Black Like Me

I wrote this post on May 12th, just after my return to Moscow and a string of sketchy incidences with the police. I was bitter about my treatment here - I'm a russophile, for God's sake - and that tone certainly comes out. As soon as I wrote it, I decided to hold off from publishing; perhaps I was worried about thumbing my nose at fate. More likely, the act of writing was cathartic enough not to necessitate posting a bitter rant. Much later, and much calmer, it seems interesting enough to warrant a post - but with this explanatory note about context.

For a short time, I was just being a bit lazy and a bit cautious. Then, I decided that it was turning into an interesting social experiment. The result was a wildly different experience of Russia. And all of it from simply not shaving.

It started in the Far East (as Russians call their Pacific provinces) on a couple of overnight trains - attempting to shave on a lumbering train is probably suicidal. Then, it continued in a couple of Soviet-style hotels. In Vladivostok, I had a mirror but no sink - it was necessary to straddle the toilet to get in front of the mirror. I decided not to shave. Another overnight train. Another Soviet-style hotel where I couldn't see more than a small portion of my face in the postcard-sized bathroom mirror.

By that time, somewhere around Ulan-Ude, the act of not shaving became the act of growing a beard. Still passive, mind you, but no longer unintentional. I decided, also, that I looked quite dashing and rugged with some growth on my face.

I'm a white man of European heritage - of that there is absolutely no disagreement from even casual observers in the US. But the interesting thing is that my dark hair and - the part of it that isn't coming in white - beard further distinguish me from a lot of Russians. Guesses on my nationality have begun to stray way off the mark. Usually my accent (I think) leads people to guess either German or English. I had heard nationalities like Serbian once before, but for the first time I was being pegged as Spanish, Moldovan or Caucasian (ie Georgian, Armenian).

This is interesting, but it's not necessarily a good thing in Russia. The population here is almost universally, stridently racist when it comes to what they call "the blacks" - people from Central Asia and the Caucausus. In 9 months of living in Russia, I was checked for documents a total of twice. They were perfunctory, mandatory stops.

Since I started growing the beard a month ago, I've been checked 4 times. And they have been markedly more aggressive and probing in nature.

The director of my Fellowship program is a former chief of police in Moscow. He warned me when I first arrived last summer that I was likely to be stopped by the 'militsia' with some frequency. When he asked me at the end of the Fellowship program last month how many times I had been stopped, he registered surprise. He looked at me and considered it.

"You're dark," he said, "but you have a very American face - open and smiling."

So it seems that the beard has covered some of the openness of my face. I'll take the credit - or blame - for that. But if I'm smiling less - well, I know exactly what to blame for that.