Images from a train across the Ukraine

Eastern Ukraine, Sept. 29, 2011

There are places on earth that no matter how hard I try I can't really see on their own terms. So when I was on a train rolling across the Ukraine a year ago, heading from one part of my life to another, I didn't really see the little farms and towns of an impoverished, distant corner of Europe. Most of what I saw was history and ghosts.

This is the first anniversary of that trip, when we left Moscow's Kievskaya Vokzal in the evening, and a day and a half later we arrived at Budapest's Keleti Station. Along the way we had little to do but stare out the window at the scene unfolding.

Travelling by train is a great way to see a place, but a limited one for experiencing it. You have no power to linger over something interesting, or to engage with the people you see and expose yourself to the possibility of a surprise or a challenge. You are alone with your thoughts, which you have no choice but to confront, and have the time to fill the landscape with something like that linear narrative that we so often prefer.

This part of the world, the opening of the steppes of Eurasia, perhaps gets such a reputation because there is a sameness to it. Along the way are farms, large and small, usually with cattle grazing precariously close to the tracks. There are gardens, well-tended in a rough and practical way, and little houses often in some form of disrepair. The towns are perfectly Soviet, which is one of the weird architectural legacies of the USSR. From the Polish frontier clear across the globe to the Pacific Ocean, you'll find dotting the land the same brutal apartment blocks, the severe, ersatz neoclassical train stations, the modest commercial downtowns. There will be kiosks selling all manner of things, and more than a few Lada taxis waiting nearby. After it all, the contrast with Europe — even the rougher parts of eastern Europe — is striking.

But while life goes on, the past is always there. The images and stories of the eastern front were always right there. It is a landscape that has seen so much suffering that you can't imagine it without armies marauding back and forth, about each little copse or hill was the scene of some drama, which claimed the lives of millions upon millions within living memory. It was in my mind when we arrived in Kiev, on what I knew was the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Babi Yar massacre. I wonder how the city, the country, would remember this event, which was one of the first horrible chapters of the Holocaust, when the killing was immediate and brutal and had not yet evolved into the chilling, industrial process that is perhaps more potent in our memory. As the Yevtushenko poem described it, the silence screams.

Spalny vagon

Kiev

The land

The station at Vinnytsia

A few of the many cups of tea we drank, courtesy of RZD

L'viv station, night, Sept. 29, 2011

The fanciest McDonalds I know

Nyugati pályaudvar, July 22

The idea of there being McDonalds franchises overseas would seem at first glance to suggest the export of the same bland, homogenized, terribly unhealthy strip-mall eating culture that is making America so obese and bland. But there's a weird quirk that I don't think anyone foresaw: just about any McDonalds you go to abroad would be the best McDonalds in America. The restaurant will be clean, the staff will be cheerful, the french fries will be perfect. None of the usual nonsense of alienated labor and low standards you see in the U.S.: tables with used napkins on them, surly counter staff who want to make it clear that they despise you, and limp, cold fries that hit home the fact that this food-like item which is going to eventually kill you might as well make you miserable along the way. 

The one pictured above is at Nyugati railway station in Budapest on the Nagykörút. It was built inside what had been the station restaurant.

The wrong kind of exceptionalism

The idea of America's "exceptionalism" is a literal article of faith for one of the country's two major political enterprises. But it's not something I take on its face, because though we get a lot of big things right, we screw up a ton of details. For starters:

How long do we think we'll fool ourselves about the metric system? — Do people realize that only Burma, Liberia, and ourselves still refuse to use what is one of mankind's great intellectual achievements? This is stubbornness carried to absurdity. And the process of making the switch wouldn't even be that bad. After about a week, you forget how many groats make up a hogshead, or whatever other random grab bag of a system we waste too much of our memory trying to keep straight.

Your shower head doesn't have to be bolted to the wall — The fact that they are in almost every American shower must be some kind of dumb, vestigial Puritan thing, because there's really no sensible reason why we keep doing this. That space can be very practical for cleaning buckets, grills and things like that. And if by chance someone is so creeped out by a handheld spiggot of water for their ablutions, just put it in the holder and don't touch it!

Stop complaining about dollar coins — I think everywhere on earth people have abandoned greasy, crumbled-past-recognition banknotes for their most common lowest denomination. But Americans are passionate in their petty annoyances: they bitched about Anthony dollars, Sacagewea dollars, the presidents series. Because change is change and dollars and dollars. I've never heard an argument against switching to dollar coins that wasn't based on the routine "I don't want to change the thoughtless routine I've been following my whole life" act (see the first entry). Dollar coins are simple to use and would save us money because they don't have to be replaced all the time.

Public transportation isn't just for losers — From my window in Budapest I could see the Danube, and running along it was Ujpest Rakpart, an important north-south thoroughfare between the city center and the northern districts of Pest. It was pretty busy, but never terminally so —you could usually cross it on foot if you were careful. I am certain that the analogous street in any American city would spend half the day as a parking lot. There are many grievances one can have about Budapest's public transportation network, the BKV — its scowling conductors (the first time I had my transit ticket spot-checked on a tram I thought I was getting mugged), the peculiar odor on certain buses, the fact that it closes early, the political cronyism and fiscal mismanagement of its administration. But it is hard to deny that it goes wherever you need to go, for a hilariously small amount of money. 

For how many years? — The fact that we put up with multi-year, extortionate cellphone contracts proves we are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave: Here's how it works in Europe — first, you buy yourself a cellphone. However expensive or fancy is a matter of your personal budget or preference. You then head one of the service providers, sign some paperwork, get a SIM card, plug it into your new phone, and then you put money onto your account at any ATM machine. The magic of pay-as-you-go was particularly rich for a rather light user like I was. I put about $20 on my account in October, and didn't think about it again until spring. The American market is a hellhole of multi-year contracts, jaw-dropping rate structures, and bait-and-switch sale offers, all for the exact same service with the exact same phones. I am mystified that we put up with this. 

"Light" beer isn't really beer — Because seriously, what's the point? Have a club soda if calories are such a problem. And on the subject of American brewing in general, if a brewer must insist that you drink its product at a temperature so cold it numbs your mouth, that's because it's the only way to distinguish it from urine.

The name of the game is not "soccer," it is... eh, I'll quit while I'm ahead.

On and on

As I've gotten older I've decided to keeping living and reflecting separate. Lots of people can do both at the same time, but I don't know how well they do either, and it doesn't matter anyway because I'm not one of them. And I've always put writing in that second category, which I think explains quite a bit why there hasn't been a lot of new content around here.

