MOSCOW, April 18, 2007 -- The dissenters dissented and the riot police beat skulls on Saturday right on cue. Thousands of riot police were bussed in from five Moscow regions to prevent 4,000 protesters in Pushkin and Turgenev Squares from destroying the Russian government.
As was feared and anticipated, the action was remarkable for the violence and brutality of the uniformed goons. The Moscow Times reported that “some people resisted arrest as they were apparently picked out at random around the square. ‘They are taking people and beating them; they kicked a girl in the kidneys,’ said retired French translator Lyubov Ivanova, 63, a supporter of Kasparov.
“A photographer was left with a bloodied head as police blocked off Rozhdestvensky Bulvar. Bloodied tissues could be seen on the road.
“Police beat protesters with nightsticks. One protester lay dazed on the ground clutching an ankle. As he tried to stand and put weight on the leg, he let out a loud yelp and fell back to the ground.”
Former chess champion Garry Kasparov, leader of “The Other Russia” and one of the organizers, was arrested and fined $ 40 for “slandering the Russian government.”
I know what happened because I read the Moscow Times, but Russians haven’t read it in their newspapers or heard about it on their state-controlled TV.
In a news bulletin Saturday, the MT reported, state-run Channel One television led its news program with a report on the Kremlin-sponsored gathering of Putin’s “Young Guards.” The protestors activists at the Dissenters’ March consisted, it said, of a “few hundred ultra-radicals.”
This was echoed in my Institute of Diplomacy class on Saturday. Student Ilya’s “news” was about the protest, but fellow student Evgenia dismissed the protesters as “a bunch of idle, unemployed hooligans.”
“Garry Kasparov is an idle, unemployed hooligan?” I asked.
“Well, maybe not him, but most of them are.”
The government propaganda machine is working quite well, thank you.
“We have to unite,” declared former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov in addressing the protesters, “because we are not willing to see the authorities trample our rights any longer.”
Liberal politician Irina Khakhamada was a little more forthright: “Return our elections, bastards, or we will force you to.”
And that, of course, is precisely what Putin’s Kremlin is afraid of. And that’s why Russians didn’t – and won’t – see any of it on TV.
Russia’s bureaucratic solution to life’s problems has backfired again. Several months ago, the nationalists hit on a new way to attack the dark-skinned natives of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Dagestan, Kyrgystan, and the rest.
“They’re taking all the stalls in the market, and they have their own mafia, and they won’t let us real Russians compete in the markets,” they huffed.
The popular markets are an important – maybe even vital -- part of Russian life. They’re scattered throughout the city, and have traditionally been the source of most of the fruit and vegetables and even clothing for Muscovites. Supermarkets and departments stores are relatively new innovations here. Markets stocked with venders – most of them from former Soviet republics – have up to now been filling that gap.
The foreigners peopled the markets because there were few ethnic Russians who wanted to stand on their feet all day selling tomatoes and cucumbers. But when a few Russians complained that they weren’t allowed to sell their wares in the foreign-dominated markets, Putin and Moscow Mayor Luzhkov came to their rescue:
Your poor darlings, they responded. We’ll fix it for you. After January 1, sixty percent of all the venders must be ethnic Russians, and after April 1, no foreigners at all will be allowed to sell in the markets. We will turn the markets over to you.
And now two-thirds of the market stalls in Moscow stand empty, and there are signs everywhere begging Russians to come sell their garden vegetables in the Russian markets. Huge markets covering several acres where dozens, maybe hundreds, of venders sold everything imaginable are now deserted.
The market near my apartment, where I have been shopping for several years, is two-thirds empty. I haven’t really felt any impact, except perhaps prices have gone up a few percent from the lack of competition. But the administrators are losing an enormous amount of money – so much so that they may have to close the markets entirely, meaning that all the venders will be gone.
Then is when we’ll see the real price increases. In the meantime, there are vastly fewer shoppers at the remaining markets, because they’re not sure what they’ll find there. So the venders that are left are making less money. I’m scared to death the fish vender in my market, where I buy fillet of sole for $ 2.50 a pound, will be forced to leave, taking with him one of my few great sources of comfort.
But the bureaucrats, of course, say there’s no problem. Well, maybe it is difficult to find Russians to sell food in the markets, Mayor Luzhkov acknowledged, but that’s because “they’re too busy at their farms” right now.
The advancing supermarkets in Russia are helping fill the void as part of the Wal-Mart-ization of Russia – exactly the wrong solution at the beginning of an era when locally produced goods are going to be the stuff of survival.
But if a problem arises, there’s really nothing to worry about. The bureaucrats will fix it.
