Pravles Redneckoff 🇷🇺 Z

Thursday, September 12th, 2019, 10:58

Diplomatic Academy, Favoritenstraße 15A, 4th district of Vienna

She sees Buba in front of her.

"I was so lost in thoughts I didn't see you," Lisa says. "Sorry. Good morning."

Buba smiles like the old wise man she wants him to be.

"No problem," Buba says. "Let's get inside."

"What were you thinking about?" Buba says. "Are you alright?"

"Why?" Lisa says.

"Your face…" Buba says.

Buba raises his hands near his eyes. His fingers brush the corners. Then he sweeps them down his cheeks like invisible tears.

"You look like an Armenian who just learned that a Georgian flew to space," Buba says.

Lisa laughs.

"It's nothing," Lisa says. "Just a bout of Weltschmerzentzündung."

I really need to get my shit together, Lisa thinks. I don't want other people to read my face like a book.

"Welt… what?" Buba says.

"It's German for 'inflammation of world-weariness'," Lisa says.

"I can also invent words," Lisa says and smiles.

Stop it, Lisa thinks. Raise the bar, girl. You are not supposed to compete with Zoe, even not humorously. If I bow to the level of Zoe, my crown may fall off.

"I see," Buba says.

No reaction, huh? Lisa thinks. Has he forgotten Zoe already?

Lisa and Buba enter an auditorium and sit down in the front row. The walls are all white and beige. There are soft color tones everywhere, and soft lighting. The room has place for about a hundred people.

In front of them is a slightly elevated stage with a desk and three chairs. To the left of the table is an Austrian flag, to the right – a big projection screen.

A gray-haired man and a woman of about seventy years approach Buba. The woman's face seems familiar to Lisa. They chit-chat, then Buba introduces Lisa to both of them as his friend.

"I need to leave you now, Lisa," Buba says. "If you need me, I'll be right here."

Buba points to the stage. Lisa nods.

Lisa remembers that this woman used to be a foreign minister of Austria in the early naughts. She claimed she would fight like a lionness against the sanctions imposed on Austria by the EU.

Buba walks on stage and sits down together with the man and the woman behind the table. They talk with each other like Lisa talks with her classmates, as equals.

Is this really what I think it is, or am I daydreaming? Lisa thinks.

Lisa turns around. The lecture hall is now full to the brim with people.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our lecture about the geopolitics of the Ukraine conflict," The gray-haired man says into the microphone. "Today we have a special guest, a true warrior for human rights and dignity, Mr. Buba Tsarnaev. Let's welcome him."

You complain that nobody is fighting for Ukrainian interests, Lisa thinks. That in the past 30 years nobody bothered to groom truly pro-Ukrainian politicians.

(Or they tried and failed miserably like Yanukovich and Medvedchuk.)

Lisa hears applause so loud you could think Buba is a rock star. Buba starts talking.

How about this piece of advice: Stop bitching, bitch! Lisa thinks. The system failed to produce the right politicians, alright. But aren't you a part of the system? A part with brains and grit? Why can't you become the truly pro-Ukrainian politician the nation has been looking for for at least 30 years?

The usual answer is that you don't have any money, connections, and relevant skills.

It would be true if you weren't such a lucky girl, Lisa thinks. Your future father-in-law is chummy with the mighty Austrian foreign minister, and claims to have connections with high-profile entrepreneurs like Abramovich.

That is, now you have a chance of establishing connections to the people who engineered two color revolutions. Or at least they had the ability to do so.

Who says you can't convince them to groom you into power? Lisa thinks. Maybe even engineer a third Maidan, better than the first two.

It's so obvious that I wonder why I haven't thought of it before, Lisa thinks. God shoves this opportunity right in your face. But I need a platform, and I need it fast. Buba is going to be here for only a week.

Lisa takes a little paper notebook from her purse and begins to scribble on it.

Buba continues to talk. He looks at her writing in the notebook.

He probably thinks I'm stenographing his brilliant thoughts, Lisa thinks.

He smiles at Lisa. Lisa smiles back neutrally.

Lisa feels like there is a ticking clock, and if she fails to come up with a sound elevator pitch, this opportunity will go the way of South Tyrol on the Donets.

Lisa stops writing and starts to follow Buba's words as closely as possible. It's pleasant to hear him. He avoids the wordiness typical for many post-Soviet thinkers.

But there is little substance to speak of in his words.

