The Draft, Russian style
( Another little Sunday morning smile while we wait for Osama's other shoe to drop )
[ Even Sex Change Can't Stop the Draft
There are a number of things that exempt young Russian men from being conscripted into the army. Flat feet do the trick, as does having a wife and young child.
Most people would have thought that Alexei, 18, had a foolproof excuse for bowing out of service since he has a pair of breasts and, by next year, will be a woman from head to toe.
But half a man is apparently better than none for the army, which is notorious for its efforts to meet twice-yearly conscription quotas.
Alexei, who asked that his last name not be used, said he has been ordered to not only join the military but also serve in one of its toughest units, the paratroopers division.
Alexei, or Alyona as he calls himself now, does not look the soldier type. With shoulder-length white-blond hair, a woman's wardrobe and feminine features, it is hard for most people to tell that he is not yet a woman. It is only the artificially high voice that perhaps gives him away.
"I was always playing with dolls and wearing dresses," said Alexei, clutching a Gucci bag in his lap as he explained how he had always felt different as a child.
By the time he was 12, he knew that he was different. Doctors later told him that his body contained more female than male hormones and that he would never be able to have children.
Alexei, who always dresses as a woman, works as a performer in a transvestite group that mimes to songs in nightclubs and casinos.
When Alexei was 16, he was first called into his local enlistment office for a medical examination. Declared fit, he was placed in the paratroopers unit.
"And with my appearance," Alexei said, giggling.
Called up in the March draft this year, he went to the army recruitment office in the Domededovo district wearing his everyday clothes -- a black skirt, olive sweater, tights and black boots.
"When I went in, they didn't believe I was a boy," said Alexei, who at that point had already begun a hormone therapy that spurred his bust to grow and his features to change.
Army officers at first demanded that Alexei take a medical exam with a long line of half-naked boys in the office, but he convinced them that it would not be a good idea to make him undress around the other, more macho teenagers.
Alexei presented documents from doctors showing his physical and psychological condition, but the army was insistent that he should still serve. Officers sent Alexei off to another doctor for further tests. When that doctor agreed with the previous evaluations, the army sent him to a psychiatric hospital to be tested.
With the hospital's recommendation that he not serve in hand, Alexei returned to the draft office and saw his medical documents once again rejected.
He then turned to the Soldiers' Mothers Committee, a nongovernmental organization that assists young draftees caught in the military's dragnet.
"They told him that they would take him even if he had the [sex-change] operation," said Svetlana Kuznetsova, a member of the Moscow branch who intervened on Alexei's behalf.
Kuznetsova said the decision on what to do with Alexei has now been sent to the Moscow region's enlistment office. Much to Alexei's relief, she has secured a pledge from that office that he will not be called up.
"Our Soviet army can't do without such a girl," said Sasha, the manager of Alexei's transvestite group. "They need such a beautiful girl, but I also can't do without her." ]
Picture of him / her at the link ... :-)
themoscowtimes.com |
