Keith Gessen - A Terrible Country

So this was the Putinist bargain: you give up your freedoms, I make you rich. Not everyone was rich, but enough people were making do that the system held. And who was I to tell them they were wrong? If they liked their Putin, they could have him.

Of course complacency was a sin. At the beginning of the Stalinist terror, Mandelshtam said contemptuously that people thought everything was fine as long as the trams still ran on their tracks. But how else are you supposed to know that things aren’t fine? In Moscow they had long ago torn up most of the tram tracks to make room for the cars. If the remaining trams stopped running, it would be a while before anyone noticed.

I still sometimes had trouble sleeping. Though I had lost my favorite show about cheaters, I kept staying up late and watching TV. Thanks to nineties-era Dima we had a cable channel that showed American sports, including football. I had always loved watching football, college football in particular, with its pageantry and crowds. In college I looked forward to being woken on Saturday mornings by the sound of our marching band on its way to the stadium. And then in Moscow, there it was again. The only catch was that the sound was off—of the crowd and the announcers both—and instead you had to listen to the Russian announcer, who was still learning the game. “Now of course they’re going to punt,” he’d say on a fourth down, except sometimes they didn’t. “Actually, they’ve decided not to punt. They’re not punting.” One of the first games I watched had a safety in it, and the announcer knew what a safety was, but he was confused by an ineligible receiver downfield (understandably) and also, less forgivably, by the ground not causing a fumble. “For some reason they are not giving them the ball,” he said of the defensive team that had caused (or, rather, not caused) the fumble. For an American of course “The ground cannot cause a fumble” was as self-evident as “All men are created equal.” But the announcer wasn’t American. I wasn’t in America. That’s the lesson I kept being taught, though I didn’t seem willing to learn it.

One weekend toward late September I was sitting in the back room, trying to experience LSU–Auburn despite the artificial hush in which it was being played, when my phone buzzed with a text message. I remember being startled to realize it was the first text message I had received since arriving in Moscow. “It’s Howard,” said the text. “We’re going to Teatr in an hour. Want to come?” Teatr was a dance club not too far from our house. I’d passed it a few times while running errands in the neighborhood. It occupied an old theater building and had a big garish fluorescent sign out front.

I held my phone and wondered what to say. On the one hand, I hated clubs and dreaded especially the prospect of spending fifty or more dollars at this one. On the other hand, it was the weekend, and my grandmother was asleep and wouldn’t for once miss me. Also, I was curious. And lonely. Without internet at home I’d taken to downloading videos of naked people at the Coffee Grind for later private viewing, but they must recently have installed some kind of megabyte counter, because the last few times I’d tried to download porn while I was in there, it hadn’t worked.

I looked at the television. The young men of LSU were running the option in silence. The announcer sounded tired. This was no way to live. I put on a dress shirt and a jacket and presented myself across the hall. “He’ll be OK, don’t you think?” Howard said when I came in.

“I think so,” Roberto said, evaluating me. “Teatr’s face control is pretty relaxed.”

So we had a few shots of vodka and some beers and headed to the club in a cab. Crammed in the back with an excited Howard and a reluctant Michael, all of us in sport coats, I felt drunk and a little excited. I was finally getting out of the house.

Teatr was pulsating with dance music; we heard it as soon as we pulled up. As Roberto predicted, the two goons at the door merely patted me down for weapons and then let me in. Once inside, we were greeted by a throng of young people writhing on a dance floor that ran down at a slight angle to a stage; it was an old theater, and they had simply torn out all the seats. They’d kept the stage, though, and the DJ with his tool kit was up there playing music very loud.

Immediately I regretted coming. This was hell. The other guys melted away, leaving me alone. I did not know how to dance, nor did it seem like anyone would have been willing to dance with me if I did. Everyone in the club was twenty years old; there were some men in there a little closer to my age, fat and bald and sweating in their suits, but they were surrounded by young women—you could almost see the dollars flying out of these guys’ pockets. I tried to dance for a while, but after joining a few dancing groups and watching those groups sort of gradually turn away from me in a coordinated movement, I slunk off in the direction of the bar, where I bought an expensive beer, which I tried to drink very slowly and purposefully, as if I had something to do.

This is where Howard found me. He was with a tall, thin, blue-eyed girl with high cheekbones and perfect hair. I was shocked. “There you are,” said Howard, as if he’d been looking for me. “Natasha,” he said, “this is my landlord, Andrew.”

“Landlord?” said Natasha, in English.

“More like a representative of the landlord,” I said, in Russian.

“You’re Russian?” she said.

“Yes, basically.”

“Well, and a landlord. That’s very impressive.”

Things seemed to have turned around for me. I had seen girls like this on the street and occasionally at the Coffee Grind, but I had never actually spoken to one. It was just like speaking to a regular person, but one who was more beautiful.

“Natasha wants to get out of here and go party somewhere else,” Howard said to me. “Want to come?” Did I! But I hesitated, not knowing whether Howard would rather be alone, and whether he was a paying customer of Natasha’s. But he seemed to want me to come along, and Natasha said, “Landlord. Come with us.”

I don’t think she knew what was going to happen—at least, I hope she didn’t. I think she really thought we were going to continue the party somewhere else. But Howard’s bad luck was about to rub off on me. We made our way through the dancing throng and back out into the crisp autumn air. It was great to be outside, and with a beautiful girl. I was beginning to think that finally I’d made a correct decision.

As we stood outside and Howard smoked a cigarette, Natasha was busy with her phone, occasionally muttering something in annoyance. “What is it?” Howard asked.

“My boyfriend is an asshole,” she said.

This was the first I’d heard of a boyfriend, but Howard took it in stride. Who didn’t have a boyfriend, after all? And a girl like Natasha probably had lots of beautiful friends. “He says he’s picking me up and we’re going home,” Natasha continued. “But I bet I can talk him into coming out with us.”

The club was on the pedestrian strip of the boulevard, about a mile from our place; to meet Natasha’s boyfriend we had stepped over the short fence and into the street. We stood there awhile; it was around two o’clock on a Saturday night, now Sunday morning, and the street was alive with activity. This city was fun. We could feel the club pulsating from where we stood; occasionally people came out for a cigarette, or to get in a cab; there was an informal line of unofficial taxis waiting out front. The old pastel-colored nineteenth-century buildings along Clean Ponds Boulevard, converted to luxury clothing shops, gleamed yellow and pink in the moonlight. There was a Benetton, and a restaurant called Avocado that looked like it was still open. Natasha kept tapping at her phone, in an increasingly foul mood. I remember thinking, though, how ordinary this scene was—some people out partying, waiting for our ride, hoping to keep the night going—and, really, how much fun.