A Thanksgiving Dinner in Moscow

Russia's Moscow is a fine place to celebrate Thanksgiving. I say that because that is where I spent this great American holiday in a decidedly un-American setting. That being said, there was no trouble finding excellent fresh Turkey, chestnut stuffing with wild mushrooms some pickled garlic, and fresh Siberian cranberries to top it all off. The only "sales" that intruded were the many Black Friday events that happen worldwide, yet always seem to appear around Turkey time.?

As it happened, I was the only "Yank" at the table, probably because there aren't too many of us around anymore, but it gave the Russian host a solid reason to celebrate by giving thanks. Calling an Uber I arrived at the apartment of assignation to find that many had already begun to give thanks for everything connected to life, living, and our human condition. Did the pilgrim's quaff iced Vodka along with their Champagne and Krasnodar Merlot? Probably not, times have moved on after all, and as one celebrant told me, this ensures that any buggy Covid will assuredly be annihilated before it mutates into another horror movie.

The conversation turned to America, as this was a key National Holiday in the USA after all, and the reason this "Yank" was invited. Discussions were animated as most present have spent a long time on both the east and west coasts, and enough time at many points in between.?

One celebrant, a well-known, respected businessman cried out while trying to reach for a disappearing bottle of wine... "Ne Skommunizdi!" (don't steal it!). This expression started a chain of conversations about America today, and how much like the long-dead USSR it is rapidly becoming, they even managed to include AOC, Warren, Blinken, and Bernie in their observations. The following hour was filled with head shaking, clucking, and generally sympathetic feelings for the people of the USA. A broad-in-the-beam lady even tried her deep-timbre voice without guitar on "Big Yellow Taxi", emphasizing the chorus "you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone" to decidedly mixed reviews and a shower of tossed dried fruits and nuts.

The catalyst for the evening was the word the businessman used Skommunizdit (скоммуниздить) which is a Sovietism - words, abbreviations, phrases, slogans, and ideologies that were formed during the Soviet era. It means to take any "people's" property with no recompense,?in other words, steal it. It comes from the communist slogan "under communism there will be no money, because whoever needs it - will take it for free". This should happen without using subtle methods but in a straightforward and openly woke way.?

Today's equivalent of Skommunizdit (everyone at that Thanksgiving agreed) is "QE" (printing dollars) and the many hidden taxes that are known as inflation. Lots of Tutt-tutting sympathy for those poor naive Americans because Russia has been there, done that, and suffered abysmally for nearly a century afterward. Truly if one can't learn the lessons of others' mistakes through the study of history you are destined to repeat them. Many agreed that the Americans they knew or met did not deserve such current leadership, and will warmly recall times past as a consequence.

The evening had a rhythm, and acknowledging history was key. One diner said, "How about the monuments and statues that are being torn down?!". One erudite lady answered... The Americans seem to have read the old horrid communist decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On Monuments" issued in 1918. The decree required the masses; "to mobilize artistic forces and organize a broad competition to develop projects for monuments that would mark the great days of the socialist revolution." Later, a list of persons was compiled as worthy and safe to memorialize by the Soviet government. The decree also ordered the removal of old monuments, erected "in honor of kings, their soldiers, statesmen, and servants." In this way the communists endeavored to rewrite and edit a history that continued to one degree or another up to Perestroika.

The many monuments and statue removals happening in America these past months were discussed and real similarities were seen. Following the death of George Floyd in 2020, many monuments and memorials associated with race were vandalized, destroyed, or removed during and after the days of unrest in the USA. Initially, protesters targeted Confederate monuments. As the protests broadened, many statues of Christopher Columbus in the United States were removed. Statues of Junípero Serra, Juan de O?ate, and Kit Carson,?were also torn down or removed. Monuments to American slave owners were also vandalized or removed, including Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, and Francis Scott Key. By October 2020, over a hundred Confederate symbols had been "removed, relocated or renamed." Some monuments not associated with the Confederacy, slavery, or racism were also targeted such as the statue of abolitionist Hans Christian Heg, which was torn down and thrown into a lake. The statue of York, a Black slave with the Lewis and Clark expedition, the first Black person to travel across the continent, was removed by the University of Portland. The chatter on putting a spin on history was nicely capped when the host quoted Mark Twain... "It is easier to fool people than convince them that they've been fooled".

I left after the last toast and coffee of the evening, my mood was bittersweet. I realized that throughout that 4-hour dinner, I didn't hear a single mean or accusatory jibe against Americans, just against global liberal progressives as a caste. In fact, the freedoms embodied in the US Constitution were held up by the guests as examples of an ideal for enlightenment. Most expressed real concern that the ideals of the "great experiment" are being self-canceled before our eyes.?

A lawyer at the table who is also serving in the Russian government added that the amount and degree of consciously made-up disinformation put out by the US and western press collectively, and abetted by those "allied by economic self-interest" should concern every American citizen. This was particularly apparent in the several "values" issues that keep getting harped on which are simply untrue and are used as pretexts to vilify and further sanction Russia. That lawyer whose children live full-time in Minnesota said "I cannot believe that the great experiment of America is collapsing and might implode from within before all of our eyes. Thankfully I am financially able, so maybe I should send for my children and have them return home to a place of sanity and common sense, imperfect as it may be. I know they were thinking of it anyway". I guess everyone everywhere who is alive has reasons to give thanks, especially when illuminated at a Thanksgiving far from home.