Best of In The Fray 2014. Last year I visited Saur-Mogila, a burial mound in eastern Ukraine that commemorates the Soviet soldiers who died driving back the Nazis during World War II. Today it is a battleground for a new war, as separatists fight for independence and Russia moves its troops into the lands it once liberated.
Michael Long Photos by Sergei Kopylov
In the frigid autumn sunlight I climbed the stone steps of Saur-Mogila. The burial mound, located atop a bluff encircled by the bronzed steppe, covers the bones of Soviet soldiers killed during the Second World War. More than 23,000 died fighting the Germans for this hilltop along the eastern edge of Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. The panoramic view from the summit is coveted for reasons both aesthetic and strategic, and I could easily see why. At 277 meters, Saur-Mogila is the highest point in the region.
Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot By Masha Gessen
Riverhead. 320 pages.
Journalist Masha Gessen wrote a well-received biography of Russian president Vladimir Putin two years ago. In her new book Words Will Break Cement, she profiles Pussy Riot, a Russian feminist punk activist group whose members have become the international faces of anti-Putin protest.
In recent years the group has won a global following—including the likes of Madonna and Paul McCartney—for their offbeat acts of civil disobedience against the Russian government. One of their best-known protests—a controversial “punk prayer” performance in a Moscow cathedral in 2012—eventually landed three of its members in jail. Gessen, a Russian American journalist and herself a critic of Putin, follows the personal histories of these three members: Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Nadya), Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Stanislavovna Samutsevich (Kat). Most of the book was culled from Gessen’s reporting from their trial and her correspondence with Nadya and Maria while they were in prison.
Nadya, we learn, grew up with a love for philosophy. One of her heroes was Anatoly Marchenko, a Soviet dissident who wrote about the experiences of political prisoners in Soviet camps. Bookish Maria long felt herself to be an outsider, and yet, as one of her friends put it, she also “had this idea that she would change the world.” Kat was trained as a computer engineer. Gessen describes her as cerebral, sometimes too much so: “Her word choice was always intentional, but she seemed unaware of images or associations that her words called forth in others, and as a result her speech often served to obscure rather than to illuminate.”
Before Pussy Riot, Nadya was involved with an art collective called Voina (roughly translated as “War”). Formed in 2007, the group used street art to criticize corrupt politicians, police, and clergy, staging colorfully named (if somewhat clumsily executed) protest pieces throughout Russia that involved a wide range of illegality: from vandalizing police vehicles (“F*** the FSB”), to stealing groceries while wearing priestly robes and a police officer’s hat (“Cop in a Priest’s Cassock”). After Voina split in 2009, the faction based in Moscow eventually became Pussy Riot.
What set Pussy Riot apart from their earlier incarnation was their deliberate strategy to steer clear of “Art with a Capital A,” Gessen writes:
Indeed, the fact that it was art should be concealed by a spirit of fun and mischief. Whatever they did should be easily understood, and if it was not, it should be simply explained. It should be as accessible as the Guerrilla Girls and as irreverent as Bikini Kill. If only Russia had something like these groups, or anything of Riot Grrrl culture, or, really, any legacy of twentieth‐century feminism in its cultural background! But it did not. They had to make it up.
Pussy Riot soon developed their own style of protest: donning multicolored balaclavas and playing loud punk rock. Other than that, they seemed to make it up as they went along—storming designer boutiques, practicing on playgrounds, climbing atop buses. Once, they unintentionally set a fashion show on fire, and later called it “Pussy Riot Burns Down Putin’s Glamour.” On another occasion, they performed in Red Square to protest the detainment of three gay activists.
Even after the three members were hauled into court for their “punk prayer” at a Moscow cathedral, they remained—poetically—defiant. Plodding in its first half, the book takes off once Gessen gets to the trial, a dramatic media event that crystallized many of the reasons that the young women have become an international phenomenon. In her closing statement, Nadya invoked a quote from the Soviet dissident novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “So the word is more sincere than concrete? So the word is not a trifle? Then may noble people begin to grow, and their word will break cement.”
All three of the women were convicted and sentenced to two years in a penal colony. Kat’s sentence was later reduced on appeal. As for Nadya and Maria, Gessen writes, “forty seconds of lip-synching cost them around 660 days behind bars.”
Cornelius Fortune is a journalist whose work has appeared in theAdvocate,Citizen Brooklyn, theChicago Defender,Yahoo News, and other publications.
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Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich and Russian president Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin last December, three months before popular protests ousted Yanukovich. Photo courtesy of Kremlin.ru
Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich and Russian president Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin last December, three months before popular protests ousted Yanukovich. Photo courtesy of Kremlin.ru
Speaking at West Point on Wednesday, President Obama touted his administration’s response to Russia’s recent belligerence in Ukraine. “Our ability to shape world opinion helped isolate Russia right away,” he said. The public outcry and the pressure exerted by international institutions, he added, have served as an effective “counterweight” to “Russian propaganda and Russian troops on the border and armed militias in ski masks.” In spite of the crisis Ukraine has gone on to hold elections—“without us firing a shot.”
