I don’t have a lot of time for blogging these days. The finishing touches on the dissertation (one . . . more . . week), job applications, and getting ready to spend the next year in Russia fill up all my time. Inevitably commenting on missiles, Medvedev the modernizer, not to mention Moscow’s Holy Father of Fury, has been relegated to the eternal back burner. Yet, there are some things in the world of Russia that just can’t be left to simmer on the boiler plate. Especially when it involves a pant-less Boris Yeltsin.
According to Taylor Branch’s “The Clinton Tapes,”
Former President Clinton recalled getting a security alert in 1995 that the Secret Service had found Mr. Yeltsin, in his underwear, outside Blair House on Pennsylvania Avenue trying to hail a taxi. He was clearly inebriated, wanting a pizza. And he eluded security the second night, nearly causing an even more serious ruckus when he was initially mistaken for a drunken intruder, according to these accounts. What that says about the security near Blair House or those who protected Mr. Yeltsin is anyone’s guess.
Forget about the Blair House security, though the inability to nab a drunken Yeltsin does raise eyebrows. Is this tale not the perfect metaphor for the Yeltsin era? A mere four years after boldly standing on a tank and mouthing whatever democratic platitudes he could ride into power, Yeltsin is in America, plastered, and looking for pizza in his skivvies. Or worse almost getting 187ed by Blair House security. One can imagine a similar scenario when he signed the Belovezh Accords abolishing the USSR or when robber barons freely pilfered the Russian state. Drunk, pant-less, looking for pizza. If only a cab picked him up. If only . . .
Two questions, though. Did anyone ever explain why Boris was in his underwear? And, more importantly, were they boxers or briefs?
One things for sure. The dude knew how to par-tay.
By the way, Sean, may be you could shed some light on this question?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bill_Clinton/Archive_9#Alleged_speech_before_the_Joined_Chiefs_of_Staff
That question (Did Clinton actually say that, or did not) keeps me interested, and I don’t know the answer yet.
Response of a Russian blogger:
http://arkhip.livejournal.com/374441.html?mode=reply
He sais, the story is the outright lie, because a drunk Yeltsin could not have the “instinct” to go buying pizza. Quite a reasonable consideration.
p.s. I read that blogger (Arkhip) as a token Russian nationalist (in a good sense).
It does sound dubious, a story concocted by somebody who has no experience with heavy drinking. Barring an exhibitionist streak on the part of Yeltsin, the amount of alcohol consumption this would require would be truly enormous. He would almost certainly pass out first and probably wouldn’t be able to make it out of the door even if he had miraculously retained consciousness. Likely covered with vomit as well.
Note to the children: heavy drinking as depicted in Leaving Las Vegas is not the same thing as real heavy drinking.
Arkhip might have a point. I doubt they taught such things in KPSS Party Schools. Nevertheless, perhaps Yeltsin was really, really hungry.
I think you all are missing the obvious explanation.
He was looking for zakuski and somebody wisely told him that pepperoni, anchovies, and mushrooms on a whole wheat crust was as close as he could get to kolbasa, cured fish, marinated griby, and black bread in DC.
And as for the lack of pants, I believe Eazy-E covers this topic @2.46:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbq8lGbXerU
But, more importantly, good luck on finishing up, Sean. Maybe I can buy you a drink after an interview at AHA? I know I’ll be needing one.
Kirill Pankratov (he wrote articles for the old eXile) comments (in Russian) in support of Arkhip’s view:
” ‘To drive for pizza on taxi’ is very typical for America (although it’s even more typical to order it by phone), and the majority of Americans due to their ignorance do not understand why the same action may be completely not typical in a different cultural medium. ”
http://neznaika-nalune.livejournal.com/542653.html?mode=reply
The pizza story makes no sense at all. Good job at line hook and sinker for wishful thinking. Reminded me of all the people that call radio shows from the boonies repeating nonsense that mostly seem appropriate to them due to their ignorance.
As for a Russian Colonel being the source of the Clinton supposed speech – Russian (para) military men are known to say things that are hardly correct. General Lebed’s comment about a dozen Soviet era nuclear suitcase bombs stashed someplace in the US come to mind. Litvinenko’s claims about the threat of some dozen nuclear missiles that Soviet Navy supposedly had stashed in Naples (sic!) harbor was another gem.
As for a history book featuring something like that, don’t we all know how susceptible Academia is to wishful thinking? Personally, I am grateful for the simple lesson I got from my USSR years – I do not trust books.
Still too little imagination…
Alternate explanation #2, taking into account “different cultural medium”:
Yeltsin got trashed and, when found sans pants, mumbled something starting пизд… US security folks, mired in their own cultural medium, understood this as a drunken desire for pizza.
Yeltsin got trashed and, when found sans pants, mumbled something starting пизд…
This is the best explanation yet!
Btw wasn’t there some incident of Yeltsin flying to Germany but he was so hammered when he landed that the plane just took him back to Russia?
I’m pretty familiar with how susceptible crazed radio show hosts are to wishful thinking, for example, “people really care a lot what I think.”
It seems like every fortnight Doom becomes Weasel.
This reminds me – anyone who has a TomTom GPS should download the free Russian language Boris Yeltsin impersonator. The comedian offers a perfect drunken Boris, occasionally interjecting a “ponimaesh, taksi?” into his directions. The phrase has become a bit of “in-couple” humor for Katja and I.
