Red Heat

Remember that movie Red Heat where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a Moscow narcotics officer named Ivan Danko and wears Soviet muffin hats and speaks Russian with the alacrity of a Time and Temperature recording? "DA SVIDANYUHHH, TOVARISH." Anyway, they were showing it the other day on Russian TV which was great because, for once, it meant that some of the scenes in an American movie weren't overdubbed. And the movie is surprisingly relevant, as the head gangster complains to Arnold "Why are you always picking on us Georgians?"

Here's a great scene from the movie with some Russian obscenities.

I found myself sympathizing with the governator because, actually, his job for the role and my current job are quite similar - they both involve speaking Russian phrases we're completely unfamiliar with and trying to make them sound natural. It's not often in English that I use a phrase like "loan repayment rate" and I think I'm having a hard time pulling it off in Russian.

The other day as I was interviewing a quiet, roundish Kyrgyz woman, a scruffy man with a red t-shirt approached me and asked what I was doing. (This isn't so unusual - people see you in the market talking to one of their neighbors and they're immediately interested. I've been asked if I sell sim-cards, or if I work for the police.) Then he asked why I speak Russian strangely. I told him because I'm not Russian, I'm American. "You mean your parents are Russian and you live in America, right?" "No," I said. "What, you're pure?" "Yup."

Then he asked me to show him my passport. I politely declined and tried to continue the interview. But now I know that was my mistake. I should have thrown him across the room or ripped off his fake leg and extracted a bag of cocaine, then said a one word phrase like "Hooligans" in an English-Austrian accent before I threw him naked out of a banya. Next time.