Unfortunately, Obama is mistaken. The momentum is still on Russia’s side. It has forcibly seized and annexed the strategically valuable peninsula of Crimea. It has succeeded in destabilizing eastern Ukraine through a proxy war—secretively supporting ethnic Russian rebellions against the Ukrainian government there. It is quite possible Ukraine will end up losing more of its territory.
For years now, America and the international community have underestimated Vladimir Putin, Russia’s ruthless and unpredictable leader. Obama, for example, has dismissed Russia as a mere “regional power.” And so far the global response to Putin’s latest aggression has been tepid. But this is a serious miscalculation, and it betrays a deep ignorance of Russian power and the dangers it presents.
Obama and other world leaders may excoriate Russia’s actions in their speeches, but Putin clearly cares little for what they say. At home his popularity and political capital have only grown, thanks to a state-run propaganda machine that relentlessly praises and “whitewashes” his foreign policy. And while the US and Europe have levied trade sanctions and other punishments on his regime, these have had limited effect.
Given their dependence on Russian energy and trade, European countries are unwilling to break their ties with Russia in any meaningful way. And in the ongoing trade war that the sanctions unleashed, Russia is clearly willing and able to endure the economic damage—much more so than its opponents. Apparently, Putin has a higher pain threshold than his counterparts on the other side.
Russia has also proven itself more adept in using trade as a weapon. Ukraine’s new president knows this well. Dubbed the “Chocolate King,” Poroshenko made his fortune with the confectioner Roshen, which exports candy to over thirty countries. Last summer, the Russian government banned all imports of Roshen sweets, citing safety concerns. The move was clearly an act of retaliation against Poroshenko, who had helped lead efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s ties to Europe. Months later—in the same week that the Ukrainian government caved to Russian pressure and abandoned a proposed trade deal with the EU—Russia lifted the ban. But this was only a temporary ceasefire in the so-called “chocolate war”: in March, a month after mass demonstrations in Ukraine toppled a regime more favorable to it, Russia seized and closed a Roshen factory in one of its cities, Lipetsk. These targeted reprisals, which have personally cost Poroshenko millions, remind us how inseparable Russia’s trade and business decisions are from its political ambitions—and how brazen Putin can be in getting what he wants.
Currently, Poroshenko faces far bigger challenges than sinking candy profits. Ukraine is suffering from deep economic woes, entrenched corruption and cronyism, and fragmented and sluggish political leadership. It is engaged in what at this point amounts to a small-scale civil war against the separatist rebels in the east. And the conflict seems to be intensifying. A day after the Ukrainian army engaged in a fierce battle to retake the Donetsk airport, separatists in eastern Ukraine shot down a Ukrainian military helicopter, killing thirteen soldiers and a general. This week, several Russian nationals were revealed to be among those wounded in the recent fighting. In spite of its routine denials, the evidence suggests that Russia has been deeply involved in funding and fomenting the unrest.
It appears that Putin has no intention of withdrawing his support of the separatists anytime soon. But given that the conflict has already inflamed sectarian passions and emboldened separatist hopes, Russia would have a hard time putting the genie back in the bottle even if it wanted to.
Having faced two brutal wars in Chechnya and a string of terrorist atrocities committed by Russia’s own separatist enemies, Putin must surely appreciate how difficult it can be to predict or control hostilities once they have begun. It’s more likely he intends to play both sides against the middle: working with Ukraine’s newly formed government to encourage greater autonomy for certain regions in eastern Ukraine, while continuing to secretly foment unrest there—thus ensuring his smaller neighbor is weak and distracted.
Poroshenko now finds himself in the unenviable position of having to negotiate with, and somehow outmaneuver, Russia’s shrewd and unscrupulous leader. But given his ample experience playing Putin’s game, there is hope that he at least will not underestimate his enemy—as the rest of the world continues to do.
Russia's actions in Ukraine show that for Vladimir Putin, the Cold War never ended. Now the US and its allies must prepare for another lengthy power struggle. But no international coalition can be effective while Russian energy reserves supply a quarter of Europe's natural gas. A long-term US energy strategy is the best way to counter Russian power.
Russian president Vladimir Putin. Photo courtesy of Kremlin.ru
This week, Crimea voted overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine. Flouting international censure, Russia has just annexed the breakaway region. The US and its European allies have responded to the crisis so far with sanctions, but Russia has scoffed at these rebukes, stating they would have “no effect” on Russian policy.
US president Barack Obama has stated that America does not see Ukraine as a piece on “some Cold War chessboard.” But Russian president Vladimir Putin clearly does see the world this way. And he is winning. He has captured Crimea like a pawn and is now likely looking toward other parts of eastern Ukraine, planning his next move. It’s America’s turn, and it is letting the clock run out.
