who killed Litwinenko part 1

Not so long ago, I have been invited to a dinner hosted by a junior Austrian IP tycoon where a friend of my girlfriend temporarily was staying from New York, which is in a precious liaison to a lady from Uzbekistan (or was it Azerbejdzan or Tadschikistan?), means bouncing between sexy helicopterised Gucci business pyjamas and aero beds. He visited Moscow and the state with ending stan/dzan what so ever, some weeks ago and told at the dinner, that basically he needed to bribe his way through the country, even that the bureaucrats who issued the so called permits have been already bribed from his lady’s parents.

Nothing special so far, if you are a regular visitor outside the Schengen treaty, but what really shocked me was his later story, after couple of glasses red wine, about Moscow and his step on to the red square. I am sorry I do not remember in detail because of the influenza of vino tinto, but basically he was approached by official police right in the middle of the square rouge and they threatened him if he does not pay 100$ they will take him in custody.

I did my atheistic payday tribute to tavarish Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his black marbled mausoleum, even managed to foul the guards and make secret photos, you can ask me where to feed in a dollar bill and get a whole shoe box full of rubles out, I am connoisseur of fake Russian caviar and sect and know, how costly that can become if you have the wrong arrangements. In 1998 we toured with Van Gogh TV Russia by car with the help of the Latvian underground resistance, which in that times lived and acted undercover under the umbrella of Russian federation of Communist Rock club association (somehow the title was like this). This association was a big network in the USSR and had in each medium city a big office, to organize tours and additional services for Rock groups, even from the west.

Well I have never been a roch sdarr, but somehow friend of Latvian underground, so that was the entry card to the big parallel empires. In this time we went to all kind of encounters with, KGB officers, potential nuclear toxications, instantly exchanging my Volvo for an brand new Russian Kamas (best truck around), Moscow based conceptionalist, Leningrad base Necrofils, white nights in Petersburg, Vodka based sauna parties with blood sweat but no tears, the melancholic winter ride on Russian trains and resting your view and mood on to the endless dimensions of Russian tundra just framed by the horizontal blue, mixed up with hot tea and vodka. You feel the weight of the earth that will later lie on you when stretched feeds forever and not protected by a frame. Hunted by dubious criminals in Mosquitches alongside of icy highways. The car was never stolen but our Culture police uniforms went missing one night in Vilnius, the jackets we god back after paying some fees.

All this was topped just by the reports in the news on TV that the Russian reserve bank's gold which backup’s the currency, the rubel, just vent missing or homeless stealing perfumes to drink it later in the bushes because vodka is to expensive and well guarded or lines of alcoholics which stay for hours to get cheap beer into canisters and during there waiting time they cut scarves in there head and spill the beer over it, that and the burning sun kicks in forcefully. So even if my girlfriend which loves Russia, I not, its the center of total anarchy ruled by ruthless politician’s, mafia, military, secret services and some uncontrollable warlords which hire all jobless ex Afghanistan veterans, its definitively heavy metal, if you understand what I mean. Have you ever seen the black and white Russian melodramas from Andrej Tarkovskij "Andrej Rublev", its still the same, no hope, helpless against the cold and wide, just try to exchange a lock from your main door, you will endeavour how civilized and fortuned we are in the west.
Sheer cold and goose bumps are getting loose thinking about this part of the world, symptoms of Russophobia.