The wonders of technology

This might sound a tad corny but do you know where I am posting this right now? On a train bound for Tallinn from Tartu! Yes, despite the inadequacy of the railway network in the Baltics in general, this is the first train I've ridden on that has WiFi (or as Kristina, my Estonian friend, says: veefy). (Less remarkable, but a rare event no doubt: I'm on first class!) These E-stonians are amazing!

Need to travel

RIGA - Had a crazy Boxing Day yesterday with some of the craziest strangers-slash-instant friends I've ever been since my student days in Madrid. At least I got a taste of how the Winter Camp in Riga might be in a couple of days. Apart from my lovely Latvian hosts, there were a couple of Brazilian students and an American photographer.

One of the Brazilians, an ethnic Japanese by the name of Shinji now studying in Stockholm, promised to send me a copy of the photo he took at the Cuba Bar. Anyway, looking up his site right now I found some wonderful words to live by, uttered by Amyr Klink, a Brazilian explorer famous for rowing solo across from Namibia to Brazil in 101 days in 1984. He embarked on an even bigger challenge five years later (described by his site as follows):

Foi em dezembro de 1989, que teve início o Projeto de Invernagem Antártica, em Solitário, a bordo do veleiro polar "Paratii", quando percorreu 27 mil milhas da Antártica ao Ártico, em 642 dias. Os livros: "Paratii - Entre dois pólos" e "As janelas do Paratii" relatam e ilustram este projeto.

Klink's quote (*which I later found on other sites in my travelers' society) was taken from his 1997 project "Antarctica 360" - a rigorous circumnavigation of the frozen continent. In his account called Mar sem Fim (Sea Without End), he spoke about man's need to stretch his legs and experience the world for himself. The original quote in Portuguese is:

Um homem precisa viajar. Por sua conta, não por meio de histórias, imagens, livros ou TV. Precisa viajar por si, com seus olhos e pés, para entender o que é seu. Para um dia plantar as suas árvores e dar-lhes valor. Conhecer o frio para desfrutar o calor. E o oposto. Sentir a distância e o desabrigo para estar bem sob o próprio teto. Um homem precisa viajar para lugares que não conhece para quebrar essa arrogância que nos faz ver o mundo como o imaginamos, e não simplesmente como é ou pode ser; que nos faz professores e doutores do que não vimos, quando deveríamos ser alunos, e simplesmente ir ver.

A man has to travel. On one's own, not through history, images, books or TV. One has to travel by himself, by his own eyes and feet, to understand what's his. To one day plant his own trees and give them worth. To know the cold to enjoy warmth. And vice versa. To feel distance and unshelteredness to feel good under one's own roof. A man has to travel to unknown places to rend the arrogance that makes us see the world as we imagine it and not simply how it is or could be; that make us teachers and doctors of what we haven't seen, when we should be students and simply go and see.

It is not a little humbling that this adventurer, of Lebanese and Swedish parentage and of not inconsiderable accomplishments, is not only a man of action but also a man of letters and numbers.

Reared at an early age on Brazilian poetry and French literature, Klink has not only penned books about his experiences but has a grounding in economics, with a masters in Management at the University of Mackenzie. He has collected old canoes since he was 10 years old and in the process, helped found the National Sea Museum (Museu Nacional do Mar) in São Francisco do Sul (Santa Catarina state).

Were we all as accomplished and at the same time modest.

Russian kerb-crawlers, foreign punters

There was this disconcerting article in Passport magazine, an English-language events guide here in Moscow. This magazine, which I found really refreshing for the original photos and obviously more than once toiled-over articles, for the most part was okay when long-time resident English playwright Jeremy Noble was still editor. He's been replaced since July by this contemptible excuse for an editor (and, I sometimes suspect, for a human being), half-literate English shyster John H. Now it is a mixed bag of varying quality.

