I left Russia shortly after its invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, but I’ve been back twice; and twice I have had conversations with strangers that I still think about every now and again.
The first happened on a train going from Moscow to St. Petersburg. For the first couple of hours, until we reached Vyshniy Volochok, a Christian Orthodox priest sat next to me.
I debated myself lazily and silently: I was curious to find out what he thought about the state of the country, the world, and his faith, but wasn’t sure I had the energy to carry on what would have probably been a surreal and depressing conversation. I prepared a question—“What do you think of that new military temple?”—but kept it to myself for the first hour and a half.
Finally, he said, “Next stop is mine.” I asked if he wanted to trade seats—he’d be closer to the door then—using the polite, formal version of “you,” вы1. He agreed and started his Orthodox small talk:
“You know, nobody used вы in the old days. Peter the First brought this habit here from the West. There’s a simple test for what is appropriate: how do we address God?”
“Ты2.”
“Exactly. Same with the Tsar.”
I thought: I’m in this conversation already, so what the hell.
“You’re a priest, aren’t you?”
“Do I look like one?”
“The hat gives it away.”
He laughed.
I used the line I’d prepared:
“I recently visited the—what should we call it—Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces.”
He frowned and shook his head.
“What are you feelings about it?”
“Satanism.”
I laughed with relief, thinking, maybe he’s one of those actual Christians that attempt to serve God and people despite how corrupt their institution is.
“Ok. Thank God.”
And after a pause:
“Спасибо.”
The Russian spasibo—”thank you”—comes from spasi (“save”) and Bog (“God“), which usually is interpreted as “may God save you.” But my priest had a different theory.
“Spasibo means ‘may God save…’ whom? Why do we say it? In the old days, people said it when meeting somebody unpleasant, somebody who made them uncomfortable. It meant, ‘may God save me from this person.’”
In retrospect, I think I used the word correctly, whichever theory’s right.
“That temple is pure Satanism. And the Patriarch is serving liturgy with Catholics now, where is that at? There are many good priests now that have stopped mentioning him in their service.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yes, there’s a part where you’re supposed to say, — and he started the trance-inducing Orthodox chanting, — ‘Let us pray for the great lord and father of ours, the holiest Patriarch...’”
“So they skip this part, huh?”
“They do.”
“And the reason is,” — I was hoping it’d be his condoning of the war, or corruption, or getting too close to state power, — “his contacts with Catholics?”
“Of course. They are Satanists. They kill babies.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“They do, I know this for a fact. They even have this game where they gather some kids in a large park and tell them, ‘Run as fast as you can.’ Then they wait a little and start the hunt. If the kid runs away, he is free; but if he is caught, they kill him and bury him right in that park.”
I thought, “his problem with the cathedral must be different from mine.”
“Could you say more about that temple? What makes it Satanic?”
“There’s plenty of stuff. The iconography is not up to the canon, the mosaics, the way it is built. And they keep the clothes of a certain prominent Nazi there on display. Are you aware of this?”
“I’ve heard. Haven’t seen them myself.”
Hitler’s clothes really are on display, but not in the cathedral itself—there’s a WW2 museum next to it. Both are parts of a larger complex called The Patriot Park.
I spent maybe 20 minutes in that museum, but left without seeing the whole exhibition—I was hungover and on a small dose of mushrooms, so all the flashy multimedia about the war and all the Z-themed souvenirs were a little too much for me to handle.
“And what do you think about the whole…” — I struggled to find the right words — “business of mixing Soviet WW2 stuff with Christianity? All the war imagery?”
“The whole thing is a part of their preparation for the arrival of the Antichrist. The military personnel is forced to take part, they follow orders. But don’t fret. There soon will be a new Orthodox Tsar, I know this for a fact.”
I thought, “He knows a lot of things for a fact.”
“People from all over the world will come to Russia to convert to Orthodox Christianity. I spoke with a starets3 at Mouth Athos, who saw the new Tsar himself.”
“Did he describe him, say what his name was?”
“I asked that question as well, and the starets did too; he said, ‘What is thy name,’ and the Tsar said, ‘It is not yet time for people to know it.’”
I knew there were two more questions I had to ask him.
“And how do you feel about our current ruler?”
“Normalno4. He’s fine.” — He paused. — “You mean Putin, right?”
“Yeah, him.”
“He’s not actually Putin, you know. His real family name is Rasputin, and that says a lot. That’s a fact.”
I nodded.
“I’ve got this watch from him.”
The watch had the Russian coat of arms, Putin’s signature, and the phrase “of the President of the Russian Federation” on its face. I didn’t understand why it started with “of.” It seemed there was a word missing. Maybe I didn’t take a close enough look.
“I know somebody from his security detail. I got him and his wife married, here in Volochek. His father, a retired general, was at the ceremony, and he looked so gloomy and stern. I walked around him in circle while burning the incense; I said, ‘You need a lot of God’s grace, to make you look less upset.’ He still remembers this, still mentions it to his son. ‘That’s what a priest should be like! In Moscow, they just pass you like you’re not even there.’ So then, a while later, the security guy gave me this watch and said, ‘A gift from the boss.’
I prefaced my last question with “I’m not sure if I want to ask this, because I have a suspicion for what your answer might be.”
“What are your thoughts on the war?”
“It was necessary. If you just look at who we’re up against… All these Satanists, amerikosy. They say it openly: they don’t care how many Ukrainians die.”
Mercifully, the train conductor approached us: “Which one of you are in seat 25? To Vyshniy Volochek?”
I gestured towards the priest.
“Your stop is coming soon, please be ready.”
We sat in silence for a moment.
“Are you baptized?”
“I am.”
