Author: Dane Lowell
Submitted by: redadmin

Chapt. 99 – 694 words
Columns :: Year of the Cock: US Embassy sticks one up Sasha’s ass

MOSCOW, December 30, 2004 –- Comments:   Ratings:

Year of the cock
American Embassy to Sasha: Fuck Off
One man’s journey from communism to capitalism
Putin’s policies costing Russia big: Illiaranov
But commies lament: he’s still no Stalin



MOSCOW, December 30, 2004 – Almost 2005, year of the cock!

It’s my year – literally: 1933 was a cock year. Yegor told me last night that petushok, Russian for cock, is also slang for queer. So I’m a triple beneficiary. I’m queer, I love cocks, and I’ve got one!

Tonight Sergei and I will fly to Stavropol to meet my in-laws.
Sergei, Andrei, and Zhorik have done quite a job of advance billing, and apparently everyone is dying to meet “the American grandfather.”

We’re taking some stuffed toys for the nieces and some champagne and cognac for a little “vecherinka” after we get there. Not sure how long we’re staying, but we’ll play it by ear.


Big blast in the ass for Sasha! The American Embassy rejected his visa application yesterday – apparently because of his sister, who is an American citizen. He’s going to try again after the holidays, but I don’t know what good that’s going to do. They will write some supporting documents from Stevens that may help.

His mother will also sign an affidavit that she will leave Sasha an apartment in Moscow, and the Russian Acad. of Sciences, where he works, will write a notarized letter that they are planning to hire him when he gets his doctorate.

Had a lesson with student Dmitriy this morning, who’s trying to transfer from his job as a customer liaisson with Microsoft here to a position in the Microsoft Innovations Center in Aachen, Germany. We’re trying to prepare him for his interview. His employment record is an encapsulation of Russian history over the past 15 years:

After graduating from the university, he went to work for the KGB from 1988 to 1991 because at that time government service was the only place that offered a future for a bright young Russian – especially in the field of information technology.

The coup of ’91 woke him up to the fact that he could be used by the state against his own people, so he got a job in the private sector, which was just shaking itself loose from the shackles of total state control. When company management made some bad decisions he went into banking, which was expanding at an exponential rate and desperately needed information technologists.

That ended with the banking crisis of ’98, at which time he went to work for a major company called East Line, a competitor of Aeroflot, where he was working when I first met him when English Exchange sent me there to teach him and his colleagues English. East Line was subsequently forced to divest itself of its profitable air cargo business because Aeroflot wanted it and had more clout in the Kremlin than East Line did.

From there Dmitriy went to Microsoft and again hooked up with me through Alexei, whose last name I can’t remember, who had been a student of mine in English Exchange classes.

Dmitriy’s major concern now is getting his three kids out of Russia, which holds no future for them.


Illiaronov, Putin’s un-reined economic advisor, pretty much laid it out in a press conference a couple of days ago: Russia’s vendetta against Khodorkovsky and Yukos oil along with the reestablishment of state controls over business cost Russia 3.9% in GND in 2004 and is nailing down Russia’s future as a 3rd world country.


Despite his assault on democracy, Putin must be doing something right: He doesn’t measure up to Stalin, say the communists, for whom Stalin is still something of a god. So if they’re both dictators, Putin isn’t as much of one as his predecessor!

And I must begrudgingly admit they’ve got a damned good point. If they’re both dictators, the average Russian lived a hell of a lot better under the Soviet despot than they do under his pale shadow of an emulator.

But the sad fact is that communists still refuse to look objectively at the man who perhaps irretrievably committed Russia to just one notch above state-sponsored slavery.

“Stalin was one of the most outstanding personalities of the 20th century,” intoned party leader Gennady Zyuganov in a ceremony marking the 125th anniversary of the tyrant’s birthday. “Stalin was an outstanding statesman.”

“....Russia needs a new Stalin,” seconded Alexander Kuvayev, leader of the party’s Moscow branch.”

And apparently, to his credit, Putin ain’t him – yet.