The US and other NATO countries need to stop fooling themselves that they can intervene in Ukraine (here is a very interesting dissection of why). In fact, they should stop pretending that they have any real influence over Russia’s actions. Until Europe no longer depends on Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom for a quarter of its natural gas, there will be no real way to crack down on Russia. The US and its allies need to start developing a long-term strategy to counter Russia’s global influence and aggression, and the key to this will be a comprehensive energy policy: giving Eastern European countries like Ukraine an energy alternative to Russia’s natural-gas monopoly.
At this point, I should admit a personal bias. I was born in the former Soviet Union, in what is now Ukraine. My family comes from Vinnytsia, a city of about 350,000 located roughly halfway between Odessa and the capital city of Kiev. My parents were political dissidents, whose marriage ceremony took place in a prison camp for those who opposed—or just disagreed with—the USSR. While attending Moscow State University, my mother spent her spare evenings bent over a typewriter, manually copying banned manuscripts for underground distribution: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, George Orwell, and other authors I took for granted, reading them in the security of a New England high school years later. My uncle was persecuted by the KGB for his poetry, and ultimately expelled from the country. So, I have no sympathy for Russia’s slow return to totalitarianism over the past decade.
I also recognize the warning signs. Russia’s systemic persecution of minorities, such as recently enacted laws against the gay community. The country’s ever-bolder moves to beat down dissent, such as a literal public flogging of the political punk band Pussy Riot. The moves to silence free speech and the press. Bullying of smaller neighbors to spread Russia’s influence and agenda. Most worrisome, the cult of personality being built around a leader who presents himself as all-powerful and paternal. Russia is marching down a familiar path. And speaking as someone whose family remembers the horrors of Russian pogroms and Soviet purges, I know where the path leads.
America spent forty years and trillions of dollars in the last Cold War with Russia. And now it needs to prepare to do so again. It needs to play Russia’s Cold War-era power game—and win. If left unchecked, Putin will turn the clock back to the Soviet era, recreating the authoritarian police state the retired KGB colonel probably misses and stamping out democratic movements throughout Russia’s sphere of influence.
Russia now effectively controls the southern peninsula of Crimea, the strategic location of the port city of Sevastopol. Now that Putin has annexed the region, he will need to negotiate with Kiev’s new leaders (Crimea relies on mainland Ukraine for most of its utilities). Meanwhile, clashing political protests have turned deadly in several eastern Ukrainian cities that, like Crimea, have ethnic Russian majorities. According to Ukraine’s new government, Russia is inciting the unrest. It may use the violence to justify more military interventions, following the same pattern it used in Crimea—and before that, in South Ossetia, a region it helped separatists to wrest from Georgia in 2008. In a worst-case scenario, this could lead to civil war. However, it is more likely that Putin will simply use the threat of military action as another bargaining chip, to force Ukraine to agree to considerable political concessions. He doesn’t want to destroy the country, but to cement his control over it.
Even if Russia invades other areas of eastern Ukraine, there will be no meaningful military response. After more than a decade of costly and unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has no stomach for further armed conflict. And without America’s army, no country will be willing to support Ukraine in a bloody conflict with a former superpower. Ukraine’s new leaders know this. Though they have mobilized their army, they have no real plans to fight Russia. Their troops are merely an attempt to draw a line in the sand, a show of strength to discourage further aggression.
Nor can Ukraine count on Russia bowing to international pressure. The US and its European allies did announce sanctions against Russia this week, restricting the travel and freezing the international assets of a short list of Russian and Ukrainian officials. However, these amount to little more than a wag of the finger—and Russia interpreted them as such. Europe’s dependence on its gas means that few will sign onto the kind of serious economic sanctions that could actually hurt Russia. So instead, we get harshly worded threats—Obama’s warning that Russia will face “greater political and economic isolation”—and other largely symbolic rebukes, such as the push to evict Russia from the G8 club of nations.
Reviving the aborted US plan to set up a missile-defense system in Poland might deter Russia. And stripping it of the honor of hosting the 2018 World Cup would certainly bruise Putin’s pride. But even if Europe and the US retaliated in these harsher ways, they would be unlikely to change Russia’s bellicose foreign policy. The fact that Russia invaded Crimea right after spending years of effort and many tens of billions of dollars trying to improve its reputation with the lavish Sochi Olympics proves how little international opinion matters to it. Putin is willing for his country to be the world’s black sheep, as long as it is one of the most powerful ones in the flock. Domestically, his aggressive stance in Ukraine has actually caused his popularity to skyrocket, making it even less likely that he will back down.
In all honesty, Kiev’s only viable option is to negotiate a diplomatic agreement with Russia to end the crisis—one that will likely be more of an appeasement than an agreement. In the short term, there is little that the international community can do to help.
