Pissed off in London: Rants by an angry Russian

Rant I: England – land of the hypocrite

Photo: Maja Kucova

There’s an old Russian joke; a saint buys a package tour to Hell. He likes it there a great deal, lots of booze, drugs, sexy sinners…

‘Wow’, he thinks upon returning, ‘Heaven is so boring, it’s just sitting on a cloud all day reciting psalms.’

So he packs his stuff and buys a one-way ticket to Hell. The moment he puts his foot in the first circle, a squad of imps grabs him and throws him into a huge pot of boiling tar while a huge horned demon with a pitchfork pokes him. “But why?” screams the saint, “It was so cool last time I came here!”

“Don’t confuse tourism and emigration, my friend”, replies the demon.

OK, being a tourist, watching the Big Ben, drinking overpriced horse piss in a tiny dark room, annoying locals with your cluelessness on the Tube – it’s awesome!

But now, having lived in the kingdom for a couple of months, I have a different perspective on things. There’s a whole list of things that piss me off here, so I’ll start with the most obvious one – being a Russian in England.

I didn’t really understand Orwell’s line about all animals being equal, but some more equal than the others before I came here, but now I think old George made a perfect point, albeit about a completely different country back then.

One guest lecturer at our university spent a whole minute apologizing to the only Saudi girl in the class for calling her religious (as in ‘decapitate for having a beer’ religious) compatriots ‘Wahabis’, but then went on to mention Dubai which is full of alcohol and ‘Russian hookers’.

There were at least three Russians present in the room, two of them girls. Excuse me? So you think it’s offensive to call a spade a spade, but is not to equate an entire female population to prostitutes?

Can you imagine the shitstorm that would break loose if he, say, mentioned that some country was full of Arab terrorists? But a wee bit of Russophobia makes everyone feel better about themselves.

It’s not like these guys are going to riot and burn Union Jacks, right?

Another teacher asked to give an example of misrepresentation in the media, and I started explaining how ‘the West’ basically screwed over a whole country while its mass media portrayed that country’s people as a band of bloodthirsty thugs in leather jackets selling drugs to fund their war crimes (see Layer Cake and every third episode of 24 that features a ‘Serb terrorist’).

By the way, we are talking about a nation that gave the world Nikola Tesla, Mila Jovovic and some hundred NBA players. Anyway, I was cut off quite abruptly because this was my ‘personal obsession’ which is not very journalistic, apparently.

My council tax letter comes in 10 languages, but not Russian. What, are there so many Albanians in Haringey that the council had to hire a translator to accommodate their not-speaking-English-ness?

It was real fun to watch the public grilling of one unfortunate British politician a while ago. Come on, people, the man is making a fool of himself because he doesn’t know any better! While you are making even bigger fools of yourselves, explaining in minute detail what his heretical doctrines are really about, so that somebody doesn’t accidentally fall for them.

It’s like “Don’t think about a white monkey” (pun intended). And what a silly joke that “shut off the oxygen of publicity” claim is that and being offended on behalf of other people.

So basically freedom of speech in Britain is being able to say anything you want, as long as a bunch of self-righteous pricks approve it.

And oh, so racism is bad? I’ll tell you what racism is. It’s having to fill in a 17-page visa application form with all sorts of humiliating questions to prove that you’re good enough to pay twice as much for your education as British students do.

I’m not sure how many of you have seen a Home Office UK Visa application form, so I’ll give you an idea. The whole page 6 repeats in all sharps and flats one very important question: “Are you a terrorist? No, really, are you? Are you sure? Do you know anybody who is a terrorist?”

The last question is – I shit you not – “Have you engaged in any other activities that might indicate that you may not be considered a person of good character? If Yes, please provide details”. Holy fuck, what kind of genius came up with that?

Racism is when you have to wait an additional week to set up a bank account because people from ‘certain countries’ require additional checks. I’ll tell you what is ‘certain’ about my country: it’s a rival empire rather than a colony.

The most valuable lesson I have learned about Britain’s multicultural society: it works in different ways. And I am on the wrong side of it.