“We had better make ourselves scarce,” Stacy said.
“No need, they won’t get us,” Riley said. “The police are feeling pretty humiliated, so they didn’t specify gender.”
“That means?” Marilyn asked.
“They’re not looking for two women. They just said, a Tajik tough and a Tuvan thug.”
“And how do you know that’s us?” Angel asked.
“Heights, hair, approximate weights and eye colors are correct,” Riley grinned. “They just didn’t dare describe the two people who beat them, as women.”
“Since Tajiks have more Indo-European blood, people have told me I look more Tajik than Uzbek,” Marilyn shrugged.
“Actually I knew the person being described as Tajik was you,” Riley said with a grin, “because they said ‘suspected to be insane’.”
“You smile a lot,” Naz laughed. “Too much for Russian police I guess.”
Marilyn continued smiling, unfazed at the unflattering description. Besides, if police disliked her smiling, that means she was probably doing something right. The militsya had a reputation for being on the wrong side of righteousness all the time.
“Well, our gopnitsa outfits are now off,” Angel said as she stretched in her pink cheerleading outfit. “We’re going to be riding in this Rolls Royce. If we take down our fake ZIL truck facade, no ordinary small town Russian policeman will dare to stop us. And I’m not Tuvan anyway. So I guess we have nothing to worry about.”
“No, wait,” Stacy said. “They may actually arrest a real Tuvan and a real Tajik for the sake of scapegoating and saving face.”
“Tak, sounds like what Russian police would do,” Naz said.
“Say, you often start a phrase with Tak,” Angel spoke up. “It gives me the creeps.”
“Tak is just Ukrainian for yes,” Naz said.
“But you’ve said that you don’t speak Ukrainian well.”
“I may not be fluent with Ukrainian, but I do use Ukrainian phrases and words. Especially when I want to criticize Russians.”
Riley lifted a white finger. “If I were you, I’d be using Tak every sentence as long as I am present in this country. Since I want to criticize everything.”
“Taktaktaktaktak…” Marilyn imitated Riley’s voice.
Riley ignored Marilyn’s mischief making, so Marilyn escalated.
“Tiktaktiktaktiktaktik… Taktiktaktiktaktik…”
“Is there one thing about Russia that Lithuanians won’t bad mouth?” Naz asked in a voice loud enough to drown Marilyn. “I don’t identify as an ethnic Russian, but I do have substantial ties to this country. It’s not completely alien and dislikeable.”
“We do get our heating gas from Russia. Only a few grouchy Lithuanians will badmouth that,” Riley replied.
“Takity tik takity tak takity tik takity tak…” No one was listening to Marilyn.
“I think a lot of grouchy Lithuanians are afraid of being dependent on Russia for gas,” Stacy gave a knowing smile. “I’ve read plenty of European paranoia.”
“Wait, what’s this creepiness about?” Marilyn asked Angel. “As far as I know, Tak is not a creepy word whether in Russian, Turkish, Uzbek or Kazakh.”
“Tak is the sound that this horrible multidimensional or cross-dimensional entity makes, and is also its name,” Angel said.
…
“That was a character Stephen King created,” Angel added when it became apparent that nobody knew what Angel was talking about.
“And who is Stephen King?” Marilyn had to ask.
Stacy decided to put an end to this random talk, because she was getting worried about the possibility of some random Central Asian migrant workers being picked up and abused by Russian police.
“Stephen King is a capitalist warlock who casts mind spells to make money,” Stacy said. “The poor proletariat suckers fooled by his mind spells, will buy his books again and again thus feeding Stephen King’s capitalist exploitation of the masses.”
Everyone understood that immediately.
…
But now there was still the big problem. How was Stacy going to get her people out of trouble?
“We could just make a break for it,” Marilyn offered. “As a former sniper, I know when to cut and run.”
“Can’t do that as a matter of principle,” Stacy mused. “If we run, that still leaves the police looking for a Tajik and a Tuvan. I don’t want innocents to suffer.”