However, short-term thinking is part of the problem. So far, the international media have largely focused on Russia’s belligerent actions on the ground. Yet Russia’s chief geopolitical weapon is not its troops, but its energy resources. Russia has 47.8 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, almost five times as much as the US. And Russia is not afraid to use Gazprom as a weapon to punish recalcitrant nations, as it proved when it shut off gas to Ukraine in 2006 and 2009. Now it is threatening to call in Ukraine’s $1.5 billion gas debt, which may collapse the country’s already unstable economy. It may cut off gas to Ukraine once again. (Luckily it is now March—the last time Russia withheld gas was in the middle of a brutal winter.)
If America hopes to put an end to Russia’s growing antagonism and totalitarianism, it needs to fight fire with fire. The US has newly tapped reserves of natural gas, thanks to the recent boom in shale-gas production. In a few short years, it will go from being a major importer of natural gas to being an exporter. Expanding existing hydraulic fracturing operations in the Marcellus, Bakken, and Eagle Ford shale plays will expedite the production of this strategic energy resource. More importantly, the US can enact policies to promote the export of natural gas to Europe. In this way, the US can weaken Russia’s sway over the continent and make sure its allies’ energy dependence no longer hobbles any international efforts to keep Russia in check.
In countries like Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia, nuclear power is another means of shielding these countries from Russian influence. Ukraine, for example, has fifteen nuclear power plants. Most of the logistical support and fuel for its nuclear infrastructure comes from Russia. Imagine if this assistance came from the US instead. Beyond technical assistance and partnerships, the US can also intervene more directly in the energy market. For instance, when price disputes in 2009 prompted Russia to retaliate by turning off Ukraine’s natural-gas supply, the US could have subsidized nuclear-energy prices, neutralizing the Kremlin’s strong-arm tactics.
If the US invests in nuclear reactors in Eastern European countries, it would also counterbalance Russian power in the region in more subtle ways. The natural partners in these co-ventures would be the billionaire oligarchs who already control most of the infrastructure in these countries. These men wield great, almost feudal, power. Lucrative energy agreements with them would allow the US to buy their influence—and counter that of Russia.
Ukraine is currently trying a similar strategy, appointing oligarchs to governorships in the eastern part of the country. The gamble is that by tapping these men for leadership posts, Kiev’s leaders can indirectly win support and prevent these regions from seceding. The risky strategy seems to be paying off. In the eastern city of Donetsk, the billionaire Serhiy Taruta was appointed regional governor; soon after, the city’s police force evicted pro-Russian protesters from the parliament building they had occupied and arrested Pavel Gubarev, an organizer of mass demonstrations pushing for Donetsk to separate from Ukraine. While partnering with shady oligarchs can be a politically unsavory course of action, it could prove effective.
Fracking and nuclear power have serious environmental risks. But it is important to remember that Russia’s former satellites are already heavy users of these two sources of energy—about half of Ukraine’s electricity is produced from its nuclear reactors. And there is no reason that the US can’t help these nations build an infrastructure of solar panels, wind turbines, and other alternative sources of energy, too. Along with natural gas and nuclear energy, investing in green technologies would not just help America kick its addiction to Middle East oil, but would also enhance its ability to defend Ukraine and other fragile democracies around the world.
In the twentieth century, our Cold War conflict in Russia was waged just as much in the laboratory—to win the Space Race and the nuclear-arms race—as on any battlefield. Now, America and its allies are engaged in an energy race—and are woefully behind. The US can’t just respond to each new crisis manufactured by Putin with ineffective sanctions and stern words. It needs to take the long view. For once, it needs to think about its endgame.
Editor’s Update, March 27: President Obama stated yesterday that Europe needs to “diversify and accelerate energy independence,” and America could play a role in this: “The United States as a source of energy is one possibility, but we’re also making choices and taking on some of the difficulties and challenges of energy development, and Europe is going to have to go through some of those same conversations as well.”
Correction, March 22: An earlier version of the article mistakenly listed Ray Bradbury, rather than George Orwell, as the author of a banned manuscript.
Semyon, Alexei, and Paul (from left to right) rehearse their take on “Beauty and the Beast.”
It is 6:30 p.m. and the brash young comedy team the Illegals have only half an hour left before the women in the Russian hair salon kick them out. Half an hour is not a lot of time, they figure, but it’s enough to run through their comedy routine one more time.
As the sound of an upbeat melody starts rolling, Semyon, Ruslan, Alexei, and Paul take two steps toward the mirror wall of the room, raise their arms, and smile smugly. Then they break into a flurry of short skits and absurdist one-liners, all in Russian.
“Do you have anything for the head?” Ruslan asks, looking pained, in one scene.
“Here, take an ear …” answers Alexei.
Looking in the mirror after every joke, the Illegals pretend to see the blinding stage lights and the cheering audience that will greet them in two weeks at the popular Russian comedy competition called KVN.
