Another Memory from Moscow

So the other Sunday I was having a lovely brunch with Miriam in the oasis that is Le Pain Quotidien in Moscow. And this phenomenon in itself is interesting: the fact that I can walk into LPQ in Moscow and see the same arrangement of long rustic wooden tables, little jars of marmalade and jam, drink the same cappuccino out of the same heavy china, eat the same flaky almond croissant or goat cheese omelet that I would in New York or London or Paris. There is not an ounce of influence from the city or culture—not a sprig of dill or dollop of mayonnaise. It’s not like the ex-pat restaurants that try to mimic generic western fare and atmosphere but inevitably limited by their supplies and staff succumb to local influence around the edges—shaky tables, sweet milk, bread that’s just a bit too thick. Instead it’s an international chain reproducing itself exactly, like a strand of DNA or Roman army camp. I mean, it’s not a new concept, McDonald’s does the same thing—allows you to get the same disgustingly satisfying burger and fries in any capital around the world. But this exporting of ambiance and gastronomy at a more sophisticated level creates an international space in the city where you can truly feel untouched by the local experience for the time you are there. The warm orange walls help suspend the disbelief and even the glass of the thick-paned floor-to-ceiling window is tinted blue enough to lend a dreamy ambiguity to the streetscape.

I had my back to this romantic window as we sat clucking about the fact that all of the men who had stayed to the end of the party the night before had had wives or serious girlfriends at home waiting for them as they drank and danced excessively until 6am, some coming onto other women, including the hostess’s barely legal little sister, one bringing an extra-marital girlfriend along and another making out with a girl in the bathroom who, ok, might have been me. “Wait,” Miriam startled, “Are they doing what I think they’re doing?” she squinted toward the window. I turned around and gawked, “Umm, kicking the shit out of that guy? Yes,” I confirmed.

Because framed in the perfect window out from our LPQ oasis were four thuggish guys in ski coats tossing around a fifth. There was extraordinary theatre to the scene. They would whack him and thwack him and then sit him down crouched on the ground, touch him like a brother, talk to him, stroke him. And then—Wham—a blow to the side of the head. Crack—a knee to the nose. He’d wilt, hang his head and they would care for him again, put an arm around him, beginning the scene anew as if rehearsing for an upcoming performance.

“I can’t believe people are just sitting around watching this. Fucking Russia!” Miriam cursed as she stormed off toward the door. I felt only mildly bad spectating with the rest of the clientele who had bothered to look up from their pastries to the watch the street beating. It was all so perfectly framed in the window like a show for us. And while in the US I’d like to think I would have leapt up immediately, calling the police, informing the wait staff, telling the perpetrators I’d done both or some good-citizenly combination thereof, here none of these options made any sense to me. The police were unlikely to come in a timely fashion if at all, and if they did make it, might just watch too, rather than bothering to stop the beating. The LPQ wait staff were not likely to take any action to stop it themselves, not perceiving a threat to their business or security as they might in another country. And getting involved directly as Miriam had gone off to do, while brave and honorable, was not likely to be effective and could wind up entangling her in the violence, as I actively worried from my perch, wondering what I’d do, who I’d call if that were how things played out.

Five long minutes later, Miriam returned safely, though more infuriated than she’d left, “They said: ‘Devushka, don’t worry. We’re almost finished. He’s owes us money. It’s all good.’ and waved me away. I continued screaming and they thought it was funny. I can’t believe people are all just sitting here watching like this. Where is any sense of civic responsibility? This country!” she huffed.

And not to defend cowardice writ large, but I argued that civic responsibility as we know it can only exist with the force of a functional police force and legal system backing it up. What we think of as a spontaneous independent action of intervention by a civic-minded individual in the US is actually a person stepping up to serve as a civilian representative of the state and the law. Without the threat of the state’s force behind the individual, he has no leverage over the hooligans. One person going out to yell at those guys in the US carries the threat that the police are on their way to make them pay for the consequences of their actions or that someone has seen their faces and will be able to testify against them in a court of law later on. That one person holds the place of the police until they arrive and speaks to the criminals with the voice of the laws that will be enforced. This not only stops crime in action but may often deter it altogether.

Here in Russia, or any country without a police force and courts to consistently enforce a consistent set of laws, Might actually does make Right, not in a moral sense but in practical terms. The individual who intervenes like Miriam did is only armed with the relative weakness of her one physical body and the possible appeal to the conscience of the criminals. Her physical strength is easily overcome and her appeal to conscience is not likely to work. Meanwhile, to get enough people mobilized to actually outweigh the physical strength of the perpetrators, sets up a classic collective action dilemma that is not easily overcome without lots of forethought and planning. The collective incentive of “safer streets” is too abstract to attract enough people on the spot willing to risk their own physical safety to deter the criminals, I mean, who knows if these guys have guns. Moreover, with the arbitrariness of the Russian court system as it stands, there’s no guaranteeing that intervening wouldn’t put a civic-minded individual on the wrong side of someone with sway over the law who could then ironically have him put in jail or forced to pay a fine for some elaborately falsified charge. You’ll note that the by-stander-cum-Good-Samaritan in the recent brutal beating of Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin is described not as calling the “police” to stop the attack but the “ambulance” to come collect the body. 

In the end, the beating ended without fanfare. Whether the guys got their money back or exacted the equivalent in pain and suffering remains undetermined. We left soon thereafter, the mood of the LPQ oasis irreversibly tainted by the intrusion of real life in realist Russia. On the plus side, at least the whole incident made the inappropriate behavior of our male cohort (and my own) the night before seem slightly more civilized in contrast. Mmmmm, the slippery slope of moral relativism, a good note to end on.