By Michael Idov

An acquaintance of mine, who writes witty and precise stuff about Russia for The Guardian, has recently received one of the best compliments available to a journalist: in response to one of her pieces, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, penned an irate letter to the newspaper. The article was about dry cleaning. (The last time Peskov wrote to the British press was three years ago, about an ABBA concert. I assume the item with the highest Peskov-provoking potential in this issue of GQ is the one on savory ice creams on page 66.) In the story, the author complains about the pervasive Russian bureaucracy that turns even a trip to the dry cleaners into hours of paperwork. She also mentions two other examples of Moscow’s red tape that I have not experienced myself: series of irrelevant questions when ordering a taxi or using the ATM. Toward the end of the article, under the heading It’s Not All Bad, the journalist adds a numbered list of four things she still loves about Moscow. Here it is: best theater in the world; horses and fashionistas roaming the streets; a long winter makes the joys of spring more intense; and, finally, a truly subversive underground scene (exemplified by the arrests of Voina and Pussy Riot). Incidentally, three out of these four are still veiled critiques, but oh well. 

I have a list like that, too, as probably does everyone living here. Mine, however, is very different, which only goes to show the inevitable myopia of all such judgments. For instance, I never really cared for theater. But I am still amazed by the presence of fresh-squeezed juice at every Moscow restaurant. (Unlike the natives, though, I can’t call it a “fresh”: quod licet Jovi, non licet Yankee, and I stoically mumble through svezhevyzhatyi, “freshly squeezed”). I find the very ATMs that frustrate the writer so much to be an absolute delight: getting your balance by text message is environmentally sound and removes the risk of overdraft (which is probably why one doesn’t see this at U.S. banks). Conversely, those horses in the streets, proffered to drunks for a midnight ride, are a disgrace and I’d join a movement to ban them in a second if there was one. So, to each one’s own. 

It is hardly worth repeating that the idea of Russia as a uniquely terrible place is nothing but chauvinism reversed. (The best way to insult a local fashist, liberal, Communist and Putinist at once is to shruggingly say that Russia is a solid second-world country.) The only amusing thing here is that a Western correspondent fell into the same trap. For the fog of Russian exceptionalism to lift, it is usually enough to simply travel to a couple of better places and a couple of worse places. I did not fully appreciate the tact and efficacy of theRussian consulate in New York, for instance, before spending half a day getting yelled at and shoved in the consulate of Nigeria. 

So why did the Kremlin, via Peskov, decide to respond to this particlular article, especially since The Guardian had previously published far harder-hitting stories by the same author on human rights, corruption and election fraud? Because dry cleaning always has more power over the country’s image than human rights. The Soviet Union may have put the tanks in Prague, but it was ultimately, at its heart, the country that had its citizens queue up for toilet paper. The U.S. may have death penalty and Guantanamo, but it’s still fuller represented by a good hamburger. As a Russian rock band once sang, “We are far away from real pain, we’re sooner angered by a leaking tap.” Thing is, though, the former subtly exacerbates the latter. Were my friend not worried about human rights, she probably wouldn’t be so annoyed by the sluggish dry cleaners. 

It is probably the same with Peskov, who in his response pointed a finger at the British for their ten-page visa questionnaire. That false parallel was a prime example of a Soviet rhetorical device called whataboutism (as in, “What about Vietnam/JFK assassination/Three Mile Island?”). It would have worked better, though, if Peskov had aimed it inward rather than outward. For example: of course there are elements of absurdity in Moscow life. But we also have fresh-squeezed juice at every restaurant. I’m perfectly okay with this kind of false parallel.