KVN, roughly translated as the “Club of Humor and Wit,” is a team game show, where students from different colleges, cities, and countries compete by presenting comedy sketches, humorous musical numbers, and improvisation. It is fast-paced and intense; one of the show’s creators once described it as “intellectual football.” With no direct equivalent in other cultures, KVN is an essential component of modern Russian life and a popular import of Russian-speaking immigrants around the world.
The fifty-year-old tradition started after the death of Stalin. As Soviet control began to ease in the late 1950s and 1960s and television sets became more common in Soviet households, a group of Russian university students created a unique television game show. At first, KVN was a question-and-answer game based on a Czechoslovakian show and similar to Western models. Although the teams had to give correct answers, witty answers were also allowed. Soon, the producers began to emphasize humor, making up amusing contests and assigning the teams funny skits to prepare.
With lightheartedness rarely seen at the time and humor normally reserved for the underground subculture, the nationally televised show immediately captured the Soviet imagination. During each game, life on the streets would cease, and the next day, everyone would discuss the jokes they’d heard. KVN aired through 1971, expanding to more and more teams from different cities and Soviet republics, but then was cancelled due to criticism from government officials. It was revived only at the dawn of glasnost, when emerging liberties and disarray in the government allowed for less control of what was being said on television.
A humorous critique of the world in the form of popular entertainment, KVN has continued almost unchanged since Soviet times. In Russia and other ex-Soviet republics, being a “KVNshik” can make one a celebrity on par with famous professional comedians. Away from its television audience, however, KVN is — for some 40,000 Russian-speaking immigrants in the US, Israel, Germany, and even Australia — not a road to fame, but a unique national tradition worth holding onto in a foreign land.
Ruslan, Alexei, Semyon, and Paul (left to right) in the green room.
Looking in the mirror, the Illegals rehearse a scene from one of the three essential contests forming any KVN game, including the upcoming quarterfinals. Each game starts with the “Greeting,” where a team introduces itself with short tidbits of humor, loosely connected miniscenes, and dialogues. Then they move on to the “Warm-Up,” an improvisational contest in which each team has thirty seconds to come up with a funny answer to a question. Then comes the “Homework,” usually the longest and most theatrical part of the KVN game. It is akin to a sketch from Saturday Night Live and is rehearsed in advance. The Homework skit needs a lot of preparation, and each teammate has to be on top of his game.
For the Illegals, one of the key moments in the Homework is a scene borrowed from “Beauty and the Beast.” Ruslan — a blond, blue-eyed, big-boned Byelorussian — plays the merchant, whose three daughters (Paul, Alexei, and Semyon) ask him to bring back gifts.
“What would you like, my oldest daughter?” Ruslan asks.
“Bring me a decorated shawl,” replies the redheaded Paul, “from Gucci!”
“What would you like, my middle daughter?”
“Bring me an older sister who is not stupid,” says Alexei, the tallest of the three “daughters.”
“What would you like, my youngest daughter?”
“Bring me alimony for three years from that Beast!” answers Semyon, carefully enunciating every word.
At the end of the scene, everyone starts talking at once. Paul gets criticism for his bad pronunciation of “Gucci.” He repeats it several times, giving more punch to the “cci.” Semyon blushes deeply as he tries to argue with Ruslan about the wording of the skit. Meanwhile, twenty-five-year-old Alexei — the team’s oldest member — smiles to himself like a satiated cat. His hair is sticking out and worn-out jeans hang on his tall, thin body. Over the clamor, he hears Sasha, the team’s music assistant and only man behind the scenes, scolding Ruslan.
“You show off too much,” Sasha says. “And you eat up lots of words.”
“He is fine, leave him alone!” says Alexei protectively. Putting his hand on Ruslan’s shoulder, he tells him, “You are a star.”
Other, less poignant criticism continues to echo through the room as everyone gets ready to leave. Ruslan, who has the springy walk of a boxer and a childish smile, tells the skinny, stylishly dressed Paul that he does not like him as an actor. “Do you like me as a man?” Paul says flirtatiously as everyone chuckles.
“Bunch of homos on this team!” says the dour KVNshik as he walks out into the cold Brooklyn night.
The Illegals, whose four members currently live in three states — New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania – are a truly heterogeneous team. Unlike the majority of Russians who immigrated as Jewish refugees, Ruslan and Alexei both moved to the US three years ago, using a four-month visitor exchange program to stay on the new continent. Before the two friends met, Alexei and a few other young illegal immigrants created a KVN team based in New Jersey and named it, appropriately, the Illegals. At first, many KVNshiks, who have lived in the US since the biggest wave of Russian immigration in the early 1990s, thought the laid-back style of the Illegals was strange. Others, however, saw in their style a way to improve KVN’s American league.
“I first met them at the KVN festival in 2003,” remembers Sergei, a member of a Chicago team and a friend of the Illegals. “They brought freshness and youthful inspiration into the game. I immediately wanted to meet them. Their acting ability and quality of humor put them on a level higher than the other teams in the league.”
