Paranoia May Not Destroy Ya After All

If you ever spend any time here, it’s hard not to think that the Russians are the inheritors of an astoundingly rich culture and heritage that is built solely on the foundation of paranoia. More often than not, innocent conversations eventually turn to hints of dark conspiracies, offered with a knowing glance and a nod. But every once in while, Americans do something to restore my faith in our ability to compete on the lunatic fringe.

I went out for a drink this weekend to a local bar. It’s a soviet-style cafeteria, actually, with a huge picture of Brezhnev and his inner circle enjoying a post hunt picnic. It’s a great sight – the dour soviet leaders we knew all gathered around a picnic table covered in food and drink, pointing at one another and obviously sharing a genuine laugh. Thick sweaters, those winter time hats that businessmen used to wear - the ones with the little feather cockade on the side – and side arms strapped to their waists.

The rest of the restaurant is sleek stainless steel and concrete. Not much to claim the moniker soviet; unless, that is, you count the attitude of the ridiculously surly staff.

The tables are all communal, so you end up meeting some interesting folks. Mainly, the kind of folks who can pay 60 rubles for a beer that costs 20 rubles at the kiosk outside – no riff-raff, that is.

We were all watching a soccer match on the television when we gradually began talking to the young couple next to our group. It started off as a typical conversation between curious foreigners. Frankly, I just can’t answer the most common question – why isn’t soccer popular in the US when people around the world go crazy for it?

Well, this weekend was the celebration of the 1612 expulsion of the Polish occupiers of Moscow, so I should have expected a little patriotism. And the soccer game on TV was against Poland. But somehow the conversation began to veer around to the things that Russia is great at and that the US can’t get right; everything from technology to foreign policy.

And then it got downright weird. There were some oblique references to the power of Jewish businesses. Then, my new acquaintance leaned forward over his beer, wagged his finger in my face and said in a combination of matter-of-fact and try-this-one-on-for-size tones: “George Bush is a Mason.” He arched his eyebrows and sat back as satisfied as if he had just put Gary Kasparov in checkmate.

Now, I don’t know why, but the Russians have a deeply irrational fear of Masons. They are inherently distrustful of anything that is private, secretive, and not an organ of the church or state. I tried to counter this with a description of what the Masons do in the US; that is, they hold barbecues and donate money to hospitals for children.

A friend helped me translate the concept of holding a barbecue for profit. Our new acquaintance stood up and excused himself for a trip to the rest room. But as he did so, he looked at my friend, gestured at me, and said gravely “Tell him that’s very bad.”

That was our cue – we escaped before he got back to the table. I never did find out who won that game.

A day or two later I was searching the internet for a reference to the Alfa Fellowship when I came across a site that saw broad connections between international organizations as unmistakable signs of conspiracy. Specifically, it accused Alfa of drug trafficking, arms trafficking, unspecified Russian criminality, participation in the "underground Reich", links to "prominent Germans", links to Halliburton, Saddam Hussein, Mohammed Atta, and 9/11. Sponsorship of the Fellowship program, of which I am a proud member, was provided as further proof of Alfa’s connections to all of the above.

Huge leaps in logic were required to follow the article. But it had the veneer of academia since all of it was footnoted. Of course, the citation following the main incendiary charge was simply a link to the fellowship application on a web page. Nonetheless, it definitely gave the impression of high-quality insane ranting.

Which reminded me of a lesson a colleague once taught me; you can read something or see something and be unsure of it, but in the end there’s one way to tell for sure. You can, he assured me, smell that which is crazy.

And this article stank to high heaven.

Well, anyway, next time I get involved in this type of conversation with a Russian who is terrified of Masons, I’ll go to my happy place – a place where Americans can theorize about black UN helicopters in whisper mode without having to worry about the insane ramblings of half-in-the-bag soccer hooligans.