moldova for treatment. By last Wednesday he seemed to perhaps be a little worse, but with several unexpected class cancellations, I realized that we wouldn’t, after all, have the money before Saturday – if then – to buy his train ticket, give him $ 60 or $ 70 for the road, and another $ 50 to re-instate his Moldovan health insurance policy.

Student Alexei, whose next 100 bucksi would have been due Thursday night, went on an unexpected business trip to Switzerland. New student Michael cancelled Tuesday’s $ 50 class because of a business trip. New student Lena cancelled her $ 50 Saturday class because of her brother’s wedding. And Dima cancelled Thursday’s Information Plus class because he, too, was on a business trip. Arman cancelled his whole week’s classes – another $ 60 – because he had to go to Armenia. All in all, unexpected cancellations had taken over $ 300 out of the $ 500 I had anticipated to get Igor back to treatment in Chisinau.

Andrei in the meantime, had done everything possible to come up with the money. He had pawned his new ring and some other things, and given me the money and was going to pawn his extra mobile phone.

Red Queen Administrator Basil had earlier offered to lend me some money if I needed it. I decided Igor’s was enough of an emergency to warrant borrowing 100 bucksi to get him back to Moldova.

But later Wednesday afternoon, Igor decided he felt well enough to go with me to the nearby Belarusskaya Train Station to check on tickets. But as we walked, I noticed he was occasionally holding his head to ease the pain. There were no “platzcart,” or cheap non-compartment train tickets to be had before September 1. Only compartment berths were available on the regular trains, which took 36 hours to get there -- at about $ 60. Compartment berths on the express train, which cut 12 hours off the journey, would cost nearly $ 100.

“That’s too much money,” Igor said.

“Honey, we’ll spend whatever we have to to get you home and into treatment.”

“Let’s go home and think about it,” he said.

“I’ll take the commuter bus,” he announced when he got home – the same commuter bus that had brought him here three weeks ago (Chapt. 260, Igor returns to play, but Zhorik keeps top spot). It would cost $ 60 and get him there in 24 hours. He said there was also a place on the bus to lie down and rest.

Okay, so it was all settled. Basil would lend me the money Thursday afternoon and Igor would leave Friday.

I still hadn’t had a chance to really talk with Igor about our plans and about the specifics of his fight and injury, and each time I mentioned it, he would say “later,” and suggest a park bench – either in our courtyard or in the nearby Novoslobodskaya park.

After my new student Lena left Wednesday evening, he suggested we go for a walk. He was feeling much better. As we headed toward the Novoslobodskaya Park, he announced, “I’m not going to Moldova. I’ll stay here. I can walk to the polyclinic and be treated there as an outpatient, and then I’ll get my registration and get a job.”

Fantastic idea! That would relieve the immediate money pressure and would eliminate any problems of his getting back. I also wouldn’t have to borrow the money from Basil.

“But what about the possibility of paralysis?” I asked.

“That was because of the spinal tap,” he replied. “But the pain is gone, so I think he did it properly after all. It’s okay.”

Then he said, “I want to meet my friends at VDNX metro. Can I?”

Since his midnight tryst with the twat last week at which I exploded (Chapt. 262, Igor’s brain contusion will take him back to Moldova), he’s been very careful to ask my permission for his excursions.

“Honey, are you sure you feel like it? That’s a long ways.”

“Four of my friends from Svetliy (his home town in Moldova) are going to be there. I’d like to see them.”

“You mustn’t drink anything,” I cautioned, “and you must be home by midnight.”

“I won’t drink any alcohol, I promise,” and held up the Pepsi he was drinking. “I won’t get into any more fights; and they’re all working, so they need to go to bed too.”

“Okay,” I said reluctantly, “but be very careful.”

But he was home before 11 p.m.

“Did you meet them?” I asked.

“No. I started feeling worse.”

I wasn’t surprised. So I decided to ask him a test question: “Igor, when you asked me if you could go, I didn’t think you should, but I wanted you to see your friends, so I said okay. If I had said, ‘no way,’ what would you have done?”

“I wouldn’t have gone.”

I think he meant it and will pay much more attention to my warnings and advice in the future.


