You must (1) hold your blocking position, (2) make lots of noise, and (3)
show that you are bitterly and righteously angry and cannot possibly be shut up
short of complete satisfaction.
Keep shouting. It helps to cuss a bit and one all-purpose word will do:
“Borjemoi!” This is a phonetic approximation of two words meaning “My God!”- which
is merely an expression of disgust in this atheistic society. Another good phrase is
“Yah Hawchew!” which is the abrupt way of saying “I want it!” (The polite idiom is
“Mnyeh Khawchettsuh.”)
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You can shout, “I want to see the Director!”-or, in Russian, “Yah Khawchew
veedyets Direktora!” She may possibly answer, “The Director’s office (or desk) is
over there,” but she is more likely to give you what you want rather than let you
complain to the boss.
But if she does, don’t move. Hold your ground, keep on being unreasonable,
and let the boss come to you. If you let them chivvy you into his office, away from
spectators, and you yourself sitting down and being polite, you’ve lost that round.
The Director will be polite, apologetic, and regretful about “shortages”-but firmly
unhelpful. The place to win is in public.
For most of us it is not easy to be intentionally rude. I think one should
never be impolite unnecessarily- but we can do much to uphold our national dignity
and to improve our relations with the Soviet Union by never keeping quiet when we
are cheated, by answering the great stubbornness of Russians by being twice as
stubborn, and by being intentionally and loudly rude whenever Intourist refuses to
keep its contract despite polite protest. Intourist is an integral part of a
government with a forty-three year record (now 63 years-R.A.H.) of not honoring its
most solemn commitments; one must assume that its blatant cheating is planned from
the top and that every employee of
Intourist is schooled in his role, right down to the sweet little girl who insists
that you must see the stadium.
You may prefer to think that this horrendous swindle is merely an
unintentional by-product of a fantastic, all embracing, and incredibly inefficient
bureaucracy bogged down in its own red tape to the point where it can’t give
service. Either way, a contract with Intourist works exactly like that long list of
broken treaties. You start by making a contract with the Soviet government; you are
required to pay in advance and in full. Then you attempt to collect what you have
paid for-and discover that a Communist contract is worth what it usually is. “Room
with bath” turns out to be without, “jet planes” become prop planes, guide and auto
service is less than half the time you have paid for, dining rooms are locked at
meal hours, and your extremely expensive time is wasted sitting, sitting, sitting in
“service” bureaus.
Unless you raise hell about it, right at the time. No use complaining later,
you won’t get your money back.
If neither polite stubbornness nor noisy rudeness will work, use the insult
direct. Shake your finger in the face of the most senior official present, simulate
extreme rage, and shout, “Nyeh Kuhl-toornee!” (“Uncultured!”) Hit that middle
syllable and roll the r’s.
Subordinates will turn a sickly green and pretend to be elsewhere. The
official will come close to apoplexy-but will probably make an extreme effort to
satisfy your demand in order to shut you up. This is the worst insult you can hand a
Russian, one that hits him in cracks of his armor. Use it only as a last resort.
I do not think you will be in personal danger as the officials you will meet
will probably not be high enough in the hierarchy to punish you for insulting them.
But if anything goes wrong and you wind up in Siberia, please understand that you
use it at your own risk.
If”nyeh kuhltoornee” does not work, I have nothing
more to suggest but a hot bath and a sedative.
But the above campaign usually wins in the first or second stage and rarely
fails in the third as it is based on Russian temperament and Communist social
organization. Even the most arrogant Soviet citizen suffers from an inferiority