D and Tretyakovka

A few days ago I got an email from D, a Williams '03 grad who's in Moscow for the summer. He was perusing facebook, found Beach, got in touch with her, and she pointed him in my direction. He got to Moscow only a couple weeks ago and hasn't seen much of the city yet. He suggested we meet at Tretyakovka, a gallery of Russian art that spans from early Byzantine icons up through realism of the 20th century, pretty much always in the wake of European art. After getting minimally lost by the Третяковкая stop I found him at the gallery at noon.

Last night I mentioned D, before I knew anything about him, to Aubergine and his friend Julia Mafia (yep, that's her real name). Julia Mafia is a fabulous Russian girl with hair, lips, and eyeshadow all strikingly different shades of red. The last time I saw her she had bought a pair of shiny silver shorts (she hasn't worn them yet...maybe on her birthday).

"You didn't ask for a picture??" she asked last night. "What if he's fat and ugly? *wrinkles nose* *wild fit of giggles*" Hate to say it, Ms. Mafia, but you are wroooong. D is easily one of the most attractive Russian men I've met. That places him comfortably above average on the American scale. Forgive my bias. Maybe if Putin clamped down on the rampancy of mullets and pointy elf-shoes, I would feel differently, but by and large, Russian men don't do it for me.

D is a very pleasant surprise. His looks are just a bonus--I could talk to him for hours. He grew up in a small, beautiful town (the gallery had some paintings of it) about 3 hours south of Moscow. He studied English at school, got a job washing dishes for a summer camp in Massachusetts, got an affadavit of support from his host family to stay in the States, spent a couple years at Berkshire Community College, then transferred to Williams as a junior. Harvard was his original goal. He ended up getting accepted there, but only as a freshman. At 23 years old he wasn't interested anymore.

He's every bit as intelligent and self-assured as you'd expect him to be. There must be crazy undercurrents of tenacity and resourcefulness, but in conversation he's affable and almost soft-spoken. He majored in political science, and is a gold mine of fascinating insight and perspective on America and Russia. Plus he smells really nice. Okay, before I talk myself into falling for him, let me tell you his reason for coming to the States. It's...

...wait...

...a little more...

...trust me, this one needs one more ellipsis...

...crap, I can barely make myself type it...

...Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yep, the gubernator. Either D is way too good at being deadpan, or has a clinically underdeveloped sense of irony. I bet it's the first one--when he said he wanted Arnold as the next US president and I showed no signs of taking him seriously, he said ok, actually he likes Hillary.

I have to say, though, that he ended up having a surprisingly decent and substantial explanation for the serious side of the Arnold thing. He read a book about Arnold when he was a teenager (intended to be an expose, but he said he was oblivious to the bad parts), and that put the idea in his head that if you find a way to get to America and are hardworking and resourceful, you can do pretty much whatever you want. He obviously understands, better than I do, the problems surrounding that...myth, I'd go so far as to call it, but, for him, it was what it was and he did what he did and I can't bring myself to snicker at that. Except when I picture Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Other interesting things D said: I mentioned to him Embassy Guy's comment that if America had helped Russia to its feet more in the 90s, we'd be reaping friendship rather than missile-threats now. D said that's totally off-base. If anything, he said, Clinton was too hands-on in the 90s, and a larger American presence would only have created more resentment and confusion.

Since I'm struck by how much more socially at ease I feel surrounded by a bunch of Americans at the embassy (even in comparison to other native English speakers), I asked him if he found it easier to talk to people in Russia and if it was a relief to be back. He said it was quite the opposite--he misses how Americans go out of their way to be friendly, even if it's not exactly genuine, and prefers that sort of interaction to what he described as the sullen, oblivious silence of his Russian co-workers.

I hope I see him again soon.

Oh, right, the paintings in the gallery were cool too.