I've managed to remain aloof on the general question of the quality of magazines and publications but the combined idiocy of John H and the "howdy-do" publisher, John O, has lamentably gotten my gander up in the worst possible way. For example, John O's mug frequently appears in the photos and, unlike the previous editions, there are hardly any cultural reviews nowadays. In its place, the John 'n' John show presents readers the half-mad ravings of a certain American diplomat Linda Lippner (the alliterative Ls recall Lex Luthor's), whose write-ups wouldn't even pass Composition 101 in prep school. The final product ultimately depends on John H but he seems to have the uncanny ability to dodge responsibility to a truly perverse and sickening degree. As you can imagine, my Inessa and I go into paroxysms whenever we see the magazine hit the stands.

Prior to the latest December issue, a decision by John H to request and run an insane article on the supposed superior qualities of Russian women over Western ones based on the former's willingness to be objectified by Western men seems to have tripped up a hornet's nest. Indulgently titled "Google and the Dialectic of Russian Women Versus Western Women", the article takes off on its comparison of Western and Russian attitudes by using the most exact of empirical devices - "the unerring" search engine, Google. While covering his backside by making references to Google's "debatable" mathematical model of relevance to sort searches, the author Alec Maryanchik quickly reveals why no one should even bother reading his writing assignment from John H. (How can Google have both a "debatable" and "unerring" search system, pray tell?) He describes his inexplicable basis for using Google for the article by saying that the engine is "remarkable as a tool for overcoming writer's block – particularly when attempting to tackle a topic as delicate as the cultural divide between Russian and American women." Given a mindlessly controversial topic to explore, Maryanchik pleads guilty to writer's block and cutely reveals to the readers how he got around it. Emperor John and his Jester Alec's New Clothes!

He goes on to say that, in contrast to Western feminists, who hardly qualify nowadays as objects of masculine devotion and romance, Russian women are granted "no role other than that of a romantic interest and a bride". He proceeds to commit thematical suicide by jumping from one conclusion and generalisation to the next without giving much bases for them: praising the beauty of the women, while saying it was all due to malnutrition and extreme focus on appearance; Russian life is ghastly while Moscow's is glamourous but only on the surface because, apart from being the Beverly Hills, Miami and New York of Russia, the capital really is essentially as tawdry to its inhabitants as Harlem's ghettoes are to New Yorkers'; while saying Moscow is far more commercial than the rest of the country, in the next breath he decries the demise of family values by saying the only ones who still practice and preach it are the old forgotten folks in Kemerovo in Eastern Siberia; the beauty of Russian women is really just skin deep, as evinced by their preference to perfumes over deodorants; and so on. Yadda-yadda.

With the false air of a sociological study, Maryanchik then devotes the rest of the article to trying to tease out the real reason for the reality gap between practicality and romance that explains how Russian women, essentially, get away with pulling the wool over the eyes of gullible Western men.

Precisely because Russian consumerism co-exists with patriarchate, practicality and romance are not in opposition here, as they are in the West. This is the Russian dialectic of what my expat American friend calls naive cynicism, or romantic practicality – which presents such a relief to the Western man in providing the welcome synthesis of seemingly irreconcilable concepts.

It is in this synthesis that a Russian prostitute, paid by the hour, can and often does, open her heart to a client – so that it is actually possible to have a meaningful and emotional preand post-coital conversation which does not stutter as money changes hands. Conversely, it is in this synthesis that a perfectly decent Russian girl from a good family can hint, on a second date, that her shoes are too thin for the coming winter – and will accept a new pair with no ambivalence clouding her sense of gratitude, underpinned by a sense of entitlement (you are the man, so make me warm). Prostitutes acting like soul mates and vice versa… Russian dialectic again – synthesizing the concept of sponsoring, which is so poorly understood in the West. While relying on a man for the living expenses (including the very basic needs that still remain after paying for the glamour bit), Russian women wear this dependence as gracefully as they wear impossibly high heels on a casual walk down the grocery store.

The ability and willingness of Moscow girls to go off to Ibiza for a week with a near-total stranger bespeaks the kind of zen-like state of inner liberation that can only thrive in the absence of opportunity. Likewise, their hedonism is not of the synthetic intellectual nature – but rather of the raw primeval kind that is virtually extinct in most civilized places these days, vanishing under the onslaught of morality and responsibility.