Yet so far, the Illegals have not been very successful. They left their first game due to disagreements about the judging. Then, they regrouped to incorporate some members of a team from Philadelphia — Semyon and Paul among them.
Semyon, who has attentive eyes and an apologetic manner of speaking, did not participate in KVN back in Russia, but loved to watch the games on TV. Unlike Alexei and Ruslan, he is not an illegal immigrant. After he moved to Philadelphia with his parents five years ago, he found out about the local league and created his own KVN team. “I wanted artistic realization,” he explains. “Some people paint, others play a musical instrument, and I play KVN. It’s a great feeling when you’ve written something, performed it, and the audience liked it. I feel artistic satisfaction.”
Semyon invited his childhood friend and neighbor, the redheaded Paul, to join the team. Paul, who had just moved from Israel, did not remember much Russian. But he was stylish and funny and had a good attitude. “I basically came to KVN for sex,” Paul says impishly. “But now I am the one who has to supply all the chicks.” Outside of KVN, Semyon and Paul work and go to college. They are majoring in film and hope to make a documentary about the plight of young illegal students like their teammates.
The last member to join the Illegals was Ruslan. Although he contributed professional KVN experience from Russia, the team still lost last season’s semifinals. “I went to rehearsals like a fool with a notebook and a pen,” says Ruslan. “And everything just ended in drinking.” Although Alexei’s official response to Ruslan’s complaint is “Nothing brings people together like vodka,” he blames their loss on razdolbaistvo — a slang word that means irresponsibility, carelessness, and even laziness.
“Razdolbaistvo is both our flaw and our style,” he says. “We can’t get together, we can’t rehearse, we can’t figure out the music. That’s why we lost at the semifinals last year. We were funny, but unorganized.”
The Illegals onstage during the “Homework.”
Less than two weeks before the game, Ruslan is having breakfast with Alexei at a Russian restaurant in Brooklyn. A rowdy group of men drink vodka and argue about yesterday’s hockey game. It is noon. As they wait for a steak, chicken livers, and apple blintzes, Ruslan explains that he has been playing KVN since he was thirteen.
“I even remember the first joke I had to say,” he says, his blue eyes gleaming. “We had this scene: an ad for Aeroflot. The guy looked out the window and said ‘Oh, look, flying elephants.’ And I took his glass away and said ‘Okay, that’s enough for you.’”
“You ripped!” says Alexei mockingly as he digs into his steak.
“When I first started, I didn’t write my own jokes and didn’t really act onstage,” continues Ruslan. “I learned how to write jokes, how to feel the text. So, KVN is not about talent, but experience.”
“I had talent, but I’ve killed it working with these guys,” says Alexei with a sigh. “People told me to go into acting.”
“Well, people told me that, too,” says Ruslan defensively.
“No, no, they lied. Besides, I was the one who told you that. Anyway, I didn’t want to go to acting school, because I like it as a hobby, not as a profession. I’ve always played the role of a fool, and an actor is more than just one character of a fool. My first role ever was to play a fool, and then the second, and the third, and it stuck. But I sort of act like a fool in life, too. Maybe that’s why this role is easier for me.”
Alexei, who became a KVNshik when he entered university in Russia, thinks he should quit competing after this season. “This game is for the young,” says the twenty-five-year-old. “I need to quit soon. I am way too old and KVN takes away so much time.”
“It takes away health, too, since we need to drink a lot,” interrupts Ruslan.
“Time and nerves,” finishes Alexei, who goes to college and keeps a night job at a Russian TV station.
“A great classic once said that KVN is not a game, it’s a lifestyle. Of course, no one knows what that means, but it sounds beautiful,” says Ruslan. He turns more serious and adds, “Someone who once participated in the games, I mean like fully — writing, acting, and stuff — cannot just quit.”
But Alexei doesn’t want to dwell on the serious. “Anyway, to come back to talking about talent,” he says. “Me and him play pretty much all the roles. Wait, what the hell do those two do?”
“Well, one is a redhead, so if something goes wrong, we can always blame him.”
“He also makes great tea.”
“Yeah. And the other one, Semyon, he is just a nice Jewish boy who doesn’t do much.”
“Every team needs to have one, you know,” concludes Alexei.
In Russia and many former Soviet nations, every KVNshik nurtures the hope of becoming a celebrity. But in the US, where an independent KVN league started ten years ago, stardom is out of the question. Although in format and style the American KVN league mirrors the High league of Russia, it does not have millions of fans. The teams sponsor themselves, auditoriums rarely fill up to capacity, and only a few KVN games make it onto a local Russian TV channel.
However, the enthusiasm of local KVNshiks like the Illegals makes them stand out among the mass of Russian immigrants. They do not resemble the majority of older Russian Americans, who, having left the old country for good, severed all ties with modern Russia. They are also not like many younger Russians, who grew up in the US and know little about their country of origin.
