Over the holidays, I went across to the next village to visit the man I call "the weathervane": a bluff, highly educated good old boy who keeps his ear close to the ground and always seems to know which way the wind is blowing.
"It costs $5,000 to get a telephone out here," he noted on this visit. "It's insane! But what the hell," he added, shrugging his shoulders. "The whole place is insane these days."
Last summer, as he tinkered with cars in his driveway, he'd been oddly optimistic: The money, he said, that had been stolen from the country was beginning to come back from abroad to be invested. This winter, though, he was back at his most mockingly glum.
"Well, the money's all gone again, of course," he said, "except for what's already been sunk into real estate. The mad Mavrodi business (MMM) didn't help. And then there was the collapse of the Chara Bank. Virtually everybody I know had money in it."
He laughed. "The poor old Russian intelligentsia! They always think they're immune. They thought Stalin wouldn't touch them. Now they think they're not going to be affected by the operator of a crazy pyramid scheme. It has to be all right, they say, because we're involved in it, as if they were the Russian equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval!
"And now there's Chechnya ... I don't know," he said as we went inside.
"I think Yeltsin would have had to get up a whole lot earlier in the morning to think of anything more stupid, more costly and more damaging. Look, there are 100,000 Russians in Grozny. And there's the whole of the north of the country which is basically Russian, and wants to be Russian. Why didn't Yeltsin simply isolate Grozny, stick up a frontier and tell the Chechens that from now on they'd have to have passports? Then he could have relocated the Russians in Grozny to the north, and left the Chechens to think about it while they stewed in their own juice.
"But oh, no! Far too easy!" he said. "Instead we have to have a glorious military disaster in which no one seems to know what on earth is going on. Deputies hole up in Dudayev's palace; generals announce that the whole operation is illegal; and soldiers sell their arms for vodka and kill people indiscriminately. If the Russian Army isn't already the laughing-stock of the world, then it soon will be."
I reminded him of one of my columns a few months ago, in which I wrote that something like the invasion of Chechnya was inevitable, because of Russia's ingrained vision of itself: its national myth.
"Ah, yes," he said, "I remember. Rather like Britain's invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956. Different myth, different empire, same mad result. Well, I don't know, Jo. Maybe you're right. All I know is that the whole thing is unwinnable; it's going to cost a fortune, both directly and indirectly; and it's already put Yeltsin and his cronies in bed with the ex-Communists and Zhirinovsky. Not bad for just a little police action, eh?"
"That was exactly what they called Suez," I said. "A police action."
He laughed again. And then, after we'd drunk tea in his kitchen, I asked him how he was in himself. "You look in very good shape," I said.
"Why not?" answered my friend, a scientist by training. "I've been doing a little writing over the winter. I've been making a bit of money helping out with the building of a couple of dachas. And now -- finally -- I own my house and most of the land it stands on. So I can rent or sell a piece of my property here. And soon I want to go back to some real (scientific) work. But first I shall pay a little overseas visit. To England, I think."
He got up and proudly showed me the British visa stamped in his passport. Then, as he reached for a bottle of vodka and two glasses: "You see, I think what might be happening here, Jo, is the beginning of a real private life, rather than merely the diseased, defensive one we lived before. And I thought I should go and have a look at what private life is really like in the West, and what it might be like in the future here.
"Where else should I go," he said, his eyes twinkling, "but the place which had its own Chechnya 30 years ago and then had to learn how to live with it?"
He raised his glass. "Here's to national myths, Jo," he said. Then, after he'd downed the vodka: "A quick death to them all."
"It costs $5,000 to get a telephone out here," he noted on this visit. "It's insane! But what the hell," he added, shrugging his shoulders. "The whole place is insane these days."
Last summer, as he tinkered with cars in his driveway, he'd been oddly optimistic: The money, he said, that had been stolen from the country was beginning to come back from abroad to be invested. This winter, though, he was back at his most mockingly glum.
"Well, the money's all gone again, of course," he said, "except for what's already been sunk into real estate. The mad Mavrodi business (MMM) didn't help. And then there was the collapse of the Chara Bank. Virtually everybody I know had money in it."
He laughed. "The poor old Russian intelligentsia! They always think they're immune. They thought Stalin wouldn't touch them. Now they think they're not going to be affected by the operator of a crazy pyramid scheme. It has to be all right, they say, because we're involved in it, as if they were the Russian equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval!
"And now there's Chechnya ... I don't know," he said as we went inside.
"I think Yeltsin would have had to get up a whole lot earlier in the morning to think of anything more stupid, more costly and more damaging. Look, there are 100,000 Russians in Grozny. And there's the whole of the north of the country which is basically Russian, and wants to be Russian. Why didn't Yeltsin simply isolate Grozny, stick up a frontier and tell the Chechens that from now on they'd have to have passports? Then he could have relocated the Russians in Grozny to the north, and left the Chechens to think about it while they stewed in their own juice.
"But oh, no! Far too easy!" he said. "Instead we have to have a glorious military disaster in which no one seems to know what on earth is going on. Deputies hole up in Dudayev's palace; generals announce that the whole operation is illegal; and soldiers sell their arms for vodka and kill people indiscriminately. If the Russian Army isn't already the laughing-stock of the world, then it soon will be."
I reminded him of one of my columns a few months ago, in which I wrote that something like the invasion of Chechnya was inevitable, because of Russia's ingrained vision of itself: its national myth.
"Ah, yes," he said, "I remember. Rather like Britain's invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956. Different myth, different empire, same mad result. Well, I don't know, Jo. Maybe you're right. All I know is that the whole thing is unwinnable; it's going to cost a fortune, both directly and indirectly; and it's already put Yeltsin and his cronies in bed with the ex-Communists and Zhirinovsky. Not bad for just a little police action, eh?"
"That was exactly what they called Suez," I said. "A police action."
He laughed again. And then, after we'd drunk tea in his kitchen, I asked him how he was in himself. "You look in very good shape," I said.
"Why not?" answered my friend, a scientist by training. "I've been doing a little writing over the winter. I've been making a bit of money helping out with the building of a couple of dachas. And now -- finally -- I own my house and most of the land it stands on. So I can rent or sell a piece of my property here. And soon I want to go back to some real (scientific) work. But first I shall pay a little overseas visit. To England, I think."
He got up and proudly showed me the British visa stamped in his passport. Then, as he reached for a bottle of vodka and two glasses: "You see, I think what might be happening here, Jo, is the beginning of a real private life, rather than merely the diseased, defensive one we lived before. And I thought I should go and have a look at what private life is really like in the West, and what it might be like in the future here.
"Where else should I go," he said, his eyes twinkling, "but the place which had its own Chechnya 30 years ago and then had to learn how to live with it?"
He raised his glass. "Here's to national myths, Jo," he said. Then, after he'd downed the vodka: "A quick death to them all."
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