Breaking NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Since my recent column in which I broke the news that an assertive
minority fails to wash daily, I have encountered a number of odor-enhanced
citizens.
A teacher in high heels trailed a visible greenish miasma down the
hall. A New Russian at a luxury hotel gave off a hint of what it would be
like to be tear-gassed. And several drivers could have moonlighted as pest-
killing stink bombs.
The point is, Vladivostok's leading English-language columnist has had
little impact on local air quality. And judging from readers' reactions,
nothing has changed elsewhere.
No one admitted skipping a bath for days on end, and so perhaps it is
unsurprising that readers censured the smelly by a 15-1 margin. A typical
e-mail came from BBC producer Alex Standish of London, formerly a
correspondent in the Balkans.
"Your article," Standish wrote, "brought back memories of long train
journeys in Albania during which one was constantly grateful for the fact
that, back in 1992, there was no glass left in the carriage windows; Balkan
buses, especially during the summer; and taking showers using a bucket and
bowl with water heated up using a makeshift Chinese heating coil."
The Moscow Times' own Anna Badkhen offered a word of assent and a
warning. Badkhen first raised the subject of national hygiene last February
in a column describing her decision not to rent an apartment where an
unwashed landlady had left an odiferous ghost of her former presence.
Afterward, Badkhen writes, she "had to fence off accusations for
months [all letters accused me of being an ignorant American bitch and,oops, I am actually Russian]. Anyway I figured I ought to send you a letter
of appraisal before my upset unwashed fellow citizens damn you
electronically for being honest."
Actually, I received my single electronic caning from Theresa Hannum-
Caner of Moscow. While noting that she washes daily, she chides me for my
"ugly American" attitude and "petty bourgeois standards."
Furthermore, she writes, someone "who has nothing better to do than to
sniff underwear" (how did she find out?) "will no doubt find much that is
unpleasant" here and elsewhere.
Hannum-Caner notes that a 50-ruble ($1.80) water heating coil my
solution for those who lack hot water in their apartments may be too costly
for someone getting by on an average monthly salary of 2,000 rubles ($72)
or less. Likewise, she asks, "Have you ever been in a Russian communal
apartment? It might come as a surprise to you to learn that there are
apartments with broken pipes in the bathroom that no one can afford to
repair."
Part of being a responsible journalist is admitting when you are
wrong. I hereby apologize to all stinky kommunalki residents who don't have
plumbing (and presumably have to urinate out of the window every morning).
I also withdraw as targets of my criticism anyone who can't afford a
heating coil, but only if they also: a) don't drink tea, and b) don't cook.
I say this as it only takes three kettles of hot water to fill a basin
sufficiently to bathe (you also add cold). Or you can heat water on the
stove.
Ksenia Plonskaya writes from Canada to condemn the "post-Soviet
penchant for B.O." Noting that other former socialist nations have an
aversion to soap and water, she adds, "Russians seem to believe that if
they claim that they don't smell, everyone will believe them. Saying
something is true makes it true, because if I was a friend I would trust
them. If someone suggests they smell, it is merely provocation."
Richard Klein of Seattle deplores the trolleybus encounters with the
unwashed during his time here. But he notes an exception: "that deliciously
sweet, musky, body odor-perfumey smell of a pretty woman. Now, isn't it
strange how body odor can be both disgusting AND alluring, depending on
who's wearing it?"
My girlfriend, Nonna Chernyakova, whose hypersensitive nose has been
tormented for decades by malodors (reeking computer geeks, dog squattings
in the stairwell), was similarly inspired by our repairman to write a
column for the Vladivostok paper Okeansky Prospekt. Children are
traumatized, she wrote, by the Kornei Chukovsky book, "Moidodyr," about a
washboard man who chases a boy, threatening to bathe him. Nonna believes
Chukovsky's nightmarish character, whose name cheerfully implies scrubbing
the kid until there are holes in his skin, scares some off of bathing for
good.
On the other hand, maybe they're just slobs.
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