Requiem for the '90s; or, Let us now praise floppy disks

Ten years ago, I was a newly minted college grad, just embarking on a year in which I would hold five different jobs (including, happily, one that had me in Moscow for over a month) before returning to the academy.

During some of that year's quieter moments, while I was in Durham, NC, I thought I would try to translate a book I picked up in Moscow (ah, the optimism of youth!). I didn't get farther than the first few pages, but earlier this year when Yeltsin's passing reminded everyone about the Russia of the '90s I was compelled to find that snippet - or scrap, if you will - of translation and post it in memory of Boris Nikolayevich. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the file for the life of me - that is, until yesterday, when I was transferring the contents of some old floppy disks to my hard drive.

Thanks to an enterprising internet librarian, you can now read the book in Russian online here. My source for the cover image was here. And here's the bit I translated:

Nikolai Modestov
Criminal Moscow:
A Documentary Chronicle of the Lawlessness of the '80's and '90's

In Lieu of an Introduction

The city empties rapidly with the onset of twilight. The odd passers-by, stepping around the heaps of trash left over from the day's "market activity," hurry home quickly. Metro passengers avert their eyes from the muscular young men with close-cropped hair who curse and smoke in right in the traincar. There are more cars on the street than people. This is understandable, nowadays it is safer to travel in an automobile.

Activity is concentrated around the nightclubs, casinos, and brightly-lit supermarkets which are open "day and night." These are the places that the gleaming Lincolns, Mercedes, Jeeps, and the speedy "eights" gather. The guarded parking lots will resemble an auto show until morning. And the deeper the city falls into slumber, the more desperate the partying is in the bars and other establishments. It is the hour of the tough guys of various crews, the reckless women of the shadows, the "merchants of success" and the straight-up criminals, who are ready to spend the whole night being deafened by overplayed hits, staring at the crowd, and inhaling cigarette smoke and the smell of restaurant food—if only to forget the stench of prison filth and gulag cells. Criminal Moscow is on the town...

The current lifestyle of these kings will become a distinctinve symbol for future generations. Just as Chicago of the '30's has become synonymous with the gangster era, Moscow of the '90's will be the standard for lawlessness, a period of impotent authorities and characterized by the dictates of mafia rule.

There is no need to examine figures or turn to the militia's crime reports to understand the uncontrolled increase in crime. No one feels safe in the capital today. Bankers, surrounded by former "alfas" and members of the Spetsnaz, are still not insulated from the bullets of hired assassins or from remotely controlled bombs. The rank-and-file office workers who live from paycheck to paycheck stand to become victims of amateur muggers or catch a fatal blow from the brass knuckles of a small-time hood flexing his muscle. It is not even necessary to mention those who find themselves on the "front lines" of the criminal battles: the "godfathers," racketeers, and other mafiosi. The brotherhood feels the pain of clashes between criminal clans far more than the actions of law enforcement agencies like the militia, prosecutors, and other security forces. What's more, innocent bystanders are, alas, not infrequently the victims of these battles.

The murder count in the Moscow region exceeds three thousand per year. However, even this figure does not fully reflect the real situation. To make things look better, police station employees resort to tricks of the trade. Everyone knows that the higher-ups judge their subordinates on the reports they receive from their secretaries, and no one wants to stand before a general and get a dressing-down.

The Moscow of this era was quite successfully recreated in the TV series "Brigada." To quote Lou Reed, those were different times. Just how different was explored, albeit briefly, in the NYT's article-sized romp around the city, "36 Hours in Moscow," which was published a couple of months ago:

OLD-TIMERS always marvel about how much Moscow has changed since the stultifying days of the Soviet Union. That's ancient history. What's really worth marveling about is how much the city has changed in the last year or two. Few places in the world have undergone such a rapid, dizzying and cacophonic transformation as Moscow, and it shows no sign of abating. The gangster Moscow of the 1990s has given way to something tamer, more metropolitan, perhaps, but it is still brash and flashy. The city, like Russia itself, seems to be in search of its identity — embracing the past, though often ironically, while plunging full-speed ahead. What the future holds is uncertain, but meantime, Muscovites are indulging in what an energy-fueled boom has bestowed on them.