WORLD'S END, WESTERN STYLE

I was watching it all overcome with conflicting feelings.How shall I put it... In general terms, at times I would look at America and think: this is my country! And at times America made me sick

WORLD'S END, WESTERN STYLE

I entered America through the back door: I was visiting Alaska. What can I say? I was watching this stronghold of freedom and democracy overcome with conflicting feelings. At times, I would look at America and think: this is my country! And at times America made me sick.

But for Jack London, what would we know about Alaska? Same as about Ohio or Iowa that is nothing. Whereas now it stands for the Gold Rush; spittle solidified by frost; dog-carts races; a bearded guy wanted to start fire with the only remaining match, to warm himself up a bit, and the snow fell down onto his fire off the fir-tree branch oops! Sorry, he must have shaken the snow off the tree first. The guy froze to death... Such a severe land this is!

What else, apart from the eternal snow? Which cities, for example are there in Alaska? Few will remember Anchorage. Also, those who did remember are for some reason convinced it is the capital city of Alaska. Which is wrong. But let us start from the very beginning.

SOCIALISM IS FREE WORK FOR THE FREELY ASSEMBLED PEOPLE

The belief is that America must be understood through its smaller cities and towns. In this respect we were lucky. Our Boeing landed in the town of Nome, populated by a mere 4 000 people. In the past, in the days of the Gold Rush, a tenfold number of people would be coming here. Forty thousand different citizens were hoping to reap a profit in gold. Since then, the town has lost its former panache: nowadays it is not profitable to mine for gold in northern lands be it Russia or America. On the other hand, certain adventurous people still prospect for gold in Alaska, against all odds. America is a free country (or so it thinks), that is why any fool can set up a tent on the shore of the Bering Sea and start sieving gold by hand or using an automatic dredge operated by kerosene. Whatever you make is yours. The daily life in a prospectors camp is most often quite shabby, one does not earn much on the recovery of gold: the fortune-seekers barely can return travel and expenses. Which makes sense, because the global economy has long since stopped being based on gold piastres, which was already perceived by Pushkin: «...and how the state is getting rich, and makes its living and, of old, it has no real need for gold, once it does have the household products...»

Household products are knee-deep in America. Moreover, one gets an impression that all American products are made in China. It is even possible now to see a shop where the sign says «All products here are made in America». But first of all, this is a commercially doubtful message (American products are expensive), and secondly, I saw this sign only once on a tiny shop in the big city Anchorage. America's output proved just enough to supply this tiny shop. Does America manufacture anything apart from Dollars? It does! Stupid American cars awkward longish pickups with six to eight cylinders, a nauseatingly flabby suspension and a sluggish automatic gear box. In summer and autumn their exposed bodies get filled with rain, in winter with snow. Then drivers are transporting this snow back and forth. But Americans believe it is cool to own a pickup. They have a limited range of options for showing off, because the police are on the alert. But we shall discuss police later.

By the way, all of it is inspired by laziness: automatic gears, car-bodies filled with snow... If I were to describe Americans, I would say that Americans are like my wife equally sloppy. Also slovenly and sometimes near-do-wells. They have no clothes sense and they can never be bothered. In winter, a common scene in Nome would be: a fully loaded pickup (carrying snow of course, what else?) is pulling over by a shop. A fat lass, clad in shorts and a tee shirt, clambers out of it and into the shop. She could not be bothered to don on something decent when going out. However, food is something else. This is where they can be bothered.

It was not a slip of pen when I said that products are knee-deep here. Mud is, too puddles and slush. Frankly speaking, I never expected to find mud on American roads. So there. In some cases you are stuck without rubber boots. One can of course stick to trainers, but then it will take you much longer: with boots you can use short-cuts.

THE COUNTRY OF TRIUMPHANT COMMUNISM

What socialists failed to achieve in Russia, capitalists did achieve in America. At any rate Americans have more of what Bolsheviks called «consciousness» than the ex-Soviets ever did. I spent a long time talking to journalists in the local newspaper office. I was trying to grasp the essence of economic circumstances in Alaska. And relations between the state budget and the subsidised areas, if one were to use Russian terminology. It was a conversation of the mute with the deaf. They did not understand me and I did not understand them. At times it felt that after perestroika and ensuing perturbations, the post-Soviet people became more ardent economists and capitalists than Americans.