For a good several months I've been busy, culture-shocked, and jet-lagged. Now, as fall settles in, I'm back home in Williamstown and things are just quiet and still enough that it's about time to write again. While on the run I piled up a good amount of words and paper about this and that, and it's time for some sortin'.

It might feel a bit like a grab-bag, but hasn't this whole thing felt that way?

Istria

Carera ulica, Rovinj, Croatia

In the time I spent in Istria, I never stopped being surprised at how weird it was when someone spoke to me in English. The place is full of tourists in the summer, and the babel of languages is great. Lots of German, Italian, Croatian, Hungarian, Polish. But with the exception of a group of Irish girls who were on the bus with us to Zagreb, not a word of English. I guess it must have something to do with being a cultural superpower that so many waiters, shopkeepers, and bartenders managed to pick up simple English skills. I wonder how long that will last.

For us in Anglo-Saxon world, the Croatian coast is in a permanent state of arriving, even if it has served more or less as Central Europe's Cape Cod for generations already. The small heart-shaped peninsula also has been, if any place can be said to, the crossroads of history. The coast was Venetian, the interior Austrian, it was passed around a few times between fascist Italy, socialist Yugoslavia, before landing in independent Croatia. Even if most of the Italians left after the war, it feels like it took a little from each moment.

And if ever there was a place ready for its moment, born to be a tourist destination, this is it. The Adriatic here is perfectly blue and calm and clean. When we were there the sea temperature was an absurd 27 degrees C. The interior is green and lush. It boasts a ton of unique things you can only find there — its unique, rough wines, the white Malvasia and the red Teran, its high quality seafood and olive oils, and above all, the black truffles that there are an affordable luxury.

But it is still becoming. From what I can tell, the tourist economy is still almost a large cottage industry. There are rough campgrounds near the shore, old socialist era resorts, and lots of single apartments available for rents. The places seem to cater to people who drive down and spend a few weeks, the kind of way that Europeans pass their summer alien to contemporary Americans, who fly somewhere for a few days and do their damnedest not to engage with their surroundings. In other words, it feels like a lot of people from all over go there to live for awhile, and everyone seems to treat this arrangement with respect.

There seems to be a tacit understanding that the amenities in Istria cannot yet compete on the international market. You often see billboards and fliers for "resorts" around, but instead of showing luxurious hotel rooms and glamorous swimming pools, they show aerial shots of islands and beaches, a degree of remove that seems like an admission that the reality can't quite hold its own yet.

I can't pretend that I dove into the reality of Istrian life while we were there. I'm always aware when I'm a bloody tourist and trying too hard to insist otherwise makes me feel like a hypocrite. But the feeling there, in that economy, isn't like any other place I've been. We would always go to the seaside at a park south of Rovinj, which from the start had pine trees and stoney beaches, which would make most Americans rule it out without another thought — even if you didn't have to fly nine hours to get there. I was suspicious at first too, but you soon realize that having lots of shade right by the sea is rather convenient, and the rocks don't matter that much if you are swimming. There was a little bar set up near the sea, which neatly had a trampoline set up that my daughter was unable to resist. So many days we would stop and have a beer and let her bounce and watch the dusk fall over the sea. The beer was cheap, there weren't too many people, it was the kind of scene that makes you wonder when others are going to discover it.

And it is weird the way the Istrians who man the economy act. Usually, in most places like this, everyone has a very cold-blooded kind of contempt for you as they scheme to extract as much money from you as possible. This is the worst part of traveling for me. Istrian service workers seem not to have gotten the notice about this. I haven't figured out if it is a kind of residual post-socialist alienation of labor from capital — that they can't seem to square cheating you so that the person that pays their meager wages should make more money. Or perhaps it is a kind of general Mediterranean easy-goingness.

It came out in all sorts of ways. One day I stopped at that beer stand and asked for some in plastic cups so I could take it to where we had spread out all our stuff. The kid working at the bar said they were out, but I could just take a few mugs instead. I explained we were pretty far away, but he just shrugged and told me to bring them back sometime. Another day, I went in to a cellphone store to ask about wireless internet options. I asked her a lot of questions about a particular model, and its pricing structure, which we answered until she finally blurted out that before I made a decision I should probably go to the competitor's outlet around the corner and check what their plans were like too. And on our last night we went to a fabulous little Italian restaurant in the center, where we ate a ton of pasta and fresh seafood. Being our last night, we ordered a grappa, a rather sublime treat I've come to really appreciate in the past few years, and which they make very well in Istria. The owner of the place came over to check on us and brought over two glasses, and left the bottle. The honor system at restaurant in a tourist town. Imagine that.

Istria is a great place to visit, and in the two trips I've made I've felt that it was only a matter of time before it got "discovered." Then again, this time, after months reading about the never-ending "eurocrisis," perhaps an overlooked benefit is that we've bought a few more years.

By the sea

I spent most of this month in Croatia, by the sea and with precious little access to the internet. It's been great to get away from screens, and the usual rut of "telegrams and anger," but I'll be getting back into the swing of things soon.

The Watergate Mystique

My generation has been left a whole herd of sacred cows to sort through by the baby boomers, and none smells quite like Watergate. It is, we are ritually reminded, a singularity — the very worst of Presidential mischief, and the very best of American journalism. As it celebrates its 40th anniversary this month has enough time passed to think about it clearly?

Like any very durable collective delusion, it serves the purposes of the powerful. It reshaped our political landscape in a way that the far-right, which was pounding on the doors of the GOP already in the Nixon years, could effectively bury the center-right. For the left, it did the opposite job: handing the center and the right of the party a convenient Republican bogeyman to remind the faithful what happens if the party strays too left. But perhaps the worst of the hangover is with the media. Watergate, and in particular the roles of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, is a very comforting narrative American journalists have told themselves at times of great stress and strain.

I'll admit that my thoughts on the subject are perhaps a bit shaggy — I write this blog for fun in my spare time, don't forget. But I remember the way that when I was in high school the clock of history stopped right at Watergate. I was aware even then the real electric thrill that comes with writing history, which is something you can never forget.

So here are a few ideas, that I hope are food for thought.

WOODSTEIN

Unfortunately for Woodward and Bernstein, their party was spoiled last spring when Jeff Himmelman's account of some lingering doubts about the story appeared in New York magazine. The specific nuances of the controversy are the stuff of J-school panel discussions. Basically, it seems that they actually did get information from a grand juror, which they had previously lied about (because, reasonably, they'd have gone to jail). It's just enough to poke some ugly shadows on the awesome 70s detective story, and the event that sparked a revival of the already moribund newspaper industry.

