A Clockwork Krasnaya

Well, I may like Russia, but it does have its bad parts. The weather is too cold, the shop ladies are too slow and rude, (Usually they are. However, the young ones are frequently very pleasant. Maybe having your career as a nuclear physicist jerked from under you and being forced to sell shoes to the American tourists puts you in a bad mood, who knows?) Whatever the case, the bad here is easily outdone by the wonderful hospitality, the great food, the unbelievable vistas, and the variety of life.

They do have their crime problem here though. I am not talking about the vice-mayor getting shot in the head as he gets in his car in downtown St. Petersburg, a crime which nobody seemed to raise an eyebrow about, nor am I talking about the fact that to open a business in this town you have to buy protection from the RIGHT mafia group. (And there is no scorecard, they will all assure you which is the right one…) I am not talking about the poor people who are routinely swindled out of their life savings. (The other day in some villages, some official looking men came, told the people they had to turn in all their roubles in order to convert to the new EURO. They accepted the roubles, leaving a chit with the people that could be turned in a few days later for the new Euros. Apparently nobody told these poor villagers that Russia didn’t go with the Euro currency. No, I am specifically talking about groups of hooligans, (That is a word they use a lot over here, don’t think me reaching when I use it.) who cruise the streets looking for victims. I had been chosen by an Alec and his mates(Clockwork Reference for those of you not into really sick Kubrick movies.) a couple of months ago as I was out trying to get a feel, not in the literal sense, of the Russian night life. I was beaten senseless, my camera destroyed, and my cowboy hat abducted, never to be seen from again. Well, last night, it almost happened again.

I had just left a lecture at about 7 pm, and had to walk to the main street. To get there, it is necessary to walk through a slightly wooded area. Really, it is just a few trees that provide shadow, not something foreboding like from a Hitchcock movie. Two days ago, as I walked home, I noticed, and said hi to 4 young guys who seemed a bit too old and ill smelling to be interested in anything legal going on in the school at night, and I had the distinct impression that they had followed me a bit. Well, this night, three of them were waiting.

When I came to the area of the trees, obscured from the school, and not yet within site of the road, three fairly burly guys blocked my path. With what I understood them to be saying, they wanted cigarettes. That’s easy, I don’t smoke. Next came money, to which I scoffed and tried to squeeze through. That didn’t work. One guy grabbed me, the other two punched me, and I had a feeling this was going to be a very bad evening. All I could think to do is to grab the guy in front of me, who was the ringleader, and the biggest, and try to tackle him, which I did. We went down into the snow, with hands and feel flailing. I had picked hip up by the waist, and drove down as hard as I could, and when we hit, my forehead trying to drive him into the ground. We hit hard. My right hand went to his crotch, and I did all I could to make him scream as if possessed by a demon. (Which, in a manner of speaking he was.) His friends kicked me in the sides, but our heads were too close together for them to kick me in the head, so they had to content themselves with punching me in the back of my head. If I remember the back of my head, it is as hard as most fists, so I don’t know who got the worst of it. After what seemed like hours, but was probably 90 seconds, the two guys standing over me kicking me began to run off, and the guy under me slid away and he left too. (Not running, but sort of like a crab….) I checked myself, and was short a few rubles that I keep in my coat pocket, but that was about it. I may have gotten a few good shots in the ribs, as they are very, very sore, but all in all, I came out of it ok. You guys may be the best judge of that though. The last time this happened, I was horrified at the letter I wrote. I haven’t been to the doctor to see about a concussion, and I don’t think I have anything that vodka and lorazepam can’t at least make feel better.

These young Russian gangbangers just don’t do it as well as the American versions. I have a feeling it would have been a lot worse in the US. Hell, these guys even left my cowboy hat lying there. To quote Yakov Smirnov, “What a country!”