The thing is that before departure we had visited an aboriginal village on the St. Lawrence Island. Eskimos populate it. Naturally, their daily life is totally different than a hundred years ago. They live in two-story cottages, complete with telephones, Hoovers, television, computers, gigantic fridges, sewerage, radio and other niceties. At the same time they enjoy the right to do things nobody else can do: they are allowed to kill whales and bears (argument: they are used to it).

The St. Lawrence Island is the extreme point of America, further west is Russian Chukotka. Chukotka is the end of the Russian world. Further east is America. The way aborigines live in Chukotka is this: there are some Chukchi villages where the only food the shops offer is vinegar. So sewerage and fridges are simply redundant under the circumstances. There is no electricity either. And most of the villagers are jobless. There is simply nothing they could do. The difference is that the Russian aborigines are dying off slowly, while the Americans receive... no, not the unemployment relief, it is the so-called welfare, for they never worked and are unlikely to ever work in future. There is no work in the village and they are reluctant to leave.

And this is what we tried to discuss in the newspaper office in Alaska. To start with, I thought the interpreter was to blame. Then it turned out the misunderstanding was running deeper.

«There is practically no work in any of aboriginal villages», I was forging ahead at full speed. «Why are they there?»

«How do you mean, no work?» the watchdogs of democracy and political correctness, American journalists, were amazed. «Local people work as teachers, librarians, doctors, they do logistics and keep tiny shops. True, some are unemployed».

«Hang on, but all of them work for the state. How does the village earn its own livelihood? For it produces nothing and is totally supplied out of the federal budget?»

«But they pay tax, they shop...»

«Come on», — I was getting tired of the American thickness. «But apart from the unemployed and the people employed by the state and spending federal money in the village shops, those aboriginal villages give nothing to the state of Alaska? They are loss-making, right?»

«Right.» — my interlocutors finally understood my worries.

«Who needs them, those villages?»

«How do you mean?»

«Damn it, why not shut them down on grounds of absence of realism, why not move villagers into a big city. Makes sense, for the economy is booming now in America, and workers are short? The unemployment has dropped to catastrophic figures. It is already impossible to expand production, for normal economic development requires a level of 4% unemployment. Whereas stats prove that in some American states this level is now at 0.6%! This is an economic dead-end.»

«True, there is not enough labour around. It is hard to find an employee», the Americans were in agreement. «But the aborigines are used to this way of life. Urban dwellers are aware of this fact and agree to pay a slightly higher tax rate so that local population could live in familiar places».

...Humanists, damn them. With their scruples... Whereas ours are running out of the last vinegar supplies.

ORDNUNG UBER ALLES!

This is great, when there is no crime. The local police lieutenant, Kevin Michaels, has never had to fire a gun in 18 years of service in Nome. Nome residents even leave their ignition keys in and some people never lock up their front doors.

But Kevin Michaels did say that they normally receive two calls a day: «Ours is a small town. And they tend to call police more often in a small town or city than in a big one. Mostly these are family conflicts».

«So how do the police make peace?»

«Well, the mere presence of an armed policeman cools them down. We say that we are there to help them».

...Well, any American knows that when the going gets real tough the police will not fool around, but get straight to business: face down on the asphalt, handcuffs on, smear your fingers with black paint in the precinct. And then the trial, the fine, the sentence, the chair...

If a chap were too drunk, the policeman would stop nearby and murmur gently: «You have had too much to drink, Sir, and you've lost control. Stop waving your arms. We will take you home now. And if you do not stop waving your arms and frightening peaceful citizens, we will arrest you». And despite the Sirs excitement or even aggression, he will pull himself together, switch on the remains of control, and, to a desperate screech of his mental breaking pads, will slow down and agree to the arguments of the police officer. Americans are a tame nation.

The major task of a policeman, who is on a patrol in winter and has just discovered a drunken aboriginal body in the bank of snow, is to save this body from being frost bitten. In the older days they had a drunk station in Nome. One could sober up there for a mere $75. But they had to close this facility: impoverished alcoholics never paid, and to put them on trial cost more in the end. Not economical. That is why the police now return inebriated citizens round to their homes.

The humanism in the States has gone so far, that the police can no longer kill the detained. Previously, they had the right to take aim at a fleeing bandit and shoot him, if necessary. But now they cannot open fire: they must huff and puff and chase him. They can only shoot if the offender threatens somebody's life. That is, if he has already murdered somebody and now is running away, the police have no right to fire because while he is on the run, he is no threat to anybody. Very logical.