The legend of Woodward and Bernstein, like any self-flattering fantasy, says a lot about American journalism. In particular, its incredible self-righteousness and obsession with the details of the digging over the big picture. All this is for another post. But what about the results, did they "bring down a president"? Probably not: the wheels of history were grinding along fine on their own.

Here's the blunt truth about how things were going, according to Max Holland:

"Federal prosecutors and agents never truly learned anything germane from the Washington Post’s stories—although they were certainly mortified to see the fruits of their investigation appear in print. The FBI’s documents on Watergate, released as early as 1992, bear this out. The government was always ahead of the press in its investigation of Watergate; it just wasn’t publishing its findings."

And for the record, they were helped greatly by "Deep Throat," just another career bureaucrat with an ax to grind. Don't look too closely at how the sausage is made.

John Cook at Gawker provides a more thorough brief about their work. "It represents the Platonic ideal of what journalism-with-a-capital-J ought to be, at least according to its high priesthood — sober, careful young men doggedly following the story wherever it leads and holding power to account, without fear or favor," Cook writes. "It was also a sloppy, ethically dubious project the details of which would mortify any of the smug high priests of journalism that flourished in its wake. The actual Watergate investigation could never have survived the legacy it helped create."

But isn't it convenient there are so many photographs of them while they worked?

NIXON IN CONTEXT

Now let's take a look at Richard M. Nixon, a man who became a cartoon villain in the eyes of baby boomers. This month, Woodward and Bernstein teamed up again (for the first time in decades! what an event!) to rehash what he meant. They argue that saying "the coverup was worse than the crime" — a bit of lazy thinking that's become common — disregards what a bastard he was. That makes them look, again, like crusading superheroes.

Watergate ensures that we are unable to see Nixon clearly, which is a shame. His domestic policy was ruthlessly pragmatic, which meant a certain degree of pandering to the South, but also a lot of things worth cheering about. OSHA and the EPA were created under his watch.

On foreign policy, he and that miserable, fatuous toad Kissinger came up with some real Hague-worthy evils. No doubt about that. He was desperate to finish on his terms a war which, let it never be forgotten, was started by his Democratic predecessors. But on other fronts, the easing of the Cold War is going to remembered centuries from now. Much is made of his China moment, but less acclaimed is the spirit of detente with the Soviet Union, which brought us a full decade of peace and enabled the wretched old system to collapse under its own inefficiency and nastiness. Look at this campaign ad from 1972 — a Republican, a man who made his name hounding FDR loyalists for being Reds, made that! It's almost, please excuse me, human.

Which brings us to the other fact: Nixon was dark and bitter and twisted, and anyone who has read a novel or glanced through Shakespeare can understand that there was something very complicated and very familiar about him.

THE SCARECROW

The great tragedy of Watergate was the opportunity it presented to seal for another generation the victories of moderate liberalism of Roosevelt and Johnson.

No matter what anyone tells you, George McGovern is the man the Founding Fathers dreamed about. Modest, dedicated to public service, intelligent. His like simply don't exist in American politics today. But in the wretched aftermath of the loss, Democrats managed to ask all the wrong questions. They were so worked up with the evil of the other guys, that didn't bother to think about themselves. In 1976, a free pass if ever there was one, they were still freaked out about appearing too far to the left.

That left the door open for an unctuous, self-righteous con man who couldn't stop talking about how much he loved Jesus and how bloody fucking honest he was and how don't you dare call him a "liberal" (I've gone at length into the truth about the Carter "legacy" here).

Everything Nixon and his gang of clowns couldn't accomplish with their college pranks, Jimmy Carter did for them.

THE BOTTOM LINE

In terms of scandals, Watergate is a lark compared to Iran-Contra, which we will never conclusively get to the bottom of. In terms of politics, Nixon was was responsible for nothing as bad as the pollution that has streamed into our civic life since 1994. The Plumbers were ridiculous, evil, and shitty (Colson, in his afterlife, proved he was a bigger fuck than we could have imagined, Magruder deserves a heavy dose of honest respect and forgiveness), but they were mere pranksters compared to what Dick Cheney or Alberto Gonzalez could accomplish.

And in terms of the real structural damage Nixon accomplished to the United States and the constitution, again, nothing compared to what George W. Bush pulled off. A wholesale redistribution of the nation's wealth to the rich, wars launched on false pretences, half-wits installed all over the federal branch that will take a generation to shit out. And with the Roberts Court, its a gift that could keep on giving for decades more.

There is a lot to talk about on the occasion of this anniversary. But at some point, we have to start asking the right questions about this third-rate burglary.

Prof. Lowery lays an egg

The problem with Dave Lowery's lengthy rebuttal of a 20-year old NPR intern's blog post about where she gets her music is not so much the points he's making, it's that he has done it in a way that's rather stupid. At one point, he scolds the kid, "You've unfortunately stumbled into the middle of a giant philosophical fight between artists and powerful commercial interests. To your benefit, it is clear you are trying to answer those existential questions posed to your generation." I think Dave knows the feeling, but sadly, only one of them is playing fair.

Emily White's piece was fascinating both for its candor and for explaining what the world looks like to a "digital native." To me the most interesting part is the idea that she has barely ever paid for music, but that she's never actually stolen it. That says volumes about the way the landscape has changed. That's worth talking about like an adult. But the adult in the conversation can't seem to muster a coherent, let alone respectful, argument.

So what's wrong with Lowery's response?

Let's take it from the top: "My intention here is not to shame you or embarrass you." Actually, that's exactly his intention. At least be honest.

He also insists he's "not trying to set up a 'strawman,'" Though this "corporate backed Free Culture movement" sure looks like one. And let's not mention his itemized list of expenses he thinks college students have to endure.

He throws out unfounded assumptions with reckless ease. "The accepted norm for hudreds [sic] of years of western civilization is the artist has the right to exploit and control his/her work for a period of time." Mozart just flipped over in his unmarked pauper's grave. That is an amazingly incorrect statement.

How about some distracting inappropriate analogies? Sure: "Even in the case of corporate record labels, shouldn't they be rewarded for the bets they make that provides you with recordings you enjoy? It's not like the money goes into a giant bonfire in the middle of the woods while satanic priests conduct black masses and animal sacrifices." Actually, I wouldn't mind a bonfire, because I always imagine the money goes to record execs who spend it on cocaine for the 16 year old runaways hanging out by their giant swimming pools. Which of us is more right? Don't even think about that — this isn't about class war, we're talking about the rights of artists.

