Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets (25 page)

As long as that mummy—the Soviet pharaoh—remains in Red Square under that pagan burial mound, we’ll continue to suffer. We’re cursed…

—

—I work at a deli…

My husband could tell you about it…Where is he? [
She looks around.
] What good am I? All I do is make pastries…

1991? We were good people back then…Beautiful people. We weren’t a mob. I saw a man dancing. Dancing and shouting “F
—
the Junta! F
—
the Junta!” [
She covers her face with her hands.
] Oh, don’t write that down! Oh no! You can’t take back what’s been said, but that word shouldn’t be printed. He wasn’t a young man, either…and he was dancing. We beat them and we were celebrating. They say they already had kill lists prepared. Yeltsin would go first…I saw them all on TV the other day. That junta…a gang of not-too-bright old men. For those three days, there was a sense of terrible despair: Could this really be the end? Visceral fear. That spirit of freedom…everyone felt it…and the fear of losing it. Gorbachev is a great man…He opened the floodgates…People loved him, but not for long. Pretty soon, everything about him was irritating: how he talked, what he said, his mannerisms, his wife. [
She laughs.
] “Through the land gallops a troika: Mishka, Raika, perestroika.” Compared to Naina Yeltsina…People like her more because she’s always standing behind her husband. Raisa would sidle up to him or even get in front of him. Our custom is that either you’re the Tsaritsa, or you stay out of the Tsar’s way.

Communism is like prohibition: It’s good in theory, but it doesn’t work. That’s what my husband says…The Red saints, they were…Take Nikolai Ostrovsky
^*20
—a saint! But consider how many people they killed. Russia really exhausted its limit for blood in all the wars and revolutions. There’s no strength left over for any more blood, any more madness. The people have suffered enough. Now they go shopping, picking out drapes and lace curtains, wallpaper, choosing between different kinds of frying pans. They like everything colorful because it all used to be so gray and ugly. We’re as giddy as kids at the sight of a washing machine with seventeen settings. My parents are gone: My mother for seven years now, and my father for eight, but I still haven’t used up all of the matches my mother stockpiled. We still have their grain. And their salt. Mama would buy everything she could (back then, we would say “procure” rather than “buy”) and stash it away for a rainy day…Now we go to the markets and stores like they’re museums—there’s loads of everything. You want to spoil yourself, indulge. It’s therapeutic. We’re all so sick…[
She falls into thought.
] How much did a person have to suffer to have hoarded that many matches? I can’t bear to call what we have a petit bourgeois mentality. Materialism. It’s therapy…[
She is silent.
] As time goes on, people are forgetting the putsch. They’ve grown embarrassed. The feeling of victory is long gone. Because…I didn’t want the Soviet government to be destroyed. Thinking back on how we destroyed it—gleefully!…But I lived there for half of my life…you can’t just erase that…Everything in my head is built around Soviet structures. I would have to work very hard to change that. People don’t remember the bad things too often anymore, now they’re just proud of the Victory and the fact that we were the first ones in space. The empty stores—that’s all been forgotten…It’s hard to imagine all that considering how it is now…

Right after the putsch, I went to visit my grandfather in the country…I couldn’t put the radio down for even a second. In the morning, we went out to dig plant beds. Every five minutes, I’d throw down my shovel: “Listen to this, Grandpa…Yeltsin’s speaking…” Then again: “Grandpa, did you hear that?” My grandfather put up with it until he couldn’t take it any more. “Why don’t you dig a little deeper and stop listening to all that blather. Our salvation is in the soil, the only thing it depends on is the potatoes.” Grandpa was a wise man. In the evening, our neighbor came by. I brought up Stalin. Our neighbor: “He was a good man, but he lived too long.” My grandfather: “And I outlived that bastard.” And there I was, still walking around with my little radio. Trembling with excitement. The worst part of the day was when the deputies would take their lunch break. The action stopped.

…What do I have? What was I left with? A huge library, tons of books and records—all of them! And my mother’s, too; she had a PhD in chemistry, I have her books and her collection of rare minerals. A burglar broke into her house once…She woke up in the middle of the night to see a young thug standing in the middle of her apartment (it was a one-room apartment). He opened the closet and started throwing everything out of it. Hurling things on the floor, cursing: “Damn intelligentsia…You don’t even have a decent fur coat…” He ended up slamming the door and leaving. She had nothing for him to steal. That’s our intelligentsia for you. Their legacy. Meanwhile, people are building themselves villas, buying expensive cars. My whole life, I’ve never seen a single diamond…

Life in Russia is like fiction. But I want to live here, among Soviet people…And watch Soviet films. They might be full of lies and made-to-order for the government, but I love them. [
Laughs.
] God forbid my husband sees me on TV…

—

—I’m an officer…

Now I would like to say my piece. [
He’s a young man, around twenty-five.
] Write this down: I am a Russian Orthodox patriot. I serve Our Lord. And I serve Him zealously, with the help of prayer. Who sold Russia out? The Jews. The Rootless. The kike has made God weep many times over.