I was baptized at age five. It was becoming fashionable in the 90s, and my grandma was for it. My parents, good Soviet people, did not seem to care one way or another.
About a year before dying, my father shared with me: “Maybe I should get baptized.” I was surprised.
“How come?”
“I don’t know. Grandma’s baptized, you guys,” — he meant me and my brother, — “are too. And I got skipped over.”
I shrugged, and that was the end of it.
My mother was baptized in 1953, at 3 months of age. She was dying, and the prevalent wisdom—this was in a Ukrainian village—was that she had to be baptized before it’s too late. My mom says Ukraine, especially rural areas, has always been more magical than Russia. People there have a real faith, whether it be in God or superstition.
So her mother allowed to bring her baby to a local priest, and waited at home in despair. The moment the priest sprinkled some holy water on the dying infant, she reached out her hand and grabbed the priest by the beard. When she was brought home, it was evident she was going to be okay. She looked happy.
People gathered to celebrate this. They drank and sang songs.
Soon though, a woman appeared, crying and wailing: “Woe is us,” “What a misery.” Everybody gathered around her.
“What happened?”
“Stalin died!”
“Oh God, to hell with your Stalin! I thought something bad happened! Galya’s alive!”
Back on the train, the priest asked me:
“Do you wear a cross?”
“I do not. I don’t go to church either.”
“You don’t go to the temple. A temple is a building. A church is…”
“A community of people.”
“A community of people who share the faith, of which Jesus said that ‘the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.’”
“Well, either way.”
“It’s very important to wear the cross, because it protects you from demons. It’s been proven now: most people who commit suicide either have no cross on their neck of tear it off right before killing themselves. I’ll pray for God to get through to you.”
“Please do.”
“And next time we meet, I’ll check if there’s a cross on your neck.”
“Can’t promise you that.”
“Keep in mind, I served in the spetsnaz5.”
The train arrived at his station. He got up and picked up his bag.
I wished him the best.
He wished me the best too.
Since that conversation and until I finished my second whiskey at a St. Petersburg bar, imaginary flees were jumping over my body.
The second chat was with a taxi driver.
Right after I got in, and after an exchange of “hi” and “hello,” the driver, a woman, said:
“I’m sorry, can I just say something? I can’t hold it in.”
“Did I slam the door too hard?”
“No, no. You just look exactly like my grandfather. He had the same kind of jacket, the same kind of pants and shoes… all of which he got in Czechoslovakia. I mean, I get that it’s a style, it’s just funny how things repeat themselves.”
I laughed:
“I wouldn’t mind if it was just fashion that went in cycles. The Iron Curtain seems to be coming back too.”
“Right. They’re going to claw off the Eastern part of Ukraine and then close everything up.”
“That’s a definite possibility.”
“Or the aliens will land and none of this will be relevant.”
“The funny thing is, that’s also a possibility.”
“Listen, I’m ready for anything now. After Covid, and after this spectacle we’re seeing now on the stage that we call Ukraine…”
She mentioned The Black Mirror episode about a mean cartoon rabbit turned a popular politician—a character inspired by Boris Johnson, but often talked about as a premonition of Donald Trump. To my taxi driver, the closest real-world analogy to the character, Waldo, is Vladimir Zelensky—a sketch comedian who played an unlikely president in a sitcom before becoming an unlikely president in real life.
I responded with a description of a clip I had recently seen: it’s the 2014 New Year celebration on Russian TV, and the party is hosted by two comedians, Vladimir Zelensky and Maxim Galkin (at the time, a rare celebrity of his calibre to speak out against the war; now, an officially recognized “foreign agent”). They sing and dance.
Sitting at a table in the audience is Vladimir Solovyev, one of the top propagandists of Putin’s regime. He makes a toast, wishing the viewers that, in the new year, politicians remember that they’re servants of the people, not masters; and that they get their conscience back.
Servant of the People, of course, is the name of Zelensky’s 2015 sitcom (available on Netflix)—and later, the name of his political party.
I concluded, “It’s like we live in a bad joke.”
“We live in a simulation. You may say that I’m crazy. I really do not believe that this world is real.”
I shrugged:
“I don’t disagree. I don’t have a solid theory of what reality is, but this” — I gesture towards the window — “I’m not buying it either.”
“I do have a theory. I think we’re characters in a computer game, and sometimes we’re left to our own devices, while at other times the player takes control and makes us do what they want. You must have had this experience too—you’re doing something dumb, and you know that it’s dumb, and yet you keep going. I take it as proof. Have you ever played Sims?”
“The first part, like 20 years ago.”
“Try the latest. You’ll learn a lot about life.”
I smiled and took a moment to think.
“Do you try to increase the degree of your control?”
“Yeah… But what I’m really looking for—what I think you’re looking for too—is a Logout button.
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way.”
“You are not as tired of being stuck in a loop then. Most computer games have limited space for roaming. I’m stuck in this location called Zelenograd, and I just can’t get out. It’s a money question. ‘Not enough gold.’”
Zelenograd is my hometown. I got out in my early 20s. I then “got out” of many other places, careers, relationships. I like the feeling.
When we arrived at the train station, the driver wished me good luck. I returned the courtesy, adding “I hope you get out of your loop.”
Because the car was not moving, she was now able, for the first time, to turn her head and look me in the eyes.
We smiled at each other, and I got out of the car.
Nikita Petrov writes Psychopolitica.
Plural/formal form of “you,” pronounced as “vyh.”
Singular/informal form of “you,” pronounced as “tyh.”
Elder
OK, “normal.”
Special forces.
These were my favourite stories when I read them on Pyschopolitica. I'm thankful for the reprisal here.
I say, "Zoom!", you say, " 'Shroom!", we go "BOOM!"