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JOURNALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS IN MOSCOW

"In Moscow it’s hard to tell whether you’re being protected or watched," writes the multimedia editor of The Economist. He observes the rites of Russian newsrooms during a brief visit ...

From ECONOMIST.COM

“Y TAK, Y TAK.” Irina has translated my Russian into Russian. It’s a game we play. I notice only in translation that I begin most paragraphs with a short, barked “And, so!” which Irina, assigned to me for three days, has turned into a soft, declarative “Y tak.” I begin saying “y tak” myself, which she continues to translate. Her y taks are still gentler than mine.

I am teaching a workshop in Moscow for regional Russian media, sponsored by the Eurasia Foundation. Its offices commingle pleasantly with those of the Foundation for Independent Radio Broadcasting in a space that would be familiar to any independent radio broadcaster: disembowelled computers; stacks of CDs labelled with permanent marker; the headphoned, hunch-shouldered stare of audio editors; unmatched, adjustable chairs that no longer adjust. I used to work for an independent radio broadcaster in Boston; it was just like this, only we had a dog.

Also, we had no security guard at the front desk. At the Eurasia Foundation, the guards wear flak jackets and have no discernible sense of humour. The building also houses the British Council, whose regional offices Russia closed last year after a series of events that began when a Russian journalist who used to be a KGB officer was killed in London. In Moscow it’s hard to tell whether you’re being protected or watched. In Moscow, if you squint your eyes and think only of the nice people you’ve met, you can almost imagine you’re in a normal place.

Y tak, y tak.

I am nursing an upset stomach that I believe to be the fruit of too much alcohol. In two days I will discover that an upset stomach is what results from chain-drinking glasses of Moscow tap water in an attempt to dilute the alcohol you think is causing the pain. Our Moscow correspondent will tell me that the tap water harbours a loose colloidal suspension of heavy metals and colon bacilli, but I don’t know this yet. Standing in front of a flip chart and ten Russians on the final morning of my workshop, I still think it’s the booze.

You might expect, upon making friends with Russian journalists, that you would drink together. You would not expect, however, that you would drink berry-flavoured Finlandia vodka. Unflavoured vodka, evidently, is for tourists, and on the last full night of the workshop my class had produced a party out of a bag containing bread, an onion, a brick of cheese and pink vodka.

I tell them I have learned that my wife is pregnant. Because we do not share a language and Irina is off duty, they attempt to indicate how a Russian man reacts to the discovery he will have a child, with a pantomime that looks as if they are dancing like the characters in the animated Charlie Brown movies and then shooting themselves in the head. I make a note that Russians celebrate by shooting themselves in the head. I attempt a Charlie Brown dance to indicate my joy. I do not shoot myself in the head.

Picture credit: sherrymain (via Flickr)

(This is an instalment of a correspondent's diary about Russian newsrooms published on Economist.com.)