The effort to stifle dissent continues unabated on another front, a free speech advocate warned last week. Kremlin-backed politicians have attacked the internet edition of the newspaper Gazeta for publishing an on-line interview with Putin critic and leader of the National Bolshevik Party Eduard Lemonov.
In the interview, Limonov said Russia should allow Chechnya to secede as the only way to stop a decade-long insurgency there. He also said Putin should resign.
The newspaper shouldn’t be allowed to present such extremist views, the Putin loyalists protested.
The National Bolsheviks, are of course, anathema to Putin’s Kremlin for their embarrassing and effective public attacks, often involving headline-grabbing stunts (Chapt. 243).
A leader of the Kremlin-backed United Russia party, Russia’s main political force, called for political parties to consider refusing to cooperate with Gazeta journalists. “It seems to me it is more than unreasonable for a civilized publication like Gazeta to provide the opportunity for such odious politicians to spread their views.”
Gazeta editor Pyotr Fadeyev called the United Russia response “over the top,” and said that an agreement by major newspapers not provide forums for extremists is being used to prevent debate.
So what’s new?
On another front, Moscow city prosecutors are looking into whether Garry Kasparov’s The Other Russia has violated Russian laws by printing a special edition containing information about disobeying Moscow’s ban on their march on Saturday (see above).
Last week’s widely publicized State Department report which specifically avoided the word “Democracy” in describing Russia’s political system, is being attacked by the Russian Duma as unfair and a distortion of Russia’s human rights record.
The report rather accurately described the Russian political structure as “a weak multi-party political system with a strong presidency” which is steadily growing stronger.
It also described U.S. efforts to fund non-governmental organizations and independent media and to foster free elections in Russia.
The Russian foreign ministry denounced such efforts as contrary to “such principles of international law as respect for a nation’s sovereignty.” The report will be used to prove U.S. intentions of interfering in domestic affairs by bank-rolling non-government organizations that are suspected of anti-government activities.
The long-awaited Zhorik episode was short-lived, frustrating, anti-climactic, and in many respects disappointing.
He finally arrived Wed. morning, Apr. 11, just before I left for my Information Plus class, after a very disturbed and disturbing night.
Finish had arrived in mid-afternoon the day before, and he, Denis, and Igor had all headed out to “bukhat,” get drunk.
Denis came in about 12:30 and woke me up to ask me if his current schlukha, Ksenia (Xenia) could spend the night. She had no other place to stay, the metro was closed, etc., etc. etc. It would be the last time, he promised.
Ok if it’s all right with Sergei.
Then about 4;00, Finish followed, very drunk.
“Where’s Igor?”
“He’s coming.”
“Is he alone?”
“No.”
“Who’s he with?”
“Masha.” Denis’s former schlukha whom Finish has reportedly been plugging and whom we Sergei and I won’t allow to cross our threshold.
When they arrived, Masha stayed on the stairs while Igor limped and staggered in and grabbed me both to hug me and to hold him up.
He could hardly talk or walk. There was bruise under his left eye.
He finally managed to say that a cop had given him the bruise under the eye, and he had fallen and apparently knocked his knee out of joint.
We managed to get his pants off, and I pulled on the bottom of his leg while he pulled from the hip, and it seemed to go back into joint.
While he was limping and staggering, he fell against the kitchen table and it came slamming down on the foot of the same leg. Since there wasn’t much more damage he could do to the kitchen or himself, he limped to bed.
In the meantime, Finish disappeared with Masha and came back alone.
He came into the bedroom.
“Do you want to go to bed?” I asked, patting the bed beside me.
“Yes.”
He took off his shirt, shoes, socks, and pants and crawled in beside me in his shorts and T-shirt, and rolled onto his stomach. By this time, it was almost 6:30 and I had had very little real sleep. Since there was no milk or muesli left, I had an apple and an orange for breakfast.
When I returned to the bedroom for my electric toothbrush, Finish had rolled onto his back and was snoring deeply. Aha! I turned on the light, lifted up the top of his shorts and pulled them down.
His dick was about as I had imagined it: Average size, ample foreskin, but not redundant; i.e., though it completely covered the head, it didn’t extend an extra few cm at the end to pout like a little pink rosebudy the way Misha’s did. The pubic hair was typical for a 17-year-old – sparse until you got down to his dick, and then a heavy clump.
Although it was a dainty-looking morsel, it didn’t really trip my peter meter. And I couldn’t take a picture of it, because Igor is the one who puts my digital photos on the computer.
A few minutes later, the doorbell – for the sixth time:
“Open the door. This is Zhorik.”
