Where Ya Headed, Comrade?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has revealed he moonlighted as a taxi-driver to make ends meet following the collapse of the Soviet Union. —Daily Mail

“Where ya headed, comrade?”

“Comrade?”

“Sorry, pal. Just can’t seem to wrap my head around this ‘post-Soviet era’ thing. Where we goin’?”

“Corner of Kazanskaya and Gorokhovaya.”

“You got it. Say, mind if we do it off the meter?”

“Well . . .”

“Just tryin’ to make a living. The guy who owns the cab? He put the ‘C’ in ‘capitalism.’ And the ‘A’ in ‘asshole.’ In my Russia, he’d be busting rocks in the Gulag instead of my balls.”

“All right, then.”

“Thanks, tovarich. So, where ya from?”

“Moscow.”

“Moscow. Great city. Or was, until they put Gorbachev in charge. That worked out great, didn’t it? Glasnost. Perestroika. Want to know what I think of glasnost and perestroika?”

“I really have to read this document before my—”

“Glasnost is just another way of saying ‘Screw the Revolution.’ Am I right?”

“I . . .”

“Know what perestroika means?”

“I think it means—”

“I’ll tell you what it means: ‘Screw central planning. Let’s let every imbecile decide how to run things.’ Am I right?”

“Well—”

“You’re damn straight I’m right. Why stop there? Let’s let Germans decide what kind of government they want. What a good idea. Now look what’s happened. They’re gonna have to take Lenin out of that glass coffin, so people can’t see him rotate. Ever been to Germany?”

“I—”

“Six years I was in East Germany. Dresden. On a government salary, but you could live like a frickin’ tsar on what I was takin’ home. I ate meat three times a week. Sometimes more. Life was good. Now? If I wanted to go to McDonald’s—which I do not—it’d set me back what I make in a week, driving this piece-of-shit cab.”

“That’s very—”

“McDonald’s. There’s another definition of perestroika for you.”

“This traffic is . . .”

“You’re telling me! There didn’t used to be traffic like this when this burg was named Leningrad. Nyet. I could make it from headquarters on Dzerzhinsky to the sports complex on Petrovskiy in ten minutes. Less. Now look at it. Gridlock. Wall-to-wall Mercedes. BMWs. Audis. Remind me—didn’t we win the Great Patriotic War? Apparently not. Thank you, perestroika. Thank you, Comrade Fucking Gorbachev. Pardon my French.”

“I’ll get out here. There’s a metro—”

“Seventy-four years. For seventy-four years, we had something good going here. Was it a perfect workers’ paradise? No. But you knew where you stood in the scheme of things. Now it’s who you know. Which oligarch’s ass you need to kiss. You spend your life working for the Party and what do you get? ‘Thank you for your service. Go stand in line at McDonald’s.’ ”

“How much do I—”

“Six years I was in Dresden. Not a glamour posting, O.K., but the work was solid. Patriotic. Important. Sticking it to the enemies of the state. Dealing with people pretending to be moles, tunnelling under the wall—which, by the way, was built for their protection, but don’t get me started on that. I’m not complaining. When you got home at the end of the day after cracking a few heads, it was a good tired. And all for what? You tell me. So that Comrade Birthmark can have his Nobel Prize. I remember when it was cool not to go to Stockholm to pick up a Nobel. Now he gets to booze and schmooze with Jamie Dimon and Soros and Macron and stuff his fat little hamster cheeks with caviar. Which, by the way, no one in Russia can afford anymore. What does that tell you?”

“Here’s ten rubles. We good?”

“You know what I’d do if I was in charge here?”

“No. What would you do if you were in charge here?”

“I’ll tell you one thing. I wouldn’t be driving this cab.”

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