“We could just invade the police station, beat up all the garbage, and lock them in the cells,” Angel suggested with the overconfidence of someone used to physical action. Judging from the pot bellies on every single militsya member they had seen so far, the police did not seem particularly formidable to someone with Angel’s Strength.
“That’s the best way to make the police look for us even more,” Riley pointed out.
“And I definitely don’t want something that becomes high profile. Just in case it leads to xenophobic riots against Central Asians,” Stacy said.
“No, I think Angel’s right,” Naz said. “Russia is like this. If you humiliate authority figures, they’ll want to crush you. But this is still a Federation and everyone is protective of their jurisdiction. If you humilate the local police enough while keeping things out of the press, their instinct is to cover things up instead to prevent others learning of it. So we can beat up the police in their offices, but we should still be discreet because if other townsfolk hear of it, they will be blaming ‘Central Asian crime syndicates’ and that’s going to get very ugly.”
“Let me put aside the moral issue of whether it is fine to attack all the people of a certain category. This still means we have to beat up all the local police in Vyazma. Not my ideal solution,” Stacy said, “even assuming we have the means to.”
Angel made a fist. “If we start ambushing individual trash, we can take them out one by one. And we have Marilyn with her taser rife.”
“There’s a lot more taser gel weapons on board the MMM,” Marilyn offered. “Everyone can get a few, so we won’t even need time to reload. We’ll take out the garbage in this part of the city.”
This was starting to get very bad. Stacy tried not to frown visibly. She could see Riley’s face, and Riley was clearly looking uncomfortable.
The Central Asian members of ZIL were openly discussing violence against police, calling them trash and garbage.
Stacy had not forgotten that her team was diverse. Despite being former citizens of the same Soviet Union, everyone operated from a slightly different cultural framework. Someone who didn’t know better, might think that Angel and Marilyn were displaying some stereotypically brutal Central Asian mindsets.
Stacy thought she knew better.
Attitudes towards the police differed because people from different ex-Soviet republics had different experiences.
Naz was from a region where the police were not respected, but not completely feared either. So she had not sought to hide. Everyone knew Georgian police just wanted money.
Riley’s childhood was in a region where the police were viewed negatively, and she had additional reasons – linked to her ethnicity – to avoid the police. Lithuanians were often treated with suspicion by Soviet authority.
The police were viewed unfavorably in Moscow. Especially by non-Russian ethnic minorities. But Moscow militsya were still practically incorruptible and upstanding professionals, when compared with the police forces in Central Asia. Stacy wouldn’t trust the police with much, but she was definitely fine with exchanging pleasantries and showing them respect like regular human beings.
In contrast…
Most Central Asians absolutely hated their police and considered them the lowest form of life possible. Stacy understood from various conversations, that you couldn’t drive from place A to B without being shaken down for bribes at some fake roadblock, run by real police. Several times.
Probably Angel and Marilyn were keen to vent some longstanding frustrations on the local militsya. This was aggravated by the fact that they had just been picked up because of their origins. And that also probably explained why Angel had smiled at Naz when the police took her away – because Angel wanted an opportunity to beat them up.
…
Riley spoke up in an effort to reduce tensions.
“If we’re going to be going back to the MMM we may as well just go,” she said. “I’m sorry that it might leave some local migrant workers exposed, but at the end of the day, these migrant workers are usually tied to construction projects or big employers. The police can’t just grab them randomly without offending some major state contractor.”
“There are also less well connected people,” Stacy pointed out. “There are at least a few ethnic restaurants in this city. If the police can’t find us, they might take things out on some Tajik family restauranter.”
“That’s right, I don’t think fleeing is the best solution,” Angel said. “But I don’t want to surrender or apologize.”
“Wait,” Naz broke in. “We don’t need to do either. Have you forgotten that Birrak is a Rolls Royce? We only need to remove the maskirovka, drive up and show them that we’re rich and connected, and the police will let Angel go.”