But finally, and this is the clincher that made me give up fuming and actually write something about this mess. No mincing words: he is saying here that file-sharing kills people, specifically Mark Linkous and Vic Chesnutt. "Shortly before Christmas 2009, Vic took his life. He was my neighbor, and I was there as they put him in the ambulance." Now if you are arguing with any sense of perspective, any sense of respect for others, any sense of common decency, then this is not done. "I present these two stories to you not because I'm pointing fingers or want to shame you." Again, that is exactly what he is doing, and the only correct response is an honest, "fuck you."

I hate this kind of sloppy, malevolent ranting because I know there is a point at the bottom of this, and I think he's right. From an ethical and a commercial point of view, I agree that artists deserve a livelihood. And when it is done responsibly, correctly, I am an eager participant. I listen to a lot of streaming music, just like I used to listen to the radio, and I buy what I like from Amazon's MP3 store, not just because it is convenient (I know, don't get him started on that!) but because it seems aware that the old price structure was foolish and criminal. I do this even though I too am a content creator who has been pretty harshly treated by sweeping technological change and corporate ass-hattery. When I decided back in the 90s to work my ass off to become a journalist, no one predicted the entire industry would be a corpse in 2012. I know what's its like to see your work undervalued (worse, because I didn't get the rights to anything I created), get routinely screwed, and find your bank account dangerously close to empty. That's why I take ham-handed lectures from folks like Dave Lowery so badly.

There is plenty of guilt to go around for how the music industry got into this mess. There are the record companies, of course, who seriously thought it was alright to charge $16 for a CD until a few years ago. There are the artists, who were so stuck on the familiar routine of albums and touring that they refused to think more creatively about ways to jump off the railroad tracks. And there are, of course, the bit-torrent folks, and also the college students whose big crime was to accept music from friends as a gift. 


Emily White explained to us the reality of the situation, and too often people on Lowery's side resort to the equivalent of bitching that the sun comes up everyday in the east. He needs to persuade people, and this sure as hell isn't the way to do it. As bad as the situation may be, when you think about technology allows us, it is pretty exciting, and it deserves a much better dialogue than this. To reprise, I would say to Dave... 

I am genuinely stunned by this. Since you appear to love being a Big Thinker, and as someone who enjoys reading and engaging with thoughtful, respectful arguments, I am now legally obligated to issue this order: Old crank, dustbin, jump.

You are doing it wrong.

Nyár

Sunset tonight, after a very hot day. Tomorrow looks sweltering too.

Bloomsday comes but once a year

A statue of James Joyce at a cafe near where he worked in Pula, one of the many places where he lived and wrote. 

Having a little trouble getting into the spirit of Bloomsday this year. Mostly because it feels weird when it falls on a weekend. It also catches us at a moment when things are very busy, and we're going through a pretty big transition here. It was exactly a year ago that we abruptly scrapped our plans for a year in Moscow and settled on going to Budapest. And already we're preparing to go back. After such an eventful year, it's hard to fully celebrate the sublime joy and drama of finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.


But I'll still head out for a celebratory Guinness or two this afternoon.

An Open Letter to those Four Girls Getting High in St. Istvan Park the Other Day

Hey guys:

No, really, go ahead, responsibly. You picked a great spot to do that. Off in the corner behind the "Sack-carrier" statue, behind some bushes, where no one really goes except people on their way to the dog park. The only people who can see you are those of us who live in the apartments directly over you, and who happen to be sitting on our balconies for a few minutes watching the sunset while dinner is on the stove.

Of course, you're pretty loud, but that's fine. That coughing happens to everyone. And yes, that thing one of you said a little while ago was probably really that funny. I'm sure it was the funniest thing you heard in weeks. So you know, go ahead and laugh away, as hard as you want.

But girls, I would just direct your attention to what's around you. The sun is setting over the Buda hills, the Danube is shining in gold and silver and blue. The park is all green and quiet, just the distant sound of little kids at the playground at the other end. The weather has been dreary for awhile, right, so isn't it nice that at last the air is warm, that it is June, and that here you are?

Isn't it a miracle that you are young and beautiful, and you are on your own and your families aren't hovering over you? Isn't it thrilling to become aware that you are a person, capable of breaking rules, of making your own decisions, making your own mistakes? Isn't it nice to crack your friends up, to talk about silly things just because — well, whoa — don't words just sound so amazing? You probably deserve a break from thinking about exams or the Future or whatever Hungarian kids your age stress about.

But listen, I mean this the best possible way. You're doing it wrong. Seriously, put away your phones.

I didn't used to believe it either, but everything old people like me say about how fast you get old is true. And if you ever think back today, I bet you'll regret you didn't just talk to each other, or walk a few blocks to to one of those Chinese food buffets. In fifteen years, you aren't going to believe how hard it will be for you four to get together like this. Enikō will have another late day at the office because her boss is such an asshole. And Tünde's youngest son will have another ear infection and whenever she does go out all she does is talk about her kids anyway. And you all drifted away from Gyöngyi since she got mad at that thing you're going to do a few years from now and you aren't even sure you have her contact information anymore. And you don't hear much from Zsuzsa since she married that Danish guy and moved to Aarhus.

So really, whatever it is you are hunching over to watch on that tiny smartphone screen, no matter what you might think now, can wait. You're together, but really, you're not.

Sincerely,

Some foreigner (who is okay with tech in every other way)

My ill-informed Euro 2012 preview!

Euro 2012 kicks off this evening in Warsaw, and I've spent weeks trying to plan my schedule to maximize how much of it I can watch. This is my favorite football tournament — probably one of my favorite things in sports period. It is small (16 teams), quick, easy to figure out. Every match matters, and there is plenty of room for surprises.

Here are a few quick thoughts, with the usual caveats about my track record on predictions....

Group A
Poland — Lewandowski! Lewandowski! Lewandowski! The Polish striker will have a breakout tournament, and fueled by home crowds, they get through the group.

Greece — Are they only here to make easy Euro 2012-Eurocrisis jokes? As usual, their matches will be unwatchable, and it will be awesome when they disappear.

Russia — Expect the flyin' Dmitry Karamazovs to turn in another astonishing performance. Arshavin will make you wonder where he has been the past four years, and his burgeoning career as fashion designer and United Russia hack will be pushed back another few years. Igor Akinfeev's asking price on the transfer market will jump dramatically.

Czech Republic — Peter Cech may start thinking about retirement after this.


Group B
Netherlands — You know, I'm sick of these guys. Yea, Cruyff, "Total Football," all that poetry and history! Time to move on. This is the team that crapped itself against Russia in '08, became a national embarrassment in '10, and Arjen Robben's sucking in the Champion's League Final still... sucks. They'll get through, sure, but I don't care.

