My First Russian Winter Of Discontent As Boris Goes Under The Knife
Here’s How September – October Unravelled:
My first task was to run off some Betacam copies of low quality footage which would be part of a follow-up story by the Belgian network in response the recent paedophile scandal in Belgium. The film showed three very young, plain-looking girls who were strippers that performed for guys they picked up on the street. They charged 50,000 roubles (about US $10). There was some discussion about going out one night to film street hookers, but this was ultimately abandoned due to the dangers involved; ie being attacked by pimps and/or Mafia thugs was a distinct possibility as filming the night butterflies (as they are whimsically called in Russian) was a definite nyet-nyet. Later in the week we opted for the safer option of a drive-by shooting. And that’s not as violent as it sounds; as we drove past a curb-crawling area on Leningradsky Prospect, I surrepticiously filmed through the car window.
Just had a go at doing the laundry. There’s a newish Ariston washing machine/dryer in the bathroom, and although it works fine, when it empties after each cycle, murky, foul-smelling water bubbles up into the hand basin and overflows onto the tiled floor; somehow I sensed this wasn’t going to be as easy as it should be. Nothing is what it seems here. The pressure of the emptying water must be causing some sort of back-flow in the plumbing. Oh well, another question for Chris when he returns on Monday. (Later he fixed it; the pipes had been blocked by the previous cameraman’s girlfriend’s hair – insert sound of vomiting here.)
The Demon Drink Finally Catches Up With Boris
That first week, as I was editing the Russian underage prostitution/child exploitation story, I had to drop everything and rush out to shoot a story on the reaction to the announcement that Yeltsin is to undergo heart surgery at the end of the month. We dashed off to shoot yet another stand-up outside the Kremlin and I then frantically edited a story that was beamed to Brussels from EBU. A few days later: had to shoot exterior shots of the Kremlin today for another story on Yeltsin’s hospitalisation and how it affects the power struggles within the Kremlin. And again the next day: another stand-up outside the Kremlin for yet another story on old Boris’ ticker – the latest news is that he’s too ill and will have to wait for a couple of months before surgery.
Monday the 9th of September was a miserable rainy day. I moved the desk from the master bedroom to under the lounge window, so I could stare out at the spectacular view of that massive TV tower that dominated the skyline while I wrote letters on an old laptop that Chris lent me. I was in heaven; munching on bread smothered with red caviar, swigging an ice cold can of Russki beer as Gary Numan pounded out of the CD player.We had the computer doctor in today and he set up my very own personal e-mail account on my office computer. At this time though, only a handful of my friends and family have e-mail addresses but it still beats trying to rely on the abysmally slow and unreliable Russian postal ‘system.’ In these times it was not uncommon for foreigner’s mail to be stolen. Apparently overseas mail gets here as normal, but is sent to a central office where the address is translated into Russian (the posties here can’t read English), and then onto its destination.
Mr. Baritone himself, Alexander Lebed.
Had to shoot a press conference given by Alexander Lebed, the former general who brokered the peace deal in Chechnya and is now running for president. Upon arrival, our press accreditation was cross referenced with a list of attendees and this took ages. I had to switch on my camera to prove it was real and not a bomb. When we finally got in there was a gaggle of cameramen and one camerawoman from French TV plus assorted journalists from all media, crammed around a small stage. I staked a good position on the side with my tripod, cruised up to the podium, stepped over the pile of spaghetti (TV jargon for the tangled mess of microphone cables at these gigs) and placed my cool little radio mic (with tiny arial so one doesn’t have to run cables all over the place like the aforementioned TV/radio people) on the table, and filmed his speech with quiet efficiency. But holy Jesus, when Lebed sat down and began speaking, his voice was so deep I had to check that my audio inputs to the camera were set correctly – he sounded just like Lurch from the Addams Family! That weekend, friends took me to a disco called The Titanic (pronounced ‘Teetanic’ by the Russians), designed along the lines of the infamous sunken liner, complete with water bubbling up past portholes. The place was heaving with wall to wall babes dressed to thrill. Talk about a glamfest. We were content to sit at the bar and ogle the moving sea of miniskirts and plunging necklines. Some of the girls had an interesting way of coping with the heat on the dance floor; they peeled down their tops and boogied in their bras! I noticed they were the type that can’t be undone from the back.I danced with one cute little chickski, but she was so off the planet on ‘E’ that she couldn’t even manage to write her phone number. She had just been chucked out by her ex-boyfriend, an Italian she’d been living with for two years and I guess she was keen to shack up with another foreigner. As we left, she had problems getting her coat back from the cloakroom; seems they had misplaced her tag and although she could point out her coat, they wouldn’t let her have it until all the others had been claimed. This is how things work or don’t work over here.
The imposing gateway to Moscow’s Park of
Soviet Economic Achievement or VDNKh for short.