In Soviet times, there were events (e. g. scientific conferences) which were meant not as a forum for exchange of information, but as a form of collective approval for the current administration.

The participants had to publicly declare they are loyal to the pioneer of science, Comrade Stalin, or (later) condemn the totalitarian, child-eating dictator Stalin and instead praise Comrade Khrushchev, a distinguished reformer, agricultural scientist, and corn enthusiast.

Buba talks as if the people in this auditorium were still – almost thirty years after the fall of Sovietism – celebrating their victory in the Cold War.

In that, they are similar to the very regime they allege to have overcome. In the Soviet Union, some heroic achievements of the people – like the victory in World War II – were celebrated in such a ritualistic and obsolete way, that you couldn't help but think these people are going through the motions to demonstrate that a) they did some work, b) therefore achieved their KPIs, thus deserve bonuses, and c) never ever deviated from the party line, including meeting the targets for boredom and the use of party-approved clichés.

Buba's speech feels like a pro-Western incarnation of Stalinist party gatherings. He's replaced Comrade Stalin with Barack Obama, the hammer and sickle with the rules-based international order, but he couldn't (or didn't want to) replace the spirit of a public show of obedience.

The people in the audience nod and applaud so often, you get the impression that Buba has crossed all the t's and dotted all the Umlauts.

Forty-five minutes later, Buba's speech ends, and the question-and-answer section begins.

Lisa finishes drafting the political platform she is going to pitch to Buba in her notebook.

I just need to get the basic outline on paper, Lisa thinks. I'll figure out the details as I go, intuitively.

Buba answers questions. He occasionally looks at Lisa who – he thinks – is writing down every precious word that he says.

After another thirty minutes, the gray-haired man announces that the question-and-answer session is over. Most people start walking into the adjacent room where there is coffee and cookies.

Cookies again, Lisa thinks.

Some of the attendees gather around the podium where Buba sits. He autographs leaflets of this event.

Lisa gets up and starts walking towards the place with the cookies.

There was a familiar figure somewhere in the crowd, Lisa thinks.

She hears a voice she's heard before. Lisa turns her head and sees Dr. Zemanek right in front of her.

"Lisa!" Dr. Zemanek says. "How are you?"

Lisa feels nostalgic after the recently-passed times when Lisa considered Dr. Zemanek her inspiration.

She is not guilty in the fact that I've wasted several years of my life, Lisa thinks. I'm actually grateful – if it was she who opened my eyes.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Zemanek," Lisa says. "Nice to see you."

A gap opens in the crowd which surrounds Buba.

"Wait a minute, Lisa," Dr. Zemanek says. "I'll be right back."

Dr. Zemanek runs to Buba to make sure no one else gets there first. She looks as if she has suddenly become twenty years younger – no shortness of breath, no balance issues at all.

"Can I take a photograph with you?" Dr. Zemanek says to Buba.

He is the darling not only of Russophone Jews and Caucasians, but also of the Austrian elites, Lisa thinks. Is it his charm, his connections, or something else?

"With pleasure," Buba says.

Dr. Zemanek was a false idol, Lisa thinks. You realized she was false only recently. Don't put Buba on the pedestal where Dr. Zemanek used to stand.

A waiter takes a photograph of Buba and Dr. Zemanek.

That picture will go straight on her corkboard wall, Lisa thinks. One of the less impressive pictures will need to go.

Look at her: A grown woman with a doctorate is smiling like a groupie because she could take a picture with… whom, exactly? What, precisely, are Buba's achievements that make him so popular among all these people?

Buba walks towards Lisa.

"Sorry for making you wait," Buba says.

Something about the way he speaks makes me feel like he is the kind of wise and good friend that I need, Lisa thinks. Maybe everyone else has the same feeling. I can't put my finger on how he evokes it. There must be things he is doing – the voice, gestures, facial expression.

Dr. Zemanek walks to Lisa.

"I didn't know you had such influential friends," Dr. Zemanek says to Lisa. "Don't miss this opportunity. You can learn a lot from him. Including about that thesis of yours."

Lisa and Buba walk out of the building and start to walk down the Favoritenstraße. They pass a building with a big lettering "Guardian Angel Pharmacy."

Now he'll probably ask me about his speech and expect the same treatment he gets from everybody else, Lisa thinks. I know you're a free thinker and you don't bend your back before anyone. But given what's at stake, try to not offend him too much with your critical thinking.