Denmark — Yea, they're there. Didn't they used to have a captain who was in a motorcycle gang?

Germany — Will quietly dominate everyone they meet. Certain to make the finals.

Portugal — Nice thing about football is that world-class players like Ronaldo occasionally have to play on national teams that are only marginal contenders. He won't get them through the group stage.


Group C
Spain — The favorites! the greatest generation! winners of the last two major tourneys! Can they repeat? Nah. Watching the tail end of the La Liga season showed most of these guys have nothing in the tank anymore. Also, Fernando Torres is still soft and washed-up (that goal against Barcelona, once and for all for god's sake, only happened because he got lucky when caught way out of position).

Italy — Hmm, match-fixing allegations, a lack of identity, police raids at the training camp.... watch out world, Italy is on! The drama queens of soccer only play well with operatic levels of melodrama. They're my pick to win it all at this point.

Ireland — I saw them play on Monday! Wasn't overwhelmed. If they don't take care of Croatia on Sunday, which would entail doing stuff like attacking and trying to score goals instead of clutching on for dear life, they're doomed.

Croatia — The plucky Croats have always been a personal favorite of mine. But too many injuries this time. They'll go out, meekly.


Group D
Ukraine — Ugh, these guys. The faster that washed-up Yanukovich supporter Andriy Shevchenko can finish this up and announce which MLS team is buying him the better.

Sweden — Another team I resent for their poor performance containing Russia in '08 (were they intimidated by the giant Peter the Great banner the Russian supporters rolled out?) Also, Ibrahimovic... nice fellow.

France — Thank Domenech's still somehow working lucky stars to get stuck in this group. Does anyone really have to come out of this one?

England — In the day, I used to pull for England. Really, I read British papers online and they were the easiest major team to follow. But watching the "greatest generation" fizzle on the field, the WAG drama play out off it, and seeing John Terry sad and angry was just too entertaining. This year, with the idiocy of the Rio Ferdinand drama, it will particularly fun to watch them stumble. It's just too bad everyone expects it this time around. 

Magyarország-Írország, at Puskás Ferenc Stadion

The view from Section 'E Jobb'

I was hoping that on what will probably be my only trip to Puskás Ferenc Stadion I'd be able to make some notes about the scene ― the crowd, the pregame atmosphere, the stadium itself, which was the scene of some of the greatest moments in Hungarian football. But alas, the weather ensured that most of what I remember are scurrying through puddles and wondering what would happen if lightning hit one of the enormous light towers. But it even wasn't enough to make me not notice what turned out, for a warm-up friendly, to be a pretty exciting game.

Monday was warm, a bit hazy, and the air was heavy and damp. It was the kind of day that you knew would end in rain, but so many around here this year have been like that and nothing happened. So even as I checked out the Hungarian meteorological service's website, and watched on the radar feed the line of rain and lightning punching up along Balaton toward the capital, I remained hopeful.

Bus 75 goes from near my apartment over through Angyalföld, past Varosliget and ends all the way at the stadium. I waited to meet the friends I was going with outside the Stadium metro station. This was not only my first international football match, it was easily the highest level match I've ever seen. Heck, the first professional match I'd ever attended was only about a month ago. I was surprised at how diverse the crowd was ― always surprised to see girls at sports events. There were a good number of Ireland fans around, and everyone seemed in a good mood.

As we made our way around the Papp Sportsarena toward our entrance, which was clear across the other side from the station, the rain began. And it was a real summertime downpour. The kind of rain when you're soaked and can't see and have to wait under a tree for a few minutes. It was under that wall of water that we found our gate, had our bags searched, presented our soaked and crumbling tickets. This is the part in which I which I could have been paying attention, because we had to run across the field to the stadium to get under the eaves as fast as possible.

It is hard to imagine a more plain stadium design. It is a giant oval, laid north to south. The east end has a covered stand and boxes, and is where the benches and field entrances are. The west end is all business, row upon row, in two levels, of seats on a very slight slope. For our game ― and I imagine for most games for the past few decades ― only the lower level was open. The grace of the place's design is its simplicity — this is a space for packing in a mass of people to watch something at one time. It's charm, as it were, comes from its history, but that only goes so far.

Taking cover while waiting for the lightning to pass

Our seats were on the north-west end, above the corner flag. We could see the entire field pretty well, but the main complaint was the sheer distance. With a track oval in the field as well, it felt like we were miles away. We weren't able to go down to our seats right away because of the flood, and almost everyone was crammed beneath the upper section, watching an astonishing amount of water come pouring from the upper level gutter into a storm drain. The game itself was delayed because there was still lightning in the area.

For the poetry of it, I'd defer to Keith Duggan's match report in Tuesday's Irish Times:

Noon-day sunshine had given way to storm clouds by late afternoon and as the visiting fans began to appear on the metro lines, the sky over Budapest began to look almost Celtic: Moody and darkening.

As the teams warmed, the Hungarians chanted the odes which have been echoing around the stadium since Puskas was the dashing young matinee idol of the city and the Magyars were the jewel of continental football. The Irish responded with more familiar refrains.

Then, just as the players were leaving the field after their preliminary warm-up, the sky growled and lightning flashed, eclipsing the floodlights, and a spectacular rainstorm swept through through the stadium, tap-dancing across the running track, ruining summer shirts and dresses and leaving the players huddled in their dressing rooms.

When it got underway, the rain went away and it was a good time. The fans were loud and engaged, and the game itself was pretty good. Even though it ended in a 0-0 draw, it was a pretty exciting, back-and-forth match, especially in the first half. The wave of substitutions in the second half gave the match a little bit of a disjointed feeling, but it certainly kept your interest.

I'd have liked to spend a little more time at the scene, but it was late when it wrapped up and we didn't want to get stuck in the crowd. You really feel how ancient and crumbling the place is when you leave at night after the event. You go from from the bright lights through the tunnel, and down the steps. You are aware of the hulking upper section over your head, but there are practically no lights. You see only shadows and concrete as you file down the steps, which end when you splash into a four-inch deep mud puddle at the bottom, and slosh your way through the swamped grass to the street.

The old Népstadion certainly has its history. But when a new stadium appears ― no doubt around when that other mythic public works project does ― I don't think it will be much missed.