The next night Igor announced he was again feeling worse and would have to go back to Moldova for treatment after all.

So early Thursday morning I called Basil again: Could you lend me $ 150 to get him back to Moldova. Yes, he could, so we met at 9 a.m. in Prospect Mira and he slipped me the money.

Of my own money, I was down to my last $ 50 to buy food and survive for the weekend. Igor had not been able to reach the bus company and was beginning to realize maybe he would have to ride the train after all. But it would have to be the 24-hour express for $ 100, which would not leave enough for fines and bribes along the way and to reinstate his insurance once he got there.

With my uncertain classes, I wasn’t sure when I would have enough to safely get him there.

I was down to my last 200 rubles on Sunday afternoon when the floodgates opened. Masha called and said, yes, she wanted to resume her $ 50 classes on Monday night. But wait, her husband Andrei wanted to talk to me also.

Andrei, who is the CEO of an $ 18.5 million/yr. IT company here, has applied for a Harvard post-grad business course which requires fluent English. He took lessons from me earlier for several years and is rather fluent as it is. But he wanted to take no chances, so could I give him a $ 50 lesson each day this week, starting Monday?

Yes, of course. So suddenly I was looking at $ 150 on Monday from Andrei, Masha, and student Arman; $ 250 on Tuesday from Dima, Lena, Andrei, and Alexei; $ 150 on Wednesday from Andrei, Arman, and the other Lena; $ 100 on Thurday from Andrei and Michael; $ 150 on Friday from Andrei, Masha, and Arman; $ 150 on Saturday from Valera and the other Lena.

So for the week I was looking at $ 950 – again, assuming there are no cancellations. But even if there are one or two, that still leaves me whole again. I told Igor we could buy his ticket for the express train on Monday and he could leave whenever a berth was available, and I would be able to give him another $ 150 for the trip. We could get Andrei’s stuff out of hock, send Zhorik $ 50 to begin his no-smoking treatment, repay Basil’s $ 150, and finally buy some trousers and maybe shoes for me. And this level of income should continue for the next several months. So my mental health is vastly improved.

But Igor still hasn’t bought his ticket or decided when to go.


In the meantime, in the midst of my frustration over all the cancellations and tight money, I got an e-mail from Svetlana at Potemkin U. with my tentative schedule for the fall. Yes! I’ll teach one course from Sept. 10 to Oct. 31 and another from Nov. 5 to Dec. 17. A total of $ 4200. And my Inst., of Diplomacy lessons should begin in mid-September – another $ 700/month.

And with my regular students all back in harness and my anticipated new students, I should be bringing in consistently about $ 1,000 a week from my private classes.

So by Christmas/New Year’s, I should have somewhere between $ 15,000 and $ 20,000 in the bank.

Of course, you and I both know that all these pink-sky projections never pan out, but it’s important for my mental health that I use the most positive spin possible. And even if I don’t have 20 grand piled up, I will be in a stable and healthy financial condition, barring some more catastrophes.

So my money worries should be over. I think!


Thursday afternoon, beautiful Volodya called. I’m always glad to hear from my gorgeous 6 ft. 4 in. blond fantasy, even though he’s incorrigibly straight.

“Who’s living with you now?” he asked. I called the role: Sergei, Andrei, Igor.

“I need some help,” he continued. “I have a young friend, very beautiful, who needs a place to sleep. And I think he might be….”

I reiterated that we pretty much have a full house, but let’s meet Friday night, get acquainted with him, and we’ll make a decision.

In the meantime, Igor had announced his plans to return to Moldova, so suddenly there was an opening in….my bed!

But Sergei had already indicated a couple of weeks earlier that he was jealous of other people sleeping with me – even though he had brought me the “present” from Sochi. And he had suggested that if Igor went back to Moldova, he and I would revive our sexual relationship.

So when Friday came, Sergei announced he would leave when Valodya arrived. No, he didn’t want to meet the 18-year-old. He knew I would do whatever I wanted to do regardless of what he thought. To him it was all “po-hooey”! Untranslatable, but roughly: “It doesn’t make a fuck of a bit of difference to me.”