When I met Zhorik at the door, he wasn’t exactly bubbling with joy at seeing me. “I have to go to the toilet,” he said, as he offered me his cheek for a scant kiss.
His first day here was pretty scattershot. I had an 8 a.m. lesson at Information Plus and a TOEFL lesson at English Exchange at 11, then home for an uneventful afternoon. Zhorik’s stomach was hurting, and Igor’s leg was still gimpy from the night before, which left me and Finish to go shopping.
In one of our rare conversations, Zhorik casually mentioned that, by the way, the cops in Stavropol had stopped him because he was wearing part of his uniform, which was against military regulations. When they searched him they found and stole all the money he had left from what I had given him.
That did not improve my mood any. When we talked by phone right after he had boarded the train, he said he had spent $ 100 on he ticket and had $ 400 left. Now he had nothing – not even enough for a pack of cigarettes. His father had had to give him road-money for the bus trip here from Svetlograd.
I caught an hour’s nap before heading out for the Inst. of Diplomacy class, then home about 10:10 p.m. with a couple of Street cocktails for me and “Trophy” cocktails for Zhorik, Igor, and Sergei.
Finish arrived with a two-liter bottle of beer seconds afterward.
I had told Zhorik earlier in the day I wanted to sleep with him. “Doesn’t make any difference to me,” he had responded.
“We have lots to talk about,” I continued, “and I want to be alone with you.” Wink, wink.
He nodded.
Sergei had said he would inform Igor that Zhorik would be sleeping with me and that Igor would be sleeping on the floor with Denis. After I got home, I reminded Igor: “I want to sleep with Zhorik tonight. We have a lot we need to talk about.”
“I know.”
“Are you upset?”
“No.”
When Zhorik finally came to bed about 2 a.m. he took off his shirt, shoes and socks and lay down beside me on his stomach.
I started rubbing his back through his tank top. After a few minutes he raised the tank top to the top of his shoulders, but didn’t take it off. He was still wearing his pants.
I slipped my hands under his pants and played with the long hair on his ass.
“How do you expect me to play with your cock if you don’t take your pants off.”
“I always slept with my pants on.”
“No you didn’t.”
He mumbled something else to the effect that we’d manage.
What are your plans after the army? School and work?”
“Yes. I want to buy an apartment in Stavropol first and then come to Moscow and work and go to school, and then go back to Stavropol after I graduate.”
“You want to live in Stavropol?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you going to get the money to buy an apartment?”
“I’m hoping you’ll help me.”
“I’m not saving much money now. As you know, I’m supporting five people and spending all my money.”
“We’ll see.”
“What do you want to do in Stavropol?”
“Be a policeman.”
“You want to steal money and mobile phones from young soldiers?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like the cop did from you.”
“I don’t want to do that. We’ll see.”
“What do you want to study here?”
“Law,” which is what a lot of the cops who are actually able to read and write study before they put on their bandit uniform.
“Do you want me to live with you in Stavropol?”
“Of course.”
“Have you talked to Sergei about your plans?”
“No. I don’t want to talk to him about it.”
Within 20 minutes he was asleep, and had rolled onto his back. I slipped my hand down under his belt and found his flaccid cock. I loosened his belt and unbuttoned his top button and stuck my right hand down to his cock and pulled it upward. It started getting hard and erected a time or two. By this time I had my left hand on my own dick and when he erected the second time, I came in my shorts.
So it was not such a bad beginning after all.
About 9 a.m. he half woke up and pushed my hands off his body.
“It’s too hot,” he grumbled.
Nothing left to stay in bed for, so I got up. I did, after all, have to get ready for student Gleb at 10.
He was here a week. For the first four days, we spent almost no time together. I asked him to go shopping with me Thursday afternoon. Instead, he and Igor and Finish all agreed to “help me,” but it quickly became obvious they had their own itineraries, and I wound up finishing the shopping trip by myself.
When I got home, Zhorik came into the kitchen and asked if he could have some money to “gulyat.”
How much?
He shrugged his shoulders.
“100 rubles,” I said.
“That’s not enough. Maybe 500.”
“No,” I exploded. “That’s too much. Maybe 300.”
He went into the other room.
I called him back into the kitchen. “I want to explain to you why I’m angry. I gave you $ 500. You spent $ 100 buying the ticket. You have nothing left.
“And I’m going to need money to get back on,” he added.
“And I’ve given you another $ 75 for your mobile phone. And Sergei tells me that your father borrowed 40,000 rubles from the bank to give Andrei….”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “We need to talk about that. He wants you to give him the money to pay the bank.”
I exploded.