It is this synthesis of romantic carefree naivety and almost cynical practicality which gives Russian women the ability to bestow a particular brand of warmth, coquetry, and defenseless charm of vulnerability upon rich foreign men – while milking them for gifts and money quite unabashedly and consciously. And – judging by Google at least – everybody wins.

Goodness, the depths of the man's ignorance are stunning and unfathomable. He goes on to explain that part of the reason for Russia's booming economy is because representatives of foreign investors or trading firms justify their frequent trips to Moscow by "generat[ing] excitement" for doing business here just for another roll in the hay. These poor excuses for men make other foreign blokes in general look very bad, indeed. If most Russian women can and should be defended as not being kerb-crawlers, it must also be said that not all foreign men are punters, either.

As expected, this two-page article was met with a storm of protest, and not only from women. In fact an excellent piece by Robert Bridge appeared in The Moscow News (a fluffy excuse for a newspaper that is still loads better than the execrable Exile as a regular Moscow publication) a couple of weeks ago with the title "Dude, Where's My Passport?".

The more I subject myself to the increasing number of English-language publications available in Moscow, the more it seems the majority of us foreigners only know Russians from four major sources: (1) a car window (2) night/strip clubs (3) their fellow expats (4) a western publication.

Furthermore, I would venture to guess that 70% of expatriates in Russia are fortified inside gated communities, embassy compounds or expensive apartments that isolate them from average Russian citizens, not to mention Russian life, while most of their friends are fellow expats with similar views.

Personally, I find this troubling because many of us adventurous expats will return home one day and share our tainted "Russian experiences" with friends and family. Unfortunately, these canned views will not differ much from what one can read in The New York Times, for example.

Or worse, they may articulate their jaded opinions in an article like the one I found in Passport magazine this month ("Google and the Dialectic of Russian Women versus Western Women").

Author "Alec Maryanchik" opens his piece by making a comparison of Google searches between American women and Russian women. The "American women" search is top heavy with dull titles involving politics, suffrage and history, thus providing an unattractive image of college girls "hunching under backpacks filled with texts on sexual harassment" fighting patriarchy. Agreeably, not the most accurate account of western women, but at least they walk away from this contest with their dignity - and much else - intact.

The bulk of the article is dedicated to America's Russian sisters, where the top five results of his Google search produced topics associated with Russian brides, wives, dates and more than one seductive photo; in other words, more ugly generalizations.

While nobody would deny that Russian women have become hot export items for men around the world, it is the conclusions the Passport writer draws from this fact that demand comment.

Maryanchik clings to stereotypes so repulsive that I fear his only acquaintances among Russian women are those who spend their nights swinging around brass poles in smoky clubs. Indeed, the only time he seems to really know his subject is when he speaks about prostitutes and how "it is actually possible to have a meaningful and emotional pre- and post-coital conversation which does not stutter as money changes hand." Then there is a story straight out of Dickens' Bleak House about the poor Russian girl who hints on a second date that "her shoes are too thin for the coming winter." Mr. Maryanchik, you would make a fine fiction writer.

My 10-year Moscow experience (including many trips to the provinces), while nothing out of the ordinary, has yet to provide a single instance that could support this wild hypothesis on Russian females. In fact, I believe it is impossible to truly know Russian females without being struck by several powerful impressions. First, the majority are highly educated and driven to succeed, and, like smart women anywhere, have no intention of pinning their future on the whims of a man. In the workplace, they are professionals bordering on perfectionists. It has been my experience that Russian women are simply too well-educated, too well-read, too damn classy to accept a ride-for-free pass through life, yet the Passport writer (who I doubt even owns a passport) believes manipulation to be their essential quality. Maryanchik argues, wrongly, that it is the Russian women's "dependence" and "defenseless charm of vulnerability" mixed with a "thin veneer of glamour" that makes them so appealing to search engines. I would argue that it is exactly the opposite of these traits that make them so.

Of course, there are many shortcomings when generalizing a particular subject through a Google search. When I googled "Passport+Moscow," for example, this monthly glossy did not appear until the fourth page. Maryanchik is certainly welcome to argue that result.

You wonder really if these people at Passport magazine knew what they're doing. They don't seem to be guided by a particular philosophy or even editorial line. It's pretty much hodge-podge from the way it looks here.