…
“I’m starting to have a good idea what to do,” Stacy said. “Riley, you speak English?”
“Of course. Whole of Lithuania was learning English from Restitution Day, 1990 March 11. How do you think I communicated with my US sponsors?”
“Ah, what I meant was: do you speak accented English, or passable English?”
“I like to think my English doesn’t sound Russian or Soviet accented. My teachers were British.”
“That’s good enough,” Stacy said. “And I do speak English with a bit of New York accent, since I was there for some years. You play the part of someone who studied in London. We don’t need to sound authentic to native speakers of English. Just not like local Russians who studied English in a provincial Russian university. Between the two of us, we can probably fool the local militsia into thinking that we’re big shots of some sort.”
“Aha, that’s more like it,” Naz said. “We play it smart instead of brute force.”
“This is a Mission,” Stacy said seriously. “It’s not a paying mission, but compulsory nonethess. We must resolve matters with the local police. So that they do not arrest innocent people.”
“And what about the mentally ill Tajik part?”
“We’ll let them know that Marilyn is mentally, well, slow. And Angel was her overprotective Central Asian servant cum bodyguard.”
“And I’ll just play the part of driver,” Naz said.
“That’s more than enough,” Stacy replied. “We’re daughters of some Moscow big shot, driving a car that’s worth more than the local police budget for the year, so we appreciate no disrespect.”
“We play hardball?” Riley asked cautiously.
“Yes. Got to do that in Russia,” Stacy said. “Show the local authorities that we’re not afraid of them, that it’s really their police at fault, how dare they disrespect our lovely Marilyn… ah, I mean Maryam Kleptocratova, who just happens to be a bit slow in the head. It’s the police that need to be punished!”
Marilyn had stopped smiling. “Wait a moment, I’m no longer insane. Instead I’m going to play the part of a retarded person?”
“If we portray you as a lunatic, the authorities might want to send you to some mental health facility for a psychiatric examination,” Naz warned. “And we definitely don’t want that.”
“Just be some Alisher Kleptocratov or Magomed Stealsky’s slow-witted daughter from Moscow, making a tour of exotic Rural Russia, all right?”
“Why would any billionaire’s family choose to tour Rural Russia versus Monaco or the Cote d’Azur?”
“Exactly. Only a slow witted daughter might want to do that. Her family friends are just indulging her, since Mr. Stealsky is too protective to let her go abroad. They come from a Muslim background, and want to protect their precious daughter’s virginity, you know.”
Marilyn started smiling again. “Yes, I know. Now this really sounds like a rich Tajik.”
Stacy glanced at Riley. “You know what they call this in American parlance?”
“I’m not that good with slang. I learned the Queen’s English and mostly use it in formal conversations.”
“It’s called ‘slumming’.”
“Slumming,” Riley repeated. Naz joined in for fun, and then Marilyn and Angel also.
“Slumming,” everyone repeated again in English.
“That’s what American tourists also think of us. When they visit poor ex-Soviet countries, they always think they’re slumming,” Stacy said.
“I wouldn’t blame them, given the quality of the toilets,” Riley mumbled.
“Oh wait, you’re referring to the act of travelling in bokh-stan Rural Russia. Not about losing virginity!” Angel slapped her forehead. She had thought ‘slumming’ was some kind of sexual slang.
“Slumming is about rich tourists going to poor places just to see how poor people live,” Stacy clarified. “And maybe commenting on their human rights.”
“Decent toilets are a fundamental human right,” Angel returned. “Vyazma toilets – at least the ones at the outdoor market – were so pathetic. We were squatting by the roadside looking like gopnitsa because we would rather do it in the open?”
“Anyway, that’s going to be our mindset and attitude,” Stacy surveyed the members of her team. “We’re slumming it in Vyazma. Doing the local folks a big favor by touring their pitiful province,” Stacy said. “That’s how we play it.”
Marilyn rolled her green eyes. But she understood the importance of teamwork, so she protested no further.