“I don’t have 40,000 rubles. I’ve given you $ 500 and $ 75 and I’ve hardly seen you since you’ve been here. I thought you were coming here to see me.” My rant was rising to fever pitch:
“I’m supporting five people here. My rent is now almost $ 1,000 a month and I’m buying all the food and paying all the expenses. Nobody is working and nobody’s paying me anything.
“I’m reaching the end of my rope. And now your father wants me to pay the $ 1500 Andrei stole from him.
“There’s a fucking limit!”
A little while later he came in and asked me for the 300 rubles so he, Igor, and Finish could go to a nightclub.
They didn’t return all night long. When they finally came in at noon Friday they all were battered, bruised, and bloodied. They had gotten into a brawl against eight guys, which had apparently cemented their bonding once and for all.
Finish hasn’t gone home since the day he first arrived, and every night Sergei’s bedroom floor has been carpeted with bodies – Finish, Igor, Denis, and Ksenia, with Sergei and Tanya on the bed.
I don’t remember Friday night, but there was again no sex and no intimacy.
When I got home from the Inst. of Diplomacy on Saturday night, I was met with a chorus, “Let’s get drunk.” By that time I was in the mood. “Okay, but we’re going to drink here, and you’re not going to go out on the street and get in a brawl or go to a nightclub. I’ve had it up to here.”
Okay, they agreed.
It turns out they’d had a head start with a bottle of vodka. I bought another liter and we proceeded to get pretty plastered.
When Zhorik and I wound up alone in the kitchen, and he was uncharacteristically affectionate and sweet.
“I love you,” he said!!!! And then repeated, complete with motions. “I – love – you.” Then he not only kissed me in the mouth, he deep-tongued me.
I couldn’t believe what was happening. This is Zhorik, who just the night before had closed the kitchen door before he would even let me kiss him?
“Tonight,” he continued, pointed to his dick. “You can suck it.” With this unusual display of affection from him, I was ready to forgive all the slights of the last three days. And then:
“Can I have 500 rubles?”
Is that what this was all about!
“No,” I almost shouted. “All you’ve done since you’ve been here is drink and play and brawl and drink some more. I’m not giving you any more money to get drunk on!”
He lay his head on the table and passed out.
Sunday morning I awoke angry, disappointed, and stressed out. Zhorik had either gotten up early or not come to bed, and was in the bathtub. He looked inviting and compliant when I went in to take a pee, so I sat on the toilet and began stroking his legs, then the inside of his thighs, and finally his cock. It stirred, but he was afraid somebody would come in, so he got up and dried off.
Sergei had also gotten up early. “How is Zhorik’s visit going?” he asked as we met in the kitchen.
“Not good.”
In fact, a disaster. It was only 7:30 and I was too depressed to do anything but go back to bed and rest till student Anton came at 10.
Suddenly, the door opened, and quite unexpectedly, Zhorik joined me on the bed.
“Rub my back,” he said, which is a code between us that he wants to be intimate. About time!
I began rubbing his back and let my hands wander again to his furry ass. I rubbed and stroked and squeezed until he rolled onto his back. I began stroking his cock and it started getting hard. He erected a couple of times. When he turned on his side toward me, I continued stroking.
“Not now,” he motioned toward the other room, meaning not with all these people here. “Tonight.”
I put my right arm under his head and my left hand on his back and hugged him.
While I had his attention, I complained that I hard hardly seen him, that he had done nothing but play with Igor and Finish and Denis and Ksenia, get drunk out of his gourd, and get in street brawls.
“We’ll talk today,” he promised. “What’s your schedule?”
“I have a student at 10, and then I’m free for the rest of the day.”
It was the first moment of what I had hoped all of our two weeks together would be like. Maybe there was something salvageable after all.
He and I had planned to go “gulyating” when my student left at 11:30, but when the others found out we were going, they wanted to go to. “We won’t get any talking done with all of them along,” I protested.
“We’ll talk tonight,’ he promised.
We had a fun time biking and skating and drinking cocktails and playing with Missy in the park between Belarusskaya and Novoslobodskaya metro stations.
When we came back about 7:00, Zhorik suggested we get a couple of cocktails and go to our traditional chatting bench in the courtyard.
He repeated his “dream” of buying an apartment in Stavropol when he gets out of the army. “Then I can rent the apartment and come live with you in Moscow and find a job and go to school in the evening. I can use the money from the apartment rent to help pay expenses in Moscow.”
When he finished the university here, he said, he and I would go to Stavropol to live. “You wouldn’t have to work,” he said.
“But I’d want to, if I’m still able to. Remember, English First has offered me a job.
Then the conversation turned to his father’s 40,000 ruble -- $ 1500 -- debt to the bank for the money he had borrowed and given to Andrei and which Andrei has stuck him with (Chapt. 243).