The worldwide conspiracy…What we’re dealing with is a conspiracy against Russia. The Dulles plan…I don’t want to hear it—don’t tell me it’s a hoax! Silence! CIA director Allen Dulles’s plan…“After sowing chaos, we will imperceptibly substitute their values for false ones. We will find like-minded individuals, our allies within Russia…We will turn the youth into cynics, vulgarians, cosmopolitans. That’s how we’ll get our way…” Do you understand? The Jews and the Yanks are our enemies. Dumb Yankees. President Clinton’s speech at a secret meeting of the American political elite: “We have achieved what President Truman set out to do with the atom bomb…We have bloodlessly eliminated the country that was America’s greatest competitor for world domination…” How long will our enemies soar over us? Jesus said, “Fear not nor be dismayed, be strong and of good courage.” God will have mercy on Russia and lead her to mighty glory through suffering…

[
I can’t stop him.
]

…In ’91 I graduated from military academy with two stars. A junior lieutenant. I was so proud, I never took off my uniform. A Soviet officer! A defender! Then, after the putsch failed, I started reporting to work in civilian clothes and changing there. Otherwise, any old man might come up to me at the bus stop, demanding, “Why didn’t you defend the motherland, boy? You son of a bitch! You took an oath.” Officers served hungry. On our monthly salary, all you could afford was a kilogram of cheap salami. I ended up quitting the army. For a while, I worked nights, doing security for prostitutes. Now I’m a security guard for a company. Kikes! They’re the root of all evil…A Russian has nowhere to turn to. They crucified Christ…[
He shoves a flyer at me.
] Here, read this…All these Sobchaks and Chubaises and Nemtsovs
^*21
…Neither they, nor the police, nor the army can defend you from the righteous rage of the people. “Haim, did you hear—there’s going to be a pogrom.” “I’m not scared. It says I’m Russian on my passport.” “You idiot, they beat your face, not your passport.” [
He crosses himself.
]

I’m for Russian law in the Russian land! The names of Akhromeyev, Makashov and other heroes…flying on our banners! God will not abandon us…

—

—I’m a student…Akhromeyev? Who is that? Where’s that from?

—The putsch…the August revolution…

—Sorry…Never heard of it…

—How old are you?”

—Nineteen. I’m not interested in politics. That spectacle is foreign to me. But I like Stalin. Now he’s interesting. Compare today’s politicians to a leader in a military greatcoat. Who comes out looking better? That’s the thing…I don’t need a mighty Russia. I am not about to pull on some stupid boots and hang a machine gun around my neck. I don’t want to die! [
He is silent for a moment.
] The Russian dream: a suitcase in your hand, and get the fuck out of Russia! Go to America! But I don’t want to move there just to spend my whole life as a waiter. I need to think.

*1
Ogonyok
was an influential weekly magazine that reached its pinnacle of popularity during perestroika under editor-in-chief Vitaly Korotich, who pushed a pro-capitalist, pro-American editorial agenda. “Writers of the sixties” refers to the post-Stalinist generation who came to prominence during the Thaw.

*2
Mstislav Rostropovich (1927–2007) was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He left the Soviet Union in 1974 and did not return until 1990. In November 1989, Rostropovich famously played a Bach cello suite as the Berlin Wall collapsed around him.

*3
Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928–) was Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981. He was particularly reviled by the Soviet establishment for his firm stance with the USSR as well as his Polish origins.

*4
The Friendship of the Peoples was a cultural policy introduced by Stalin in 1935 in order to consolidate the national identities of Russian and non-Russian groups within the USSR. Its image of an international socialist brotherhood lived on in Soviet propaganda to the very end, which compounded the trauma of the reemergence of nationalism in soon-to-be former Soviet republics at the fissure of the Soviet empire.

*5
The Ostankino Television Tower, completed in 1967, is a radio and television broadcasting tower in Moscow. It remains the tallest standing structure in Europe.

*6
Dmitry Afanasiev (1969–) is a leading contemporary Russian corporate lawyer who has served on the board of Norilsk Nickel, the world’s leading producer of nickel and palladium.

*7
Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989) was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989. When the regime collapsed, Ceaușescu and his wife were hastily tried and convicted by a special military tribunal on charges of genocide and sabotage of the Romanian economy in an hour-long court session on December 25. They were executed on the same day by firing squad. Video footage and photographs of the rushed show trial and the dead Ceaușescus were released in numerous countries in the West two days after their execution.

*8
This term originated in the 1930s to describe people who have been “reborn” or “regenerated” under the influence of the bourgeois milieu, ideologically gone over to the side of the enemies of socialism.

*9
Herostratus was a fourth-century B.C. arsonist who burned down the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Ancient Greece, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

*10
A special kind of telephone used exclusively for internal Kremlin communication.

*11
A group of Chilean economists, educated at the University of Chicago, who worked toward instituting a liberal economy under Pinochet’s dictatorship. The term was later used to designate economists in favor of a “shock therapy” approach in the former Soviet Union.

*12
Pejorative name for Gaidar’s team, which had embarked on reforming the most profound tenets of the Soviet economy. This pejorative term was subsequently used to designate supporters of liberal economics.

*13
In 1840, young poet and activist Nikolay Ogarev (1813–1877) and philosopher and writer Alexander Herzen (1812–1870) made an oath to one another on Moscow’s Sparrow Hills (in Soviet times, renamed “Lenin Hills”) to devote their lives to fighting for freedom in Russia. Both men ended up becoming prominent advocates for social reform, which led to their exile in Western Europe.

*14
Galina Starovoitova (1946–1998) was a Russian politician and ethnographer who supported democratic reforms in Russia. She was murdered in her apartment building during the Yeltsin administration.

*15
Alexei Kosygin (1904–1980) was chairman of the Council of Ministers (the effective head of the Soviet government) from 1964 to 1980.

*16
Antiretreat detachments were placed behind troops to prevent desertion by immediately executing any deserters. During World War II, penal units were military units made up of NKVD prisoners.

*17
Marat Kazei (1929–1944), a Young Pioneer who joined the partisans at the age of thirteen and was posthumously given the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for killing himself with a hand grenade in a standoff with Germans. For Pavlik Morozov, see note on
this page
.

*18
Nikolai Gastello was a Russian aviator and the first Soviet pilot to conduct a suicide attack by an aircraft, earning him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

*19
SMERSH was a counterespionage unit tasked with identifying and punishing spies and traitors during the war. It was, essentially, an instrument of terror within the army.