I called him into the kitchen. “Sergei, I’m not looking for a new boyfriend. I’m doing this because Valodya is a friend of mine and he has asked me to do him a favor. If the guy stays, it will not be for sex, it will be for Valodya.

Let’s face it, I was fudging a little, but his mood changed immediately.

As it turned out, they never showed up. Valodya called on Sunday to tell me that the kid had found another place. I was frankly relieved.


Igor and I hadn’t had sex since the night before the twins arrived with my “present” (Chapt. 261, Present from Sochi: Dick bigger than his brain). He’d been very affectionate and had kissed me hard in the mouth many times. And yesterday afternoon when we both lay down for a nap, he was chatty and full of pillow talk, and yesterday evening continued to be uncharacteristically huggy and touchy. And I noticed he was taking a bath – the first full bath he’s had since his injury.

I concluded he must be pretty horny by now – no sex for two weeks!

Sure enough, he went to bed about 11 p.m. – a bit early for him even in his fragile state. So I crawled in beside him and put my arms around him. He didn’t flinch or pull away.

“Honey, do you feel like playing a little bit?”

“Umm-hmm.”

And so we played. From the full load of gism, I’m pretty sure it was the first time he’d come since the last time we had sex. Certainly it was for me. This morning I feel freed again from the threat of prostate cancer and much happier and healthier generally.


For the first time in history, the spooks are running a major world power. If you’re reading this blog, I’m assuming it’s not just the antics of the nelly Red Queen that motivate you, but some degree of interest or at least curiosity about this Churchillian “puzzle within a mystery wrapped in an enigma."

“Spooks,” of course, are the spies, or in the broader sense, security services – the KGB, the FSB, the CIA, the Secret Police.

Over the past four years the Red Queen has been chronicling the tightening of state controls over the press, the stripping away of personal freedoms, the silencing of voices critical of Putin and the state, and wondered to what end, although he had early on made known his determination to gain full control of an all-powerful state apparatus (Chapt. 134, Putin’s goal – “total control” -- spelled out).

And now, in the current (August 23, 2007) issue of The Economist boldly appears the rosetta stone of contemporary Russia.

Those of us who have lived here for a while have long intuited that the security forces run everything here, but what are the mechanics of it all? How does KGB big brotherism get translated into action?

The Economist’s Russian and London staff, with all the resources and contacts and personnel that li’l ole moi, a mere gay Moscow blogger, couldn’t possibly muster, have researched and documented it and laid it out in plain, clear, and irrefutable language:


The KGB not only runs the Russian government, the KGB is the Russian government. In Soviet times, the KGB, the nearly all-powerful security force, was commonly referred to as “a state within a state.” But now the KGB is the State, and both are run by Vladimir Putin, the guy who headed the KGB under Yeltsin.

As you no doubt know by now, the KGB has officially been transmuted to the FSB, but the FSB doesn’t strike the same resonance of fear and trembling, even in Russia, as the KGB; so for the sake of clarity I will circumvent the niceties and simply call it the KGB extended.

It used to be that the KGB was controlled by the Communist Party. Now it is controlled by no one except Vladimir Putin, its once and future leader.

When he first came to power in 1999, notes TE, Putin’s first task “was to restore the management of the country, consolidate political power and neutralize alternative sources of influence: oligarchs, regional governors, the media, parliament, opposition parties, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).”

And with the help of his former KGB comrades, he has now virtually completed his task.

“Over the two terms of Mr Putin's presidency, that group of FSB operatives has consolidated its political power and built a new sort of corporate state in the process. Men from the FSB and its sister organizations control the Kremlin, the government, the media and large parts of the economy—as well as the military and security forces,” says The Economist.

We have watched it happen: The crude mugging and broad daylight theft of private TV channels and major print media; the calculated, devastating, and complete destruction of opponents, epitomized by Mikhail Kholdorkovsky, for daring to defy Putin and his plans; the conviction and imprisonment of scientists for getting too cozy with the West; the trashing of the Constitution; the heavy-handed, clumsy silencing – often by murder -- of too-vocal critics; and even the conviction and neutralization of critical Internet bloggers.