VDNKh
It was a quiet Sunday, sunny but nippy outside. I took a walk around the nearby Park of Economic Achievement, browsed the shops and market stalls and purchased four CDs for about a quarter of their price in London: Depeche Mode, Yello, Sparks and Giorgio Moroder. It was about 1530 when I got back and although the sun was still beaming down, my fingers were numb with cold! It must have been about 2 C. The air had that ski resort bite.
The park was amazing; in the middle there’s a Vostok rocket booster with a Soyuz space capsule sitting atop it alongside two old Russian passenger jets. 
This my favourite fountain, ringed by giant gold statues of women from the former republics with their harvests. Nearby I discovered two more gigantic Soviet icons. This strange Soviet wonderland had become my favourite part of Moscow.
The massive 25-metre-tall stainless steel Soviet Workers monument, or ‘Labourer and Kolkhoz Woman,’ also known affectionately as ‘Jack and Jill’, created by Vera Mukhina for the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937) in Paris. This has since been dismantled for maintenance or relocation (?).
The soaring rocket of the cosmonaut monument atop the space museum.
Monday morning and Chris and I drove to the plush Slavinskaya Hotel for haircuts. He got the cute blonde with the mini skirt, I got Bubba, the big podgy Russki faggot with the pony tail. Typical. It wasn’t that I minded he was a poof so much, it was his choking body odour that got me. Anyway, they gave us the works, shampoo, mousse, blow dry etc. When we walked out, Chris’ hair was slicked back like Al Pacino, and I looked like fucking Rod Stewart!Another press conference this morning. This time it was at the Ministry Of Defence, with all the Army types buzzing around. They didn’t screen us or search our camera bags this time. Strange, you’d think the defence headquarters would be more cautious. This footage will be later incorporated into a story we are doing on the dire straits of Russia’s armed forces.
By October I had acquired a Russian girlfriend, a beautiful twenty three year-old English speaking redhead named Yana. I was introduced to her at a party. It was a simple and uncomplicated process; after dancing with her, she gave me her phone number. I didn’t have to impress her, I just had to be myself, and the rest as they say, was history. A week or so later, I joined Dutch Peter on the overnight train to St. Petersburg, where we spent a few days at the Hermitage, an enormous art museum, shooting a story on antique paintings. It was also later used as the location for the film Russian Ark which was filmed using a single 90-minute Steadicam shot. By now the weather was changing noticeably. There was a chill in the air, the snow’s not far away.
Snow began falling in October, so it was out with the woollies and thermals. After the first full day of below zero temperatures, the central heating plants started pumping hot water throughout Moscow. I shot a story on the process for Belgian TV. I remember it being extremely hot and noisy inside the pumping station. The central heating keeps the interiors at a nice 24 degrees Celsius so I discovered that one feels warmer indoors in the Russian winter more so than in the UK or Australian winters. By early November, ol’ Boris had finally gone under the scalpel and we found ourselves running around Moscow like chooks with our heads cut off trying to shoot stories as the world’s media went into a feeding frenzy. Typically, everything you never wanted to know about heart bypass surgery was being broadcast on CNN step by step.Outside the clinic where Yeltsin was due to arrive after his operation, I tried to film out in the rain with our Dutch and Belgian journos, but the place was crawling with cops. Just after we had shot our stand-ups, in a scene straight out of a gangster movie set in 1930’s Chicago, a bunch of black leather jacketed bully boys, who claimed they were security, shuffled over and hustled us away in a decidedly unfriendly manner. That’s the weird thing about Russian authority. Here you have a situation which naturally attracts attention from the world’s media, and they treat us like we’re trying to film some top secret military base. They wouldn’t even let us get near the gates of the clinic. I had to shoot zoomed in from afar.That night over drinks in the Brasserie du Soleil, we came up an idea for a new list – Stuff They Will Find Inside Boris Yeltsin When They Open Him Up For Heart Surgery:
Lebed’s brainReagan
Prime Minister Chernomyrdin in drag Salman Rushdie Weird Al Yankovich Maggie Thatcher on acid A shot glass A bottle of Stoli Gorbie followed by Brezhnev followed by Krushchev followed by Stalin… Dudayev – Alive A Lada badge on his heart A hole where his liver should have been… Elvis Korzhakov’s wedding ring Embalming fluid A butt load of FAT Fresh Caviar The rest of his thumb (did you know that he is missing part of his thumb?) Tennis balls Nothing…
Yeah I know, well we were drunk. Maybe they’ll implant some sort of nuclear powered heart so he’ll be a cyborg like the Terminator.
A Russian optimist is someone who knows that things can’t get any worse.