Instead, the comedians grew up in the post-Soviet Russia of endless possibilities. They emigrated not because they had to, but because they could. They are media-savvy children of globalization — in their spare time, they browse Russian websites and watch Russian satellite TV. Unlike some immigrants who are completely detached from the life of a cold country thousands of miles away, young KVNshiks often exist in a strange niche between here and there. On the one hand, they have Russian friends, Russian wives, Russian vodka. On the other, they are integrated in American society — they graduate from schools like Harvard, Berkeley, and NYU and work as programmers, businessmen, or lawyers.
But living in this niche, American KVNshiks find themselves at a disadvantage. Surrounded by a different culture, they have neither the structural and financial support enjoyed by Russia’s nationally televised KVN, nor the possibility to achieve true stardom as Russian-speaking comedians. Even their humor reflects their unique situation. To entertain their small, immigrant audiences, they often turn to localized jokes about the immigrant experience, be it Brooklyn restaurants or linguistic mix-ups.
When he first saw American KVN, Alexei thought it was very amateur. “Three years ago it was just horrible,” he says. “The favorite theme was when a dude dressed up like a woman, came out onstage, and said something. The first time I saw that, I realized that you can’t perform here. But everything has been changing and looking more like the real thing. If there are no young teams who want to compete, there can be no KVN. What would be left are the older teams. They are nice guys and their humor may be fine for this audience, but they are not helping KVN evolve. We need more young teams, especially guys from back home.”
With their experience from “back home,” the Illegals are trying to raise the level of the American league by bringing humor that is both poignant and not immigrant-specific. Their other choice would be to give up KVN completely. But even with this amateur league and a limited audience, playing KVN is worth their time. It is a tradition, a form of identity, and a way to preserve their culture.
“We can spend a whole evening talking about KVN and not even notice it,” says Alexei. “It has become part of our lifestyle.”
The KVN teams gather onstage to hear the final results.
At 11 p.m. on a Thursday, Alexei is working the controls at the Russian TV station. With little time left before the game, he is surprisingly calm.
“We still have a lot to work on, and we only have one day left — that’s definitely a big minus,” he says. “At the same time, we are funny dudes, we look cool onstage, and we are pretty good actors. I don’t remember a game when we totally rehearsed. If one joke doesn’t get through to the audience and then the second, people see that the team did not rehearse. But if the first joke gets to them and the second, then the audience is in the right mood, they clap and cheer and don’t pay attention to the little mishaps, because everything is absorbed by the overall atmosphere.”
His deep voice leaves the hope for that magic atmosphere lingering in the empty control room. “Even though we are jerk-offs, everyone still wants to win. We all have problems, work, school, some of us have both work and school, not enough time, but you gotta have more in life than work or school.”
Alexei wants to win this season because he is not sure the Illegals will play next year. It’s not only his age. He is also worried that Ruslan may go back to Belarus. Although he has just received his work permit, Ruslan is waiting for a travel visa to see his friends and parents back home. For now, he refuses to buy a car, because he doesn’t want “to get anything that would tie me to the US.” If he does not get the visa before the end of the year, he will leave the country for good. At least in Belarus, Ruslan — the kind of person who sees the world “as if it’s made up of punch lines” — has a bigger chance of becoming a real KVN star.
Two nights later, there is commotion outside the dressing rooms of the Jewish Community Center in Philadelphia. Leather-clad Russian men smelling of liquor swagger down the hall, with Russian women in short skirts and heavy makeup trotting behind them. The women smile confidently, leaving a trail of sweet perfume.
Two women come back to the green room of the Illegals, with cigarettes and cans of Red Bull for the teammates. Semyon and Alexei open the cans and drink. All four Illegals put on hip, dark-gray jackets, beige slacks, and bright-colored shirts. The female admirers straighten out the men’s jackets and put gel in their hair. With only a half hour left before the game, the room is tense. There are endless bottles of cognac and juice on a table surrounded by drinking visitors. Semyon is angry and nervous because Ruslan has been drinking heavily.
“I’m gonna kill that fucker!” he yells. “How can he do this? The game is about to start! Where the fuck did he go?!”
Someone walks into the dressing room and asks, “Why do you guys look so gloomy?”
“Why should we be happy if we’re losing?” says Alexei, half to himself. He circles the room, muttering his lines and squinting nearsightedly. Sergei from the Chicago team tries to rally him. “Capture the audience, this scene is totally on you. If you capture the audience, you’ll rule, I promise you!”
Alexei nods absentmindedly, but does not speak. Ruslan comes back. He does not seem very drunk. “I’m always nervous before the game,” he confesses. “But when the fanfares sound, it goes away.”
Five minutes before the start of the game, the Illegals gather in a tight circle, put their hands together in the center, and yell in chorus, “We swear to you, O goalkeeper, that we will never lose!” They jump up, screaming and making punching gestures.
“I’ll destroy everyone!” bellows Alexei.