The guiding beacon and the rationale for everything is the preservation and glorification of Mother Russia. As has always been in Russia, the State is the be-all, end-all. The major difference is that now, as not in tsarist or even Soviet times, the state and its security apparatus are one. No one has to beg anyone for permission to break the laws or subvert the Constitution for their ends, if those ends are to serve and protect the State.

Come to think of it, there’s really not all that much difference between the KGB state of Putin and the police state of Bush. Bush claims the same immunity from law in subjugating the American people. He can simply declare they are an enemy combatant. He has modified Nixon’s rationale of “bombing them to save them” to “enslaving you to protect you.”

When will The Economist do a candid, penetrating in-depth analysis of the Bush Administration? Don’t hold your breath. Russia’s a much easier target and you don’t have to fight with your editors over the political costs of offending your allies.

But back to Mother Russia: The KGB power operatives, or “siloviki” (the power guys), as they are referred to in Russia, view their mission as literally a sacred trust:

They see it as their special mission “to restore the power of the state, save Russian from disintegration, and frustrate the enemies that might weaken it.”

If in the process, they get very rich, so much the better; but wealth is not their primary goal.

The Economist cites the “FSB (KGB) psychology” summed up in an article by Victor Cherkesov, head of Russia’s drug control agency who was in charge of hunting dissidents in the late ’80s. The article, says TE, “has become the manifesto of the siloviki…”:

“….History ruled that the weight of supporting the Russian state should fall on our shoulders. I believe in our ability, when we feel danger, to put aside everything petty and to remain faithful to our oath.”

The Economist cites a KGB colonel who agrees that “they really believe that they were chosen and are guided by God….”

Now what president of what country also believes that he was chosen and is guided by God? There must be a lot of Gods running around the universe giving conflicting and destructive directions to a lot of different people. All these people taking orders from God could wind up zapping each other – for God of course. God would be safe, but the rest of us might get killed in the process.

The KGB operatives and alumni “present themselves as a tight brotherhood entitled to break any laws for the sake of their mission,” The Economist notes.

Among other observers, The Economist cites former Soviet dissident Sergei Grigoryants, my boss when I was working as an editor with Andrei Shk., another former Soviet dissident, for the now-defunct Glasnost Foundation.

“The security chiefs believe that they are the only ones who have the real picture and understanding of the world,” Grigoryants said.

And at the center of that picture, The Economist goes on to say, “is an exaggerated sense of the enemy, which justifies their very existence. Without enemies, what are they for?”

According to Russian Academy of Sciences researcher Olga Kryshtanovskaya, the siloviki “believe they can see enemies where ordinary people can't.”

And Putin himself exemplifies this ability to see enemies invisible to others, as he made clear in an address to the KGB>FSB in 1999 when he warned that “a few years ago, we succumbed to the illusion that we don’t have enemies and we have paid dearly for that.”

The greatest danger, as TE explains and as has become clear over the years of the Putin regime, comes from the West, “whose aim is supposedly to weaken Russia and create disorder.

“’They want to make Russia dependent on their technologies,’ says a current FSB staffer. ‘They have flooded our market with their goods. Thank God we still have nuclear arms.’

Of course, this siege mentality and anti-Westernism strikes a sympathetic chord among the traditionally xenophobic Russian population. TE cited one former FSB operative, now the spokesmen for several tens of thousands of former agents turned private operatives: “In Gorbachev’s time, Russia was liked by the West and what did we get for it? We have surrendered evertything: eastern Europe, Ukraine, Georgia, NATO has moved to our borders.”

From this perspective, notes The Economist, “anyone who plays into the West's hands at home is the internal enemy. In this category are the last free-thinking journalists, the last NGOs sponsored by the West and the few liberal politicians who still share Western values.

“To sense the depth of these feelings,” The Economist continues, “consider the response of one FSB officer to the killing of Anna Politkovskaya (Chapt. 221, 20-year-old dream headed for Moscow – and me!), a journalist whose books criticising Mr Putin and his brutal war in Chechnya are better known outside than inside Russia. ‘I don't know who killed her, but her articles were beneficial to the Western press. She deserved what she got.’ And so, by this token, did Litvinenko, the ex-KGB officer poisoned by polonium in London last year.”