The dark, eerie west stand at night

The endless cycle of 're-education' in Eastern Europe

President Obama managed to step into a classic Eastern European controversy this week. It was perfectly clear that when he said that Jan Karski, a hero of the resistance to Nazi Germany, did time in a "Polish death camp," he made a mistake. Somewhere, a speechwriter misplaced an adjective — such things happen — and the president quickly owned up to it. All this is clear to any honest person, but alas, there are very few honest people in politics, especially when you're talking about the past, and especially here in Eastern Europe.

The nature of the hysterics in Poland is very revealing. Here's Prime Minister Donald Tusk's freakout: "we always react in the same way when ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions lead to such a distortion of history, so painful for us here in Poland, in a country which suffered like no other in Europe during World War II.” Outrage, pain, self-pity... this is all practically boilerplate. But even I'm taken aback by it — just what "bad intentions" does Tusk imagine the President harbors toward Poland? what kind of insult was he slinging by awarding America's highest possible civilian honor to a Polish war hero?

It took a few days to blow over, and it seems everyone's delicate sensibilities are soothed. “The events of the past few days and the U.S. president’s reply may, in my opinion, mark a very important moment in the struggle for historical truth,” Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said. Swell, but the thing is, there was never a question about "historical truth." It was a mistake.

If all this gassing is about any "historical truth," it has to be the craven political culture of early 21st century Europe, and the thin-skinned malice so many here still cling to. No one doubts what a terrible, bloody, and cruel century just passed, but the obsessive need to control a simple, self-affirming story is sad. Anything that complicates a black and white parable of pure-hearted Polish (or Hungarian, Latvian, Ukrainian, etc.) suffering at the hands of Nazi or Soviet aggression cannot be tolerated (a critical note: you can also talk about Russian aggression but never, never German aggression). The details vary from country to country — Hungary's unwillingness to acknowledge its complicity in Nazi warmongering, Poland's defensive insistence that it was always perfectly blameless, Ukraine's deeply unpleasant effort to convince the world that famines caused by Stalin's collectivization were worse than the Holocaust.

Understanding history requires you hold multiple ideas in your head at once. And if you refuse to do that, you're not talking about "historical truth" at all, just plain political gamesmanship.

Among the loudest outraged defenders of Polish honor was Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, husband of neocon hack Anne Applebaum, and former resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He had the decency to — eventually — accept Obama's apology in a tweet: "Thank you, President Obama. Truth, honor and the legacy of Karski satisfied. Please feel free to send us your staffers for re-education."

First, I'm touched he admits that Obama — that socialist — is really our president and didn't ask to see a birth certificate. Second, he knows where he can stuff his Polish "re-education" camps.

Is it worse to bury the past and try to forget it, or to keep selectively stirring it up for cheap tactical purposes? Who knows, but it sure is depressing that the idea of making peace with the past in an honest and well-intentioned way never seems to be an option.

Euro(crisis)vision

Tough times for Europe. Economic malaise, the Eurozone teetering on the brink of collapse, voters sending strong signals about how much suffering they can stand, unemployed young people camping in the streets to protest their absence of a future, anarchist violence making an unwelcome comeback, right-wing nitwits making trouble big and small.

Surely, what Europeans could use now is a giant continent-wide singing competition, which is obviously what the original founders of Eurovision must have had in mind all those years ago when they thought everyone needed a break from picking through the rubble of their remarkable first half of the century.

Eurovision manages to so completely occupy so little mental space that I'm always surprised when it springs upon me. Then I remember that one of the great joys for me of being in Europe in May is to vote like any other preteen girl (is that the target audience? I honestly have no idea). I've written about previous editions in recent years (2007 and 2010) — long before Anthony Lane realized it was something respectable people could snark about. So I've watched as much of the preliminary material as I can stand (i.e., not that much), and have everything you really need to know about this year's edition.

Hungary's entry this year is a band named Compact Disco, who do a pretty serviceable Nickelback imitation. This, of course, means not only that they stink, but they are also doomed (because, I mean, look what the hell Ukraine came up with!). I don't think you can afford to be quite this mopey. I enjoyed (is that the right word?) their video because it includes a lot of pretty shots of Budapest, including on shot at my favorite restaurant. It is a "problem" song (though I guess most Eurovision songs not from Scandinavia sort of are). The gist of it seems to be that whether you are a wealthy, hard-charging businessman or an angry homeless drunk, you're pretty fucked.



Perhaps nothing captures the zeitgeist of the time like Rona Nishliu from Albania, a nightmare of moaning and screaming with sad children running around. That in a nutshell is life in Europe these days, if you believe the financial press.




But alas, from what I saw, it doesn't look like a particularly interesting year. There's no truly jaw-dropping work of crap, like Aisha from Lativa's heart-wrenching ballad "What for?" which features the immortal conversation stopper of a lyric, "Only Mr. God knows why." Nor is there a song that you secretly kinda like and hate yourself for it, like Lena from Germany's "Satellite." Nor is there a singing turkey puppet begging for points (Ireland got serious this year and nominated Jedward), nor a Ukrainian drag queen taunting Russia. 

My personal preference this year is the entry from Montenegro, Rambo Amadeus. His goofy little rap song hits the silly accent button, and is topical: it seems to be about idea that an earthy peasant from southern Europe and his donkey have the right kind of laid-back attitude to get Europe through this mess. He may be right. Also, I looked this chap up, and found that he says his biggest influences are Zappa and Captain Beefheart. And he was the first Serbian or Montenegrin musician to perform in Croatia after the war ended.



But none of these are going to win. I have a gut feeling about Soluna Samay from Denmark. She's cute, wears very silly costumes, and her song sounds like a "normal" professional recording industry production if you don't think too hard about it (also, her cello player in her preview video is wearing a Red Sox cap!). Of course, I'm useless at predicting things, so I'll probably be wrong. But I'm pretty sure that Germany will vote en masse for Turkey, and Englebert Humperdink won't win anything.

This year's semifinals and finals take place this week in Baku, proving just how flexible the idea of Europe really is. For once, the event is serving a greater purpose, specifically, it is an opportunity for the entire world to see what an unsightly, repressive, oil-soaked absurdistan Azerbaijan has become.

Notre francophilie

I never would have guessed that in 2012 the hip publishing story of a random week would be an expat memoir about being young and living in Paris. I thought that Francophilia had become obsolete, not to mention unprofitable. Because it's silly, right? isn't it weird that even when Hemingway et al were there they were following a template that was already generations old? that we can't think up anything new?

So I can't figure out how it is that Rosecrans Baldwin's memoir, Paris I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down (titled after an LCD Soundsystem song, groan), is getting so much buzz. The excerpts and reviews I've read suggest that it is, well, drôle, but I haven't seen anything that seems super-insightful. Foreign people do things different, and French people do things different in a frustratingly charming way, that is different than the frustratingly charming way they've always done it.