The female fans line up to kiss the teammates and wish them luck. An entire minute is filled with a seemingly endless “mma, good luck, thanks, mma, good luck, thanks …”
“It’s like we’re leaving for war,” Semyon says.
The auditorium is almost full. There are no empty seats, someone jokes, just unsold tickets. E. Kaminskiy, an experienced KVNshik from a legendary Russian team of the late 1980s, hosts the game. The jury, consisting of older KVNshiks, two of last year’s champions, and a TV newscaster (the only woman), sit in the first row. Five teams are competing tonight: NYU (famous for winning ten years ago), ASA College (famous for ever-changing members), the Philadelphia team (famous for attractive members), Nantucket (famous for constant intoxication), and the Illegals (famous for razdolbaistvo).
The game starts with the Greeting. “The Greeting is a chance to conquer the audience,” Sergei notes. “It’s all psychological. You need to click with the audience from the first phrase, with your energy and charm. If the audience reacts to you, then you’re the king.”
In order to pack in many disconnected jokes into the fast-paced Greeting, KVNshiks often imitate the format of TV ads, with their spicy one-liners. When the Illegals take the stage, Alexei announces, “American masochists ask to increase the punishment … for masochism in America!” The young audience is quiet. They process the joke. Then, they erupt in laughter. In another scene, Ruslan (who likes “current” jokes) plays Alexander Lukashenko, the Byelorussian president. After he won the elections, he says, “Dick Cheney called to congratulate me. He invited me to go hunting …”
After the Greeting, the Illegals are in third place. But this is no time for distress. They have to prepare themselves for the improvisational Warm-Up — what Alexei calls the most telling contest in KVN, as it allows the participants to show off their true ability in spontaneous comedy. With only half a minute to think, the teams have to answer each question as wittily as possible.
“In the last Winter Olympic Games, the athletes from Zimbabwe did not win any gold medals. Why?” reads out Kaminskiy.
The Illegals stand in a circle, whispering, laughing, and nodding. Finally, Ruslan approaches the microphone. “That’s because in the last Summer Olympics, Zimbabwe’s diver died of happiness when he finally saw water!” The audience cheers loudly — nothing like a bit of dark humor to please the Russians. After several questions, the judges once again reveal the score for each team. The Illegals move up to first place.
The next and last contest is the Homework. The Illegals have constructed their Homework performance around the childhood of each of the four members. First, Semyon announces that when he was a kid, he wanted to be a banker. In the bank, Semyon offers his customer (Ruslan) a $100,000 credit line.
“A hundred thousand?!” cries Ruslan. To the music from Pulp Fiction, he pulls out a gun and points it at Semyon. “Attention, everyone, this is a robbery!” He turns to Alexei, another customer at the bank. “Don’t move!” he yells. “Or I’ll shoot his brains out!”
“You are bluffing,” says Alexei, calmly.
“Why the hell am I bluffing?!”
“Because he doesn’t have any brains.”
After Semyon is dead, Alexei flees the bank and Ruslan hides from the cops under Kaminsky’s podium, where he finds “a remote control for the judges.” Suddenly, a newscaster — also played by Alexei — interrupts with “breaking news from the scene of the robbery.” Ruslan, it turns out, is a correspondent sent to cover the robbery he has just committed. Smugly, Ruslan says that no one has seen anything. “There is only one witness,” he says, pointing the gun at KVN’s host in the corner. “But he didn’t see anything, either.”
In the next scene, Paul comes out onstage to confess that he always wanted to be “a tall, broad-shouldered blond,” rather than a skinny redhead. At least he has acting talent, he says, and the Illegals break into the scene from “Beauty and the Beast.”
The final scene is from the childhood of Alexei and Ruslan — two thickheaded thugs.
“I can read thoughts,” says Alexei.
“People’s thoughts?” asks Ruslan.
“Yeah, people’s … c’mon, help me out!”
Ruslan raises a cardboard sign and Alexei proceeds to read it. “Thoughts,” the sign says.
When Ruslan ends up robbing Alexei, Paul and Semyon emerge in police uniforms and arrest them.
“And that is how we all met,” concludes Ruslan, as they take a bow.
Tonight, there is nothing stopping the Illegals. They have the charm and the energy, and they are prepared. The audience loves them. Most importantly, the judges love them. Tonight, the Illegals finally win.
Now, they only need to survive the after-party.
Update, August 3, 2013: Edited and moved story from our old site to the current one.
Sasha Vasilyuk Sasha Vasilyuk is a writer based in New York City. She was born during a cold Russian winter and grew up in the golden hills of the San Francisco Bay Area. Her essays and articles on art, culture, business, travel, and love have been published in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Russian Newsweek, Oakland Tribune, and Flower magazine. She received the 2013 North American Travel Journalists Association silver medal for her Los Angeles Times cover photo "Barra De Valizas." She is currently working on a collection of essays about her year-long solo journey around the world.
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