…
And that was how the ZIL organization got out of trouble. They drove up to the main police station in town, made a complaint about the misbehavior of two policemen, spoke in American-and-British accented English to flaunt their foreignsky education and threatened to contact unspecified ‘parents’ in Moscow to deal with the situation.
The local police authorities immediately decided that they weren’t going to fool around with the spoiled daughters of rich and powerful men who drove a huge, all-black Rolls Royce that looked like a Soviet-era ZIL limousine in their impoverished town. The police bulletin about a Tajik tough and a Tuvan thug was quickly withdrawn, and the local police colonel promised to discipline his men for harassing Marilyn and Angel.
…
Time to get back to the airship. The ZIL members had finished washing Birrak and Arvoh by the side of the Ugra river when Naz suddenly exclaimed.
“Vai!”
“What?”
“Vax!” Naz exclaimed a second time.
“Naz, you need to explain yourself. Is it something about Vyazma?” Stacy asked.
“Tak! Due to the excitement today, I forgot to get pryaniki!”
Mandatory Musical Matters
On getting back to the airship, Stacy went to the kitchen immediately. It was already past 1pm, and she had to prepare the midday meal – also known as dinner to Russian speakers – right away.
This left Stacy’s teammates with a bit of free time.
“Say, we must play some music. And sing also,” Marilyn said as she led her three other teammates into the media room.
“Must? Why Must?” Angel was alert to anything that seemed to restrict her freedom.
“We got this good stuff. It’s mandatory,” Marilyn insisted as she went to one wall and opened the cabinet. Since the cabinet door was not weight bearing, it was just a thin foam sheet held by an aluminum frame. There was some machine inside with a computer screen, keyboard and mouse attached.
“Vai! Looks complicated!”
“This is an audio something… a karaoke machine?” Angel asked.
“A prototype. They’ve distributed these to various audiophiles. But we are one of only a few non-professionals, non-musicians who got it. We are also asked to try it out, using it like ordinary consumers,” Marilyn said.
“What’s so special? Or is it just an ordinary karaoke machine?”
“This one uses AI to remove vocal tracks in real time. So we can put in any soundtrack – taken from any movie, audio clip, professional or amateur recording. And the AI is supposed to remove whatever vocal tracks we don’t want. Then we can sing in place of the original lead singer, original chorus, whatever. We might even be able to take any news program, remove the newscaster’s voice and substitute our own.
I am expected to keep submitting feedback, since the AI is a work in progress.”
At the mention of AI, Naz and Angel turned to look at Riley. Who looked a bit flustered.
“This is not me. I don’t know anything about this,” Riley said and backed off a bit. “Didn’t even know it was there.”
“The instruction manual and basic introduction were filed under Pilot,” Marilyn explained. “I’m supposed to tell everybody about this.”
Turning around to look at her three other teammates present, Marilyn put her hands on her hips and grinned. “Singing is mandatory! It is compulsory to have karaoke sessions on board our ship!”
“Wha…”
“Mandatory…”
“Compulsory?”
Everyone looked nonplussed. Marilyn realized that she had made her words sound too Soviet. When the ordinary people had to seem content with the socialist system all the time.
Most Uzbeks were used to an authoritarian state, so they didn’t mind too much if told that some things were compulsory. Whereas Kazakhstan, Sakartvelo, Ukraine and Lithuania were not like that.
“All right, that was a bit of a joke. But we are urged to try this out. And give feedback, of course.”
“That sounds more like it,” Riley said. “I would hate to be forced to sing in front of everyone else.”
This leads to ZIL Music 004c: Karaoke Kino. If you would like to read that, please click here. If not, just read on.
[ZIL Music episodes are focused on Music. There is no paywall. I will also post on youtube as text after a while. The goal being to link to other youtube videos that show the music and music videos.]
Post-Prandial Palaver
Stacy had not been around when Marilyn unveiled the karaoke machine. Her teammates filled her in very quickly, and Stacy agreed to join the karaoke sessions when time permitted.