I had told Zhorik I didn’t have it, but actually I did – but barely. “I can’t lend him the whole $ 1500,” I said, “but maybe I could give him $ 100 a month to help pay it down.
“He’s already paying $ 100 a month, but that only covers the interest. He’s not paying down the debt at all. He’ll keep paying $ 100 a month for the rest of his life and will never pay off the debt. He needs to pay down the principal.”
“Suppose I was able to loan him $ 1500; how could he afford to ever pay it back?”
“Well, there’s the $ 100 he’s paying to the bank now, and he’s also giving Natasha and Anya (Zhorik’s two sisters) 1000 rubles a month each. He could use that to also help pay it back.”
That’s 5,000 rubles a month. He owes 40,000 rubles, so under those conditions, he could pay it off in eight months.
“I can do it,” I suggested, “if he will agree to apply the money that he’s paying Anya and Natasha and the $ 100 he’s paying the bank to repay the loan, and if he’d be willing to continue paying you the 5,000 rubles a month till you get out of the army in 14 months. That way you’d have 70,000 rubles which could go toward your apartment.”
“He will agree,” Zhorik replied. “I will talk to him. His situation now is hopeless. He’ll agree.”
We talked some more about his apartment. Somebody has offered him 100,000 rubles to “do something illegal” at the end of his army stint. But if he got caught, he could be sent to prison.
“Zhorik,” I said, “100,000 rubles is less than $ 4,000. Your freedom is worth a lot more than $ 4,000. We can find some other way.”
“We’ll see.”
He said he could buy an apartment for about $ 25,000 - $ 30,000. We discussed the possibilities of coming up with the money by then – barely more than a year from now.
He was wearing only his shorts when he came to bed. “Rub my back.”
I rubbed his back and ass again.
“You said this morning he would play tonight.”
“My stomach hurts.”
“Zhorik, I’m using this time together to get some idea of what our life together will be like. So far, it hasn’t been very good. I’ve hardly seen you and we haven’t played a single time.”
“Everything will be all right.”
“Honey, I want our relationship to be more than just talking.
I was annoyed. I rolled away so that my back was to him. Is this what it’s going to be like? Always some excuse for not having sex? His head hurts, his stomach hurts, it’s too late, it’s too early….”
I felt him shift, and when I looked he was on his back. I reached over and began massaging his stomach. I reached into his shorts and began manipulating his cock. It responded and was very quickly standing.
“Do you want me to suck it?” I asked.
“No, just stroke it.”
We shifted sides so I could jerk with my right hand. It got rock hard and within a couple of minutes, I heard him say, “Dane.”
“Do you want me to suck it?”
He mumbled something and then I heard, “Damn, I’ve already come!”
He had been signaling me to take it, and in the meantime he had come all over himself. I licked the come off his dick and out of his pubic hair.
“My stomach hurts,” he said. “I’m going to go take a shower.”
The next morning his stomach was hurting worse. Not only that, but he had a fever and a relentless case of the shits – nothing but clear liquid. He was in real pain. The only place he felt comfortable was in the bathtub.
I figured he had picked up a cold, so I started plying him with aspirin, and after my 8 a.m. class I bought him some apples and oranges and some orange and tomato juice and some chicken for home-made chicken soup.
Surely he’d be okay by Tuesday. That was the day he was supposed to catch the bus back to Svetlograd.
But he ate scarcely anything, dividing his time between the toilet and the bed. Monday night, he came to bed, but quickly adjourned to the bathtub. On Tuesday I bought him some anti-diarrhea and anti-fever medicines and some bananas. His fever was down, but his stomach was still hurting and he was still stools were still mostly watery.
Tuesday afternoon he asked if we had an enema bag. No, so I bought one. And there was some slight compensation in helping give him the enema, naked in the bathtub with his feet hiked in the air while I gently pressed the tube into his asshold. We did this twice. It produced some shit, but no relief.
In the meantime, I realized that I didn’t have the money to give his father $ 1500. I could maybe give him $ 1,000 now to pay the loan down, and the rest next month.
This morning, Wednesday, he still felt no better, and as he was settling into the tub again about 9:30, said he thought he should go to a hospital. I’m afraid I agree. He’s got a serious case of something, and can’t possibly travel on a bus for 24 hours back to Svetlograd.
So everything now is up in the air.
The one positive thing that has come out of it is that I feel we’re much closer than before. Even though we only had sex once, I can feel the trust and affection building between us.
See also related pages:
Chapt. #245 - Zhorik exits; and so do human rights
Chapt. #243 - Missy “resurrection” inspires Easter celebration