It’s tragicomic that Russians had drunken Boris directing their ship of state for 8 long years.
Boris Yeltsin still a very big figure in Russian political word
“It’s tragicomic that Russians had drunken Boris directing their ship of state for 8 long years.”
Actually, in the 1990-s nobody paid much attention to Yeltsin’s mild pranks because all the world’s attention was focused on Clinton’s sordid peccadillos.
On further reflection, Clinton is the last person in the world to yap about other head of states improprieties.
I’m sure my wife and other relatives would take it lightly if the worst I ever did was going out for pizza drunk to the point of forgetting to put my pants on.
For the “semen-stained blue dress”, not so much.
I totally believe it. You can make an argument about Russians having no instinct to order pizza when they are trashed (though in 1995 pizza was the IT delicacy among Muscovites, sorry to remind you of this painful chapter in your history, folks). But this ignores the fact that this incident occurred when Boris was the guest of the Clintons. Taking off his pants and eating junk food were some of Bill’s favorite pastimes. I would not be surprised if Bill got Boris wasted and sent him out for pizza, dared him or bet him something. Or the more common motivation for midnight pizza cravings, got him high. What I am saying is, don’t underestimate the bad influence Bill Clinton could have been on someone like Yeltsin, for his own personal entertainment.
I have a friend who knows no Russian except for the word “ponchiki” because I had told him about the delicious donuts they would make right in the kiosk outside the university. Anyway, he does this hi-larious impersonation of Clinton trying to get a drunk Yeltsin to get him some ponchiki. It is such a convincing routine, that when I read about this pizza incident, it just seemed like a variation on a theme.
Sounds like Putin found a way to keep Yeltsin under control: Locking him up in a “golden cage”
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/384165.html
“…when robber barons freely pilfered the Russian state.”
Learn the basic facts, Sean.
There was no “Russian state” to pilfer in early 1990-s. Russia was a backbone of the USSR but it didn’t have any state structure, state functions or state powers. Russia didn’t exist as a state all through the Soviet years. Every Soviet Socialist Republic was better structured, more independent and self-sufficient than Russia. Every Soviet Socialist Republic had its own national ComParty branch and its own capital city. There was no Russian ComParty and Russia didn’t have a capital. Moscow was always referred to as the capital of the USSR and never as a capital of Russia.
When USSR broke down, every Republic was an entity but Russia wasn’t.
What robber barons were doing in early 1990-s was laying hands on the property of the defunct USSR. It was bound to be a messy process by definition. It has run its course and in few years everybody was brought to heel and incorporated into the structure of the new real Russian state. Why do you still keep whining about it?
Why do You keep bringing up the memories of 1990-s without any understanding what was really going on back then?
“…sorry to remind you of this painful chapter in your history, folks”
Pull your head out of your zhopa, ‘bezpoemnaya’ (pardon my French).
And lets not forget that that “Russian state” Sean refers to pilfered all it had from people it forced to work. Somehow Sean seems to have this notion of public property that is just there, that comes out of thin air like a joker’s rabbit. All of us that lived there and worked – some more some less, some for 30 years, others for 80 – were exploited and fruits of our labor were pilfered. Not to mention my family’s property confiscated by the commies right away.
Sure, robber barons weren’t exactly warm and fuzzy – but I’d take robber barons over a revolving door of endless supply of KGB snitches in the Kremlin and its affiliates like Gasprom.
Панк. Рок.
Cyrill:
I wonder why the Soviet people admitted the collapse of the state. Why the Army that swore to protect the country took no action to prevent the collapse.
Because the Soviet and Russian armies were/are highly apolitical.
Evgeny,
There never was such an ethnic/cultural group as “the Soviet people”. It existed only in the realms of Soviet propaganda.
Seriously, people, memorize the basic facts, please! How can we conduct intelligent discourse when people constantly refer to assorted chimeras?
So remember,
1. “The Russian State” didn’t exist between the years 1917 thru 1991 and,
2. “The Soviet People” was strictly a propaganda entity.
Once we commit these basic facts to memory, perhaps we can understand a little better what was happening over 20% of the planet’s landmass for the last 100 years. Perhaps.
Here we go again.
According to the most recent data from the World Health Organization, Russia is 23rd in the world “by alcohol consumption measured in litres of pure alcohol consumed per capita in a given year”, behind all the major countries of Europe (and most minor ones).
So if Russians want to catch up with the rest of Europe in that respect they need to drink more, not less.
Evgeny
I wonder why the Soviet people admitted the collapse of the state.
See above about soviet people, Candide is absolutely correct. Further, I do not understand your question. Why did people admit the failure? Because it … failed and they were not dupes.
Why the Army that swore to protect the country took no action to prevent the collapse.
In large part because commanding officers stationed around Moscow had other things in mind then to support ГКЧП if you mean demonstrations against the coup. If you mean why didn’t the military take over and established a junta after that, soviet Army was not capable of doing any such thing. It was rotten to the core.
Because the Soviet and Russian armies were/are highly apolitical.
Бином Ньютона, I hope for the sake of your status as someone that knows at least something about the USSR, this was one of your inane attempts at sarcasm. Soviet military apolitical?