Checkmate

Soundtrack, RATATAT, Ratatat

So it’s Friday night and I decide to leave school early so I can run a few errands and make it home in time to get some laundry done, eat some dinner, and take a nap before heading out. When I walked in the door with some groceries my host asked me (as she has become accustomed to doing) if I was going out to a bar with friends tonight. (This is always my stock answer, having a limited vocabulary, and she began to make fun of me for this about a week ago.) I said – to her surprise – that I didn’t know and I would be home at least for a while. I was in the bathroom mid first-Russian-hand-washing-of-the-clothes experience and trying to figure out how to get the last of the soap out of my jeans and there was a knock on the door. I was a bit surprised, and opened the door cautiously to find a tallish man, about my age, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and the beginnings of a moustache. He had absolutely no qualms about beckoning me from the bathroom with a knock followed by a sullen expression. I had never seen or heard of him before, and he introduced himself as Valode. He then said something to me in Russian that I could only gather was some kind of invitation. I heard from the kitchen, Maria calling me and inviting me in.

In the kitchen on the table there was this beautiful cake, three cups of tea and three plates. Valode was inviting me to join them for his birthday.

We sat and ate this very strange, but very good, cake that was layered with a peanut flavored frosting and this really yummy styrofoam-like pastry. And we talked about… dun dun duh dah! Politics!! This was a new kind of political conversation though. Valode said he had met many American men, but never an American girl, and he wanted to know my opinion of everything. I was asked how I felt about Obama (good or bad) and then both of them listed everything they thought was wrong with American politics. 1) Americans are not smart about the decisions they make and we have no sense of having real history, (my host being a history professor, this is something I have heard more than once.) 2) Americans have global control. 3) We don’t have any real strategy when it comes to international relations. Then I was asked what I thought was the fourth thing wrong with American politics… um… hmm… I love being put on the spot when people know that you are studying international relations. Especially when they know that you are in graduate school to study it. Not only do they want to know your opinion, but they have stacked every single question to set you up for failure. It’s a game really. “Well, this person is supposed to know everything about everything in the history of international relations (not true) so I’m going to stump them and then they can see I know more than they do.” Try playing this game in Russian… it’s even better. I mumbled something about our last president as my easy-out fourth choice (you can’t imagine how hard it is to explain these things with the vocabulary of a fourth grader). I then turned the tables and finally asked my host what she thought of Obama and Bush and American politics. She started talking about democracy and how once there was democracy and now there is not. How now people really have no choice, even though they think they do have a choice and that their votes don’t really count. Besides all of that, she said, the real power does not lie with the president, it is with all of the people working behind him. At this point I was actually a little confused as to whose politics she was discussing, and I was surprised to hear this was the way she felt about the United States.

The night goes on.

So back to Americans not having a sense of strategy globally. Valode says this is because we do not study chess when we are children. This is number 4, that Americans do not know how to play chess. He asked me if I know how to play chess. I do understand the basics of the game, but not wanting to invite another challenge to my intelligence and the intelligence of all Americans, I say no. And then it is settled. We are going to play chess and he is going to teach me. So on an unassuming Friday night, I learned the “classic” strategy of chess… in Russian! There was very little help from a dictionary. We played out all kinds of strategies and spoke literally maybe five English words all night. Two of these were something that he learned somewhere else – “cool move.” Every time I would make a good move he would say, “cool move,” slowly and in a very heavy Russian accent. And every time I was getting myself into trouble he would say ehhhh… I did have some help from my host, but in the end, much to Valode’s dismay, I won. (A secret victory for America.)

Valode then asked if I would like to watch a film with them (I think). He had been asking me all night who was my favorite actor, what was my favorite movie, etc. etc. For some reason in translation it was determined that my favorite movie was Capote (not exactly true) and they decided to download the film from the internet. I keep forgetting that you can do literally anything you want in Russia. I mean, generally with all offenses, in theory you could get caught, but then it is just really a matter of bribing the official to get out of it. My host, a very respectable woman, was telling me about these programs she has installed on her computer that allow her to download films for free. In fact, this is what she had been doing all night when I thought she was just obsessively checking email. She was explaining the technical process of downloading the films (in Russian – I have to keep reminding you of this) and asking me if I understood what she was saying. I told her I really couldn’t be sure that I was understanding, but in fact I was.
Something that is really pretty illegal in the States, something you can actually get in trouble for (everyone knows someone who knows someone who has been caught) is very streamlined and common here. I should have guessed that from the hundreds of bootlegged film vendors that set up shop on the sidewalks every day, but hey, I’m slow.

Soon Valode left (with a gentlemanly kiss on the hand and some more Russian that I just for some reason could not for the life of me understand) and my host and I began this longish conversation (at one in the morning) about international film and literature and what it was like when the Soviet Union fell and the world opened up to all kinds of cultural experiences that had been banned for decades, and were now suddenly bursting out of everywhere. She explained that this is why free media on the internet is so popular and important here because a free exchange of media and ideas was so forbidden for so long. What an interesting juxtaposition to go from a world that was completely closed, where the United States looked like a bastion of free culture, to one where thoughts and ideas are exchanged so freely and on principal really, making the United States look like such a strictly censored regime by comparison. I have always had a very authoritarian impression of Russia… and, well… you know what they say about books and their covers.