NEVER THINK THAT JAIL OR ALMS ARE ONLY FOR THE OTHERS

They are so proud of being a law-abiding nation. They walk around smiling at each other. People drive slowly observing some mysterious limitations. Wonderful! But how have they managed to achieve this? Nothing can be easier. And none of it has anything to do with a 200-year long history of democratic traditions. Traditions may have a role in Europe, whereas in the USA...

...Police in America have no right to shoot into the thin air. Once you've drawn your gun from its holster, you must hit the target.

...In Alaska, for example, there are different types of police: municipal police, federal police, traffic police, there are police who protect polar bears; there are police who protect mooses... Each type of police wear their own insignia on the sleeve. But if an ordinary person would like to sport it, for example to fool around it's a year in prison. This is if you pass yourself as a moose-protector. And if you play silly beggers with a federal sign the sentence will be longer.

...Driving in a drunk state a year in prison.

...Kill a moose outside of hunting season (poaching) five years in prison.

...Kill a moose in the hunting season, but the wrong moose... For you cannot kill any moose even when hunting is allowed. The «correct» moose must have three points at the front of its antlers. If it has three you may kill it. If only two you may not. If you have not seen it properly in your telescopic sight, if you've miscalculated a year in prison. End of conversation.

...In the small town of Nome (mind you, 4000 residents) there are two prisons. For adults and for minors.

«Who may be placed in the prison for minors and what for?» I am asking it of my guide.

«Well, if the children disobey their teachers or parents, if they are completely out of hand. But the parents cannot punish their kids: kids have rights; they may sue their parents. That is why the parents will call the police and complain about their unruly offspring».

In short, you cannot use your belt. Let them better go to jail.

...A certain person in Milwaukee got a prison sentence of 21 years. Guess what for? He killed a cat. A cat is a small beast on four legs. There are many of them around. No, of course it was not only on account of the cat. The judge's logic was more profound: not only had he killed the cat, he is generally an unpleasant person. They checked the poor schmucks records and learned that in 1973 he had taken part in a fistfight, whilst in 1986 there was another bad incident, and in 1988 he had hit a person with a bottle. Now he has murdered his wife's cat! The ill-fated creature hid itself under the bed, but this did not stop the sadist. A bullet from. 22 calibre gun terminated the life the family's favourite. Do we have any use for such a beast in this free country of ours? But no... If somebody got 21 years sentence for a cat in Russia, the country would have shuddered. We say our laws are harsh. But we never experienced anything similar even under Stalin!

...Having said all this, my compatriots (those with whom I told my stories about amazing subterfuges of the American justice) were most impressed with a different story. In Utah, they give a year in prison for adultery and half a year for sex before marriage. In Maryland be horrified, the sexually advanced Russia! a certain Stephen Shokhet was sentenced to five years for... oral sex, which is illegal in this state. Moreover, there are 23 states more where practising sex unsanctioned by the authorities may entail a sentence from 30 days to life. Kafka! Orwell! «If you are still at large, it is not your merit, it is our negligence!?»

«A barbarian country!» the cry went from everybody to whom I told all this.

...Many doors will close for a person who has served his time in an American prison; all career prospects will die for him. It is not official. It simply happens. Whereas to end up in jail in America what can be easier?

We are no longer surprised by the fact that over a million people in Russia are serving their time in prisons. We are used to having almost the highest number of convicts per hundred thousand people. We make allowance for our own barbarity. It must be different in civilised countries!

America is a civilised country. And it has more people in jail than a savage Russia. Both in relative and absolute terms. So this is freedom, American style... Voluntary compliance...

What else is left? Political correctness and feminism? Frankly speaking I am not at all sure why American men bother to marry in todays America. For in the case of a divorce, they will not only lose their wife and children, they will be milked dry. Good ladies in this country have achieved real advantages against good gentlemen. Discrimination with flying colours.

...When I was returning from my evening walk to my Hilton, a police car whizzed by to the sound of wailing sirens, pursuing yet another enemy of the people. Probably somewhere somebody did not smile at somebody else. But this is all right, now, doing his couple of years in jail, he will have enough time to properly analyse his antisocial behaviour...

Alexander NIKONOV