I suppose it is a testament to the durability of France's cultural gravity. I'm sure not immune: the precise moment my own case of Francophilia appeared came right before freshman year of high school, when I had to pick a language course. I knew already that Spanish would be infinitely more useful, that Latin would bump up my SAT scores, but I just liked the way French sounded. And it would probably impress girls, right?

Four and half years of near daily French language classes followed. Even today, I am amazed that I can read French newspapers and listen to France Inter without too much effort, which is a true tribute to the language-learning capacity of young brains. In my life I've spent approximately 10 days in French-speaking parts of the world, and can't remember the last time I actually spoke French to anyone. That's a stark and painfully ironic comparison with Russian, a language I have fought with for more than twice as long, over the course of years I've spent in Russian-speaking places.

Learning French was as pure an aesthetic thing as I've ever done, so France has been a kind of cultural beacon for me. I loves its books, music, poetry, and still do. I spent a lot of my very modest disposable income on the occasional pack of Gauloises and bottle of Pernod. My first trip abroad was when I was 24, after grad school, and there was nothing disappointing about it. My most sustained and conscious effort at career networking was an effort to find work there when I was still young and unattached.

Along the way, a weird quirk I picked up was a real aversion to other Francophiles. Partly, it was based on resentment and envy of those who were better at it than me, and the subsequent sense of injustice because they clearly understood it at a much shallower level. I once met a graduate student who was studying contemporary French literature, which involved reading lots of books and getting Fulbrights to study in Paris for months at a time. I guess to be fair, he was an okay dude, even though he wore very fancy shoes. One time I asked him just what it was that inspired him. Why France? Perhaps there was something wrong with my ears, but I think his actual response was that, "the French people simply have a certain joie de vivre." I've yet to resolve whether he was really that shallow, or if it was grad student condescension to a self-evidently "dumb question."

I often say, my Russophilia cured my Francophilia. Russia is difficult, does not surrender its charms lightly, and demands a heavy piece of your soul in exchange for a kind of honest, powerful grace that I won't even try to explain here (this is the "Russian soul" I'm often joking about. Or am I joking?). France, on the other hand, seems like a place trying very hard to be the France you want it to be. It is eternal, yet it reinvents itself. It clings to tradition, yet feels achingly modern. It ignores you, even mocks you, but clearly wants your attention. It flirts with you. You feel that a golden past and brilliant future are all right there, together, in the same neat package which is, in its simplest way, just an airplane ride away. (I'd mention Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris here, a movie specifically about Paris and nostalgia which has somehow become one of his highest grossing films. I've already written about how stupid and gross I think that movie was).

America, Russia, China are all wrestling with their own vision of hyperpuissance. Hungarians and eastern Europeans are busy with the hard work of scraping by. France is full-time in the business of radiating Frenchness, which is a shorthand for a variety of very nice things like culture, good food, a beautiful language, perfect gestures, and a self-conscious sense of time and priorities. Of all the rides in God's amusement park, this earth, who could say this is not an important thing?

So says the guy whose cellphone ringtone is "L'Anamour."

Moscow space

Traffic and construction: looking north from Mayakovskaya Square

Every time you return to Moscow you must readjust your vision. It is a place that changes very fast, but seems to remain within the same outlines. Was that high-rise apartment block there before? is this shopping center new? was there always this much traffic on this road?

This is the consequence of barely manageable growth. The traffic gets worse by the week and the Metro is a flood-chute of humanity, streaming and stalling people from the mushroom moon colonies on the outskirts through the straining and bursting center. Muscovites resort to increasingly absurd lengths simply to live and move around.

The city gives you lots of time to think about the situation, and how civil authorities are not just helpless, but actively taking steps that history has proven will only make things worse. They build new highways, they add lanes to existing ones, the plan entire new subway lines with dozens of new stations, the acquire enormous swaths of suburban territory to accommodate increased urban growth.

Moscow is a city that aims to be New York or London, but ends up being more like Mumbai or Lagos. And it comes at the expense of the rest of the nation, especially the countryside, which is withering.

So while Moscow's progress through the phases of being a global megacity, there are signs that the investments and heavy-handed, top-down approach of the Putin years are having some effect on the urban landscape. Walking around the Center this month, it felt like visiting a familiar place where the scaffolding had come off after many long years. There are more new buildings, old ones have been renovated, and it seems like there are more long, clean views around the place.

It can't be a coincidence that this is happening during an election year, when a carefully stage-managed "transfer of power" is underway and the chorus of dissent is growing bit by bit.

Nor is it surprising that much of the new building is terrifically tacky. The long Soviet experience left a two-fold legacy on Moscow's physical space: a reverence and overvaluing of the monumental and gargantuan for its own sake, and the belief that only shameless, flashy, blinged-out, busy details and ornamentation are the only ways to communicate serious value. It's why, for example, the Ritz Carlton hotel on Tverskaya looks like it has about a million bricks more than it actually needs, and why every oligarch and high-level bureaucrat wears a platinum wristwatch the size of a tea saucer.

Anyway, some pictures:

The Central House of Artists on Krimsky Val, built in 1980, remains the most starkly astonishing example of Soviet modernism at full swagger 

The brand new Ritz Carlton, built a few years ago a stone's throw from the Kremlin on the site of the former Intourist Hotel, led me to make up a new word: "encrustulated" 

The "new" Hotel Moskva is said to be a replica of the old Stalinist one, which you may recognize from Stolichnaya vodka bottles 

Rows and rows of new apartments in the exurban expanses of Kurkino

Scenes from Victory Day season in Moscow

Victory Day (день Победы) remains one of the most important Russian holidays. Recent years have seen the celebrations return to Soviet chest-thumping, with marching phalanxes of troops, rumbling tanks and ICBMs, and fighter jet fly-bys.

But as with any big holiday, it is also an occasion for a season of kitsch.

A Victory Maypole? This collision of banners and colors was on Krimskiy Val, across the street from the entrance to Gorky Park.

For fans of military history, this huge map of the campaign was installed at Revolution Square.

"Everything is important!" — This somewhat cryptic remark is the slogan of a housing developer, which sponsored this ad near Barrikadnaya. It's a very common Victory Day theme that is disturbing: young children dressed up in WWII-era uniforms and themes. It is intended as a sign of respect, but it also wants to signal the unquestioning readiness of future generations to make horrific sacrifices.

