From: "Alexander Domrin" <domrin@pc-club.ru>
Subject: JRL #116 - Tsotne Bakuria, Standing up to Russia.
Date: Sun, 21 May 2006
Please consider publishing a response of Ashot Vardanyan, Visiting Scholar from Armenia at the University of Iowa, to Tsotne Bakuria's piece "Standing up to Russia" (Washington Times, May 18, 2006; JRL #116).
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TO: Washington Times
COPY: Mr. Tsotne Bakuria, George Washington University
Dear Sir/Madam,
I strongly doubt if you choose to publish my letter but I am not concerned about that very much. I would just want you in the editorial office to know that Mr. Tsotne Bakuria simply juggles with the facts in his article Standing up to Russia, WT, May18, 2006. Some of his assertions are completely absurd and I will comment on them, if you please.
“Iron curtain”? It’s a ridiculous myth. Yes, we Soviet people were nearly not allowed to visit foreign countries, especially capitalist ones. This was surely absolutely stupid: a strong state should not be cautious that its citizens could see the life abroad. On the other hand, each state must take care of its safety, and the decision to build up a stone curtain on the US-Mexican border is just another manifestation of that. Instead, doesn’t Batono Bakuria remember the amount of American authors’ works published in the Soviet Union both in Russian and in national languages? I’ll remind him of some: F. Cooper, T. Dreiser, W. Faulkner, O. Henry, J. London, M. Reid, W. Saroyan, J. Steinbeck, M. Twain… These classics are unfortunately unfamiliar to many Americans whereas we used to be deeply read in their stories and novels. The author of an anti-Russian article completely forgot that American films were among the most popular for the Soviet audience together with our as well as French, Italian, and British movies. I will remind him (and you) of this, too: The Abyss, Bless the Beasts & the Children, The Chase, Cleopatra, Die Hard, Funny Girl, Kramer vs. Kramer, Mackenna’s Gold, Magnificent Seven, My Fair Lady, The New Centurions, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Romancing the Stone, Saigon: Off Limits, Some Like it Hot, The Sound Of Music, Spartacus, Stunt Man, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?... Do you want me to continue? And have you ever seen or heard of at least one Soviet film? What kind of iron curtain are we talking about then? As for Mr. Bakuria, either he has a very short memory or he does not know that those films were produced in Hollywood if we mean the American film industry. Or, I presume, those films and writers were allowed everywhere in the Soviet Union except for Georgia.
American soft drinks were never prohibited in the USSR they just had not been there until 1974 (because our country would produce its own lemonade and juices), when “Pepsi Cola” launched its production in the Soviet Union. Shame on your author who lies without turning an eyelash.
He also grieves over Russia’s “tools of intimidation” as a means of pressure on young democracies but he forgets how his own country withheld natural gas from the pipe supplying Armenia since late 1980s. By the way, he forgets everything that can discredit the image of a mini-empire called Georgia. For example, how his democratic motherland fiercely converts Armenian churches into Georgian and forces non-Georgians consider themselves Georgians by putting posters “I am Georgian” in multinational school classrooms.
It is funny to hear Mr. Bakuria speculating on the “world-famous wine” from Georgia. Yes, their wine is excellent, I myself find it best of all and try to have it in my cabinets but, unfortunately, the Georgian wine, as well as the Armenian cognac, which is really excellent, too, are not “world-famous” due to a number of circumstances. They (the Georgian wine and Armenian cognac) have had their market, they have not been advertised properly, and they we have to honestly admit it have sometimes been faked. Do you think the American market will tolerate it?
Batono Bakuria is not happy for his country’s extremely poor economy and unemployment and blames Russia for it. First of all, it is the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s fall but this is already history, and we have to live by the current realities. Let me give you a comparison. My tiny Armenia has no access to sea, has stony mountainous soil and severe climate, has been blockaded by Azerbaijan and Turkey, does not have citrus plants, is poor in natural resources, is in a military and political conflict because of a disputed land of Nagorno Karabakh, and is 1000 kilometers far from its ally Russia. Georgia with its access to the Black Sea with ports and resort beaches, fertile soil, minerals, and much milder climate, cannot get out of the economic collapse and still suffers from energy crisis. How come the life in Armenia is gradually improving but Georgia is still left behind on many indicators? If Batono Bakuria says that Armenia gets support from Russia and influential Diaspora, I would object to it and say that Georgia gets support from stronger and richer West. Mr. Bakuria, you chose the easier way, stop whining and blaming Russia in all your troubles, please, just take good advantage of your geography and resources.
The Georgian author is deeply concerned about “the corrupt dictatorship in Belarus” but he will never dare say any bad word about the medievally cruel and vulturine regime of Turkmenistan’s new khan.
And of course, Mr. Bakuria couldn’t help making snide remarks about the country that gave him free education and medical service, guaranteed 24-day (actually it turned out to be 30-day with the weekends) vacations, provided with quiet albeit rather moderate life, and secured his motherland’s territorial integrity. He completely forgot that the real thrift of the Georgian culture was due to the era that he hates from the bottom of his heart. Instead, he makes terrible generalizations like “Cars stopping in the night; KGB officers in black leather coats branding Kalashnikovs, taking innocent people away in the dark.” Your readers may think that was always the case in the Union. Meanwhile, your author gives examples from the life of the 30s, and, to tell you the truth, in those dreadful years the Kalashnikov guns were not invented yet. I was born in 1957 and never saw those cars and intelligence officers with their Kalashnikovs in the streets of Yerevan, Tbilisi, Moscow, Kiev and other cities of the country.
In 1977, in the capital of Soviet Armenia Yerevan, where I was born, raised, and educated, I spent a month as an interpreter for my friend’s family’s relatives from Detroit. On returning to the States, they sent me a pair of jeans and a men’s umbrella the products that were in deficiency in the Soviet country. I want to assure you that I was successfully and SAFELY wearing those pants and protecting myself from the rain with that black guard. Even more, I got acquainted with foreigners in the streets of Yerevan to hone my English and no policeman detained me! How terrible for Batono Bakuria! I am extremely sorry for his friend and “that criminal pair of Nikes” but I’m afraid, putting it mildly, your author exaggerates. Maybe, Vice President’s speech encourages him to do so.
Your hero was listening to “The Voice of America”? So was I!!! But not “in a musty, dank basement, afraid we would go to jail”; believe me: I would do that in my apartment lying on a sofa or together with my friends in the street!!! Yes, the Soviets would jam the radio transmissions but the Soviets did not broadcast anti-American propaganda for the US listeners.
However, all this is nothing as compared with Mr. Bakuria’s serious statement that Russians are eager to mount the red flag over the United States. You must have known how the US Secretary of Defense James Forestall went mad, shouted “Russians are coming!”, and threw himself out of a sky-scraper’s window. Please do not let Mr. Bakuria come up to any window.
I will never justify the crimes of the Soviet political system and the idiocy of its economic basis with prohibitions and lack of encouragements, which resulted in unprecedented deficiency of any kind of goods and finally in the breakdown of the country. One cannot deny what was there but one cannot deny the positives of the system either. Batono Bakuria completely lost his sense of fairness and impartiality. His cave-like Russophobia (allow me this coinage), perpetual nagging, and clamor are in keeping with his helpless rant.
My letter is an opportunity for you to familiarize yourself with an opposing opinion.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ashot Vardanyan,
Visiting Scholar,
University of Iowa