permanent vacation

Russia was mad-cap and wild when I was there, knee-deep in snow, in 1993; it seems it has become weirder still. This article is just one of many examples of a country adrift in its own reality-based community. New Year's Day is now New Year's week-and-a-half, the government shut, papers silenced, mail halted. A deep freeze, so to speak, on the life and times -- but the stores, of course, are still open. Wild West parallels aren't too far off the mark, here. To wit: the leader is a little man who wields an iron fist, and the ladies love him for it. Thigh-high leather stilettos passes for posh, and everything, I mean everything, is for sale -- one of our favorites was the St. Petersburg sushi special, presented on the equally raw flesh of a nude woman. Depraved? Not any more than any other country, but apparently one that doesn't quite know what to do with free time. Too much and life goes rancid, like a tortured tummy following a week's homebrew binge:

"Since the January holidays, as they are called, came into being in 2005, sociologists, psychologists and economists have chronicled what they call the disturbing consequences of an extended period of leisure. These include an economic slowdown, and seasonal spikes in fires, domestic abuse and deaths by alcohol poisoning."

Fire, fistfights and vodka-induced comas? Now that's a party. My own week of semi-leisure produced one clean desk and two loads of clean laundry. Might be time to return to the rodina.