"The Motherland Salutes You, Hero-Fried Meat Pastry!" —this poster was spotted in the window of a chebureki shop on Ulitsa Solyanka, near Kitai Gorod.

What changed after Bolotnaya?

I spent the whole winter watching in surprise and amazement at what was happening in Moscow. Back in June when it seemed we would spend the year there, I wasn't looking forward to it. A year in a grim, expensive, depressed city where everything stays the same forever (except when they get worse). If the outcome of several exciting months is precisely what any safe bet would have been a year ago — Putin taking the oath for another term in the Kremlin — the very process, I thought, must have changed something.

So when we went to Moscow last week for family matters, I had my eyes and ears open. And on Sunday, the day before Putin's inauguration, I had the chance to see to see the state of civil society for myself.

The gathering was organized at Bolotnaya Square, scene of the first great moment back in December which already feels like ancient history. Despite being a sprawling megacity, Moscow's heavy-handed top-down authority keeps the chaos to a minimum, and we could tell something was up once we got to the Metro and announced several stops in the center were entirely shut down. The closest we could get was Novokuznetskaya, and since we'd already missed the march portion of the event, which was on a parallel street, we got out there and walked along the river.

That gave us a chance to the police staging area just east of the square. Lined up along the bridge just east of the square was some sort of staging area. The word "phalanx" is one I'd never really thought about, but there it was. Row after row, several deep, of fully-equipped riot police, in helmets and face shields, body armor and batons, just standing, waiting to be pointed at something. Coming upon them gave me a sense of the shock and awe of an 18th century battlefield, of coming over a hill and seeing the enemy all ready, with their shit together, ready to jump on you. It almost feels like that alone is half the battle. In this case, it was far more menacing because there was not display function in any of this. This was the backstage area, not even a show of force. 

We walked along the river to the entrance. Bolotnaya Square is a peculiar little stretch of asphalt on the south side of the long, narrow island that sits in the middle of the Moscow River. Geographically, it is incredibly close to the Kremlin, but practically, it is another world. It is accessible only by a handful of bridges. We crossed one, going through the first police checkpoint, which led to the western end of the square. From there we were channeled into it, toward where they had set up a stage and sound system, which was blaring classic Russkie Rock hits from Kino, and Nautilius Pompilius. On our right was the river, on our left, behind a row of port-a-johns and temporary metal fences, were a full line of police men.

We spent awhile as people streamed in, and watched the group. It was very diverse. There were certainly a lot of young people, the kind I would imagine attending an anti-establishment protest in the West. But there were older people, who looked like they'd been in the spirit of protesting their whole lives. A few had clearly anarchist signs, others outright Soviet nostalgia. But most were perfectly normal-looking middle class people, a few brought their kids.

As everyone filed in, I made note of what I thought must be a major achievement in the creation of Russian civil society: the whole thing was pretty boring. There wasn't much happening. It was a strange feeling: overall, it felt as if the authorities had made peace with the idea of larger-scale protest. The march was permitted, and more or less kept to the shape of several earlier peaceful ones which had gone off without a hitch under much more uncertain circumstances (i.e., it wasn't perfectly clear the regime had won yet). There were rumors that troublemakers were interested in starting some sort of "Occupy" camp near the Kremlin at Manezh Square, and we saw one hippie-looking lad on the subway carrying an LL Bean outlet's worth of camping gear, but we figured just a few fools would get themselves arrested. It seemed like everything was going to be boring, and the greatest challenge was going to be to figure out how to sustain the momentum through the long, long years stretched out ahead.

Everything shifted quite abruptly. Everyone who had gone ahead of us seemed to at once stop, turn around, and start walking back. Word spread through the crowd that the organizers of the event — Nemtsov, Navalny, Udaltsov, I believe —had been turned away (or had refused to go through). There appeared to be a sudden, intense stand-off behind us. Everyone had turned around. Someone from the perfectly superfluous stage announced that the meeting had been cancelled. It was hard to figure out what was going on, and so we began to make our way home.

We didn't hear about the violence until much later when we arrived home. Everyone was looking in the direction of what was happening, but we couldn't make anything out. The worst we saw was an NTV television van getting a working over. It was already piled with rubbish, and a crowd was pelting it with trash as we walked by. A line of indifferent police officers were standing a few feet away. I saw a perfectly respectable, middle-aged woman, who looked like she could have been a middle school art teacher, appear at my shoulder and hurl a glass bottle at the van, with an indescribably angry face. It was perhaps the only moment of real nervousness I felt, like a mob was about to turn very ugly. Meanwhile, back at the Square, things had already turned ugly, when a few provocateurs and an army of hyped up police goons made the news that would be seen around the world.

We made our way back toward Ordynka. It was our last night in Moscow, and my hankering for ethnic food led me to suggest we stop for dinner at Shesh-Besh, a decent Azeri chain restaurant, for some shashlik. The restaurant crowd was familiar from any Moscow restaurant — lots of well-dressed people, families with kids, everyone with smartphones, a scene almost Western. But I noticed that almost every single person there had a white ribbon on them.

Coming into this week, this is what I imagined the real value of these protests had been. The worst part about semi-authoritarian regimes is how alienating and atomizing they are. For years you walked around the city, and could never tell what the faces you saw on the street really thought about the political situation. If you hated Putin, aside from your family and close friends, you felt very alone. That all began to change with social media, and with the first stirrings of protest — when those intimate, desperate conversations around the kitchen table (an almost permanent feature of Russian life) were suddenly shared with perfect strangers in public.

Putin's actual inauguration was just as depressing as could be imagined. We watched it having a long breakfast, just before we set about packing for our trip home. The whole thing struck me as some kind of very dumb Disney princess movie, with an OJ car chase in the middle. People who try to deconstruct the details of it — the single camera, the general atmosphere of a very lame, scripted, "reality t.v." show — are forgetting something. Medvedev's inauguration four years ago was precisely the same, the same fetishized pomp and symbolism for no real point.

All this, with the violence, made it even more depressing than I was prepared for. I was ready to admit that while the battles were lost, the struggle wasn't over. That the gains painfully made would not be given up. That the focus would become smaller, on municipal and regional councils, on the hard work of living for a cause and building something beyond the occasional grand gesture. That thanks to social networks and alternate media there was no way the regime could carry on as before. That the sheer weight of corruption, official bullshit, and the countless, needless aggravations that make up life in Russia had finally tipped over and couldn't be set back. That maybe, for the first time in its long history, Russia would experience the kind of gradual, positive social change that would lead to peace and prosperity.

Then I caught myself; that's just wishful thinking. All Russians really have now is exactly what they had before: not much.