The rest of the ZIL team chatted over dinner, and they mentioned Kino a few times. Stacy had listened with a gentle smile and a journalist’s attentive look.
Actually Stacy had lived in the Soviet Union for less time than she had lived in the United States. She was the only ZIL member who wasn’t a fan of Kino. And she knew why, too.
When you lived in a country like the USA, you didn’t need Kino and Viktor Tsoi to sing for you. Stacy’s music awareness was broader than that of her teammates, and she had access to a broader range of genres and works.
“He’s like us. He’s the grandchild of deportees…” Angel was saying.
“You, me and Stacy,” Riley replied.
“Wait,” Stacy could not help but intervene. “It’s more than just that. Viktor Tsoi’s grandparents were the original deportees.”
“What do you mean?” Naz asked.
“I think I know,” Marilyn said. “Koreans were the first mass deportees who arrived in Uzbekistan. So they should be the first group mass deported by ethnicity. Am I right?”
“Right,” Stacy affirmed. “It was Stalin’s ‘Far East frontier zone cleansing’ of Koreans and Chinese that laid the foundation for future deportations by ethnicity. It went successfully – for Stalin that is, not the twenty to thirty percent of Korean deportees who died as a result – so Stalin decided to repeat this filthy stunt.”
A silence fell over the group.
“Viktor never went home,” Angel was first to speak.
“Like most Koreans, his parents set up home elsewhere,” Naz observed.
“Most Koreans who ended up in Uzbekistan stayed,” Marilyn reflected. “In fact Koreans are an important part of our population now. They are educated, help build ties with South Korea, and are valuable for our weak economy.”
“And he made his new home in the Baltics. Halfway round the world,” Riley marveled. “If he had lived, he might well be Latvian today.”
“Latvian citizenship is only given to people descended from pre-1940 citizens,” someone pointed out. There was a bit of sourness here. Some Soviet peoples had settled in Latvia and weren’t given citizenship even after decades.
“Viktor Tsoi could just ask, and he’d get citizenship,” Riley said. “Lithuania would be happy to give. He represented Baltic aspirations.”
“He’s a child of the Soviet Union like us. He sang for us,” Angel concluded.
…
Looking out of the window, Stacy could not help thinking that the Soviet Union had started like any great empire – with plenty of horrific violence and injustice against anybody who refused to join and submit willingly.
But the later generations – if they had an opportunity to make something better, they might have built a country where everyone was happy to be part of.
Stacy cupped her chin on her hand and placed her elbow on the table.
“Nobody wants to inherit something bad. I think us children- we wouldn’t have wanted to inherit the hatreds and anger and pain and sufferings of previous generations. But we never had the opportunity to build something better together.”
Stacy looked over her team and continued: “Positive change didn’t happen in the USSR because Moscow sought to control everything. Including all economic plans, directly planned from Moscow. There was no space for the better side of anybody to find expression. Never an opportunity for the next generation to make its own adjustments and learn from the mistakes of previous generations.”
“You know, I think the military is a good example of this. Dedovshchina – the reign of grandfathers – is the perfect example of what’s wrong. Instead of officers who earn respect from their men – like good steppe nomadic leaders were in Turkic history – we have this reign of grandfathers. Where the youngest are brutally beaten down from day one, so that they would be intimidated, compliant and submissive,” Angel said. “So the USSR was like that. It beat down anybody who had a different opinion. Hence it couldn’t learn from its mistakes.”
Actually, Turkey also has serious issues with abuse in its military. Higher ups abusing the enlisted to make them intimidated, compliant and submissive. But that is another story.
“All life is about evolving and learning. The older generation might be stuck in its ways, but the younger generation would have new ideas and want to learn from the past. But if they can’t learn because the older generation won’t admit its mistakes…” Marilyn said.
Riley nodded. “The contradictions piled up. In the end the Union just collapsed without its foreign enemies firing a shot.”