All the strategic decisions, says Olga Kryshtanovskaya of the Russian Academy of Sciences, “were and still are made by the small group of people who have formed Mr. Putin’s informal politburo.” They are all siloviki, former high-ranking KGB operatives and most are from his home town of St. Peterburg.

Former KGB Chiefs and Indians comprise fully one-third of the top level bureaucrats throughout Russia. They also hold major decision-making posts in all the economic sectors which Russia is regaining control of: oil and gas, metals and other resources, airlines and airplane manufacturing, arms manufacturing, electric power, transportation, including railways, automobile manufacturing and every major sector of the Russian economy.

“We must make sure that companies don't make decisions that are not in the interest of the state,” The Economist quotes one current FSB colonel as saying.

The great Russian public is probably vaguely aware of what is happening, but because of historical precedent and tradition and their own sense of powerlessness, don’t protest what’s happening, including the transfer of money and power to the siloviki, because they see the siloviki as representing State interests, The Economist says.

To sum it up, The Economist has unraveled at least one layer from the mystery in a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. The obvious fact is that Russia has emerged a more solid and rigid monolith than it has ever been. The KGB and the State are one. It is as if the CIA controlled the White House, as to a degree it did when former CIA chief George Bush Sr. was president. The KGB does not advise Russia, but rules it. Everything that happens is measured in terms of its benefit to the State. As has always been the case, the people be damned. It’s the State we must preserve.

Every move that Putin has made and will make is within this framework. It won’t change when Putin steps down and another of the siloviki replaces him. They are, after all, sworn to brotherhood, like the knights of old or a great, all-powerful college fraternity, but one with the sacred mission of preserving and glorifying Mother Russia to the death.

Don’t expect noble, statesman-like decisions from Russia. Truth will be turned on its head; war will become peace, as it has already for The Bushmaster; white will become black if necessary. Expect only what will benefit and enhance the power of the State. Everything else is expendable: People, organizations, civil liberties, ideology. The State must endure; and under Putin and the siloviki, it will. They still have, after all, the nuclear missiles to assure it.

They have no illusions, or even desire, to return to communism. Capitalism serves them much better. They are getting rich off of it. And with their oil and gas, they have gained unprecedented leverage on the international front.


Russia right now is little more than a huge national Ego. Anything that bruises the Ego will be destroyed. And the equally huge inferiority complex that comes with it makes it that Ego much more easily bruised – and dangerous.

To the extent reforms serve the Ego, they will be permitted. When they don’t, they won’t. In the meantime, it permits average people to carry on their lives normally and without interference as long as they don’t don’t mess wiff the Big E.



A Moscow woman who turned her ex-husband’s wayward cock into a torch last week has two important messages for the casual observer: 1) don’t piss a Russian woman off and 2) apartments are really scarce in Moscow.

The guy probably deserved it. She divorced him three years ago for his philandering, but they still lived together because apartments here are so scarce and expensive.

Last week he asked her to go buy him some vodka, which he drank while he was sitting naked watching – and probably jerking off to, although the news reports didn’t say this -- porn films. When he passed out, she decided to give him an early dose of the hellfire and damnation he deserved by pouring the vodka over him and trying to set him afire.

But it evaporated too fast. Instead, she focused her attention on setting aflame the root of her – and his, for that matter – problems, and succeeded admirably.

“I don’t know what I have done to deserve this,” he lamented from his hospital bed.

A nurse said she didn’t know whether or not his plaything would make “a complete recovery.”

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.


See also related pages:
Chapt. #264 - Craig: Scratch a homophobe and you’ll find…
Chapt. #262 - Igor’s brain contusion will take him back to Moldova
Chapt. #261 - Present from Sochi: Dick bigger than his brain
Chapt. #260 - Igor returns to play, but Zhorik keeps top spot
Chapt. #134 - Putin’s goal – “total control” -- spelled out


This day years ago:
2005-8-28: Chapt. #161 - Red Queen’s global family; Russia’s energy non-crisis
2006-8-28: Chapt. #215 - New Russian-centered alliance views U.S.coldly