It was a Wednesday and I was out on a shoot in an army village north of Moscow. As I was filming street scenes near the gates of the base, a colonel and some of his officers approached and started questioning Peter, the Dutch reporter, who speaks Russian. Next thing I know, I’m told to stop shooting. I knew that there was a danger the camera tape might be confiscated so I hid it under the front seat of the car and replaced it with an old one. Then the cops drive up. The officers ordered the cops to arrest us, but we hadn’t broken any laws. So the cops were told to take our names, which they did. Then the colonel told them to record our vehicle’s registration plate. When the cop asked our female interpreter if he could have our registration, she just stared at him and replied, “You can read can’t you?” Apparently the army wasn’t too happy with the media after an American crew had been through a few days ago and interviewed soldiers and their families about the cash crisis the army is going through. Some of the grunts haven’t been for five months. And now they’ve been forced to pick spuds and carrots in the fields. This is truly bizarre; one of the most powerful and feared armies in the world reduced to scavenging off farmers. Poor bastards, even I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. A bunch of generals had printed an open letter in one of the Russian newspapers the other day and gave an ultimatum to the government – sort it out by Friday (last) or else. So now we’re just waiting to see what happens next. In a related incident that took place a few months later beyond Moscow, a 17 year-old conscript tragically froze to death while sleeping in a farmer’s hut. He had been one of a group despatched to help the farmer pick potatoes in exchange for food supplies for the local army base. Later on: I had to shoot yet more footage in a cardiology clinic, for a story we’re doing on the Russian public health system, which is basically much the same as ours – if you have the money, you can pay for good service, if not then, well you have to put up with their inefficient public health care. This is all related to Boris’ operation. Some of these hospitals we saw were very rundown, literally falling to bits. I felt sorry for the administrators as the government is too busy lining its own pockets to give them the funds they need.It was snowing when we left the hospital.A few days later we rushed out today to Red Square to film the big demonstration – there’s been a national strike – and the place was really buzzing. All very calm and orderly thank goodness. Because of Yeltsin’s operation, I’ve had to shoot and edit for the Dutch and Belgians while Chris shot an interview with Tina Turner for the BBC. I was supposed to get that shoot, but Boris’ heart operation took precedence. As you would expect, she was surrounded by security, no-one in the crews could get near her. Security is even tighter since the American boss of the Slavinskaya Hotel, Paul Tatum, was blown away yesterday! This is the same hotel where the BBC have their office and I’m going there tomorrow to film an interview with the ex-foreign affairs minister.
During the night, the mercury had dropped to -8C and it had been snowing. Looking out of the kitchen window this morning, everything was blanketed in white, and the snow was still lightly falling. That really cheered me up; I felt like I was holidaying in a ski resort. Cars were slipping and sliding all over the roads. Staggered lines of snow ploughs cleared the main thoroughfares. Now I felt like I was in Russia.Winter in Russia brings its own special brand of unforseen hazards. The footpaths were very slippery, due to ice hidden under the snow. While waiting for a cab, I saw at least three people go arse-over-tit in the street. This happens all the time during winter; you get used to it. I’ve been a victim of it myself, fell flat on my back and almost knocked myself while I was showing a friend the ‘Jack and Jill’ monument.
One morning I had to drive to a nearby Metro station to pick up a friend who was returning to the States. But I couldn’t find my car … at first … then my eyes adjusted to the blanket of white – I could just make out a white mound against the white background. Oh… my car must be under there somewhere… Like an archaeologist who has just discovered a long-lost ancient Himalayan burial tomb, I carefully scraped away the snow and located the door handle. Yes there was a car hiding under all this snow.With all my strength, I yanked the door open, sat inside the frigid darkness and turned on the ignition to warm up the engine. I grabbed the brush from the back seat and got down to work. It took me a full ten minutes to clear away all the snow and reveal my car in slow stages. My vigorous brush strokes accidentally sprayed a passing lady who was not impressed at all – she gave me such a dirty look. Russians have absolutely no sense of humour when it comes to being hit by snow.Eventually I was on my way with the heater at full blast. I parked near the Metro, strolled up to the exit and waited. But no sooner had I taken a few confident steps, than both my feet went from underneath me – WHACK!I fell flat on my back in the mud and slush and ice and God knows what else. Damn black ice under the snow was slippery as hell! No-one laughed or tried to help me – I just lay on my back frozen in shock for a few seconds before picking myself up with as much dignity as I could – ouch! – my arse was sore.My friend appeared at that moment and said, “Hey man why are you covered in shit?”
Those first two months in Moscow were a real eye-opener. I was simultaneously disoriented and excited; I felt like I was on another planet, which in a way I was. Russians could spot me as an alien from a mile off. The perfect analogy would be an episode of the original Star Trek TV series. The usual suspects beamed down to a planet where the humanoid population had evolved to the period of early 20th. Century technology. Kirk and his gang adopt the local dress and language, Spock covers his ears with a hat. Yet everywhere they went, the locals would always look at them with suspicion and say, “You’re not from around here are you?”And my life was going to get a lot stranger. I was being sent on my first trip, a real doozy. I was being shipped off to Siberia! To a region called Chukotka, deep in Russia’s remote Far East…Gotta rush – just got word we’re flying tonight at 19:30!
