Member-only story
Vlad, Dude, You’re Losing Us
Us being the dwindling few Russophiles left in this world
When I was ten my uncle — who had been a wiretapping eavesdropper during the Cold War — came home and tried to teach me how to speak Russian. He also tried to teach me to play the guitar. Sadly, today I remain an unmusical monolinguist. Nice try, Unc, but I just never had the gift.
However, from the time I was first totally flummoxed by the Cyrillic alphabet I’ve been fascinated by Russia.
That’s never really been something to say out loud in this country but now it borders on criminal to admit that Russia is a magnificently complex puzzle of a country. It’s a massive, confusing, glorious mess with an edge of lunacy. Of course, that’s just the perception of a monolinguist who’s undoubtedly read too much Russian literature, seen way too many fantastic Russian films (I’m looking at you, Tarkovsky) while never having set foot in the country. So don’t go by me. Ok, and I drank a lot of vodka back in the day.
