Vladimir Putin Cries "Like Little Baby"

"Mother Russia is land of real men. Putin is shame maker for all of us," said one leading Russian politician Sunday night as I dug my head into my pea coat, trying to escape the tundra winds blowing past some steel statue of a ten-foot man whose limbs were all stocky cylinders without any tapering for joints or hands or such in some old stoney square in St. Petersburg.

"Yes, he fix election. But what you expect from ex-KGB, autocrat Russian leader? Of course he fix election. Of course he blame America for citing rebellion against him. Everybody in Russia know America plant intelligent middle class in Russia. Such behavior not tolerated in learned universities of Moscow. Disillusion, angry mobs is unacceptable in mother Russia now. From Napoleon to Bolshevik revolution to Gorbachev, only one rule reign supreme - Russian man not cry. Now we are laughing stock of world."

I told my contact, code-named Yuri, "Surely you're joking. Putin has essentially been your president since 1999, using his puppet Medvedev to violate all semblance of term limits. He regularly spreads anti-dissident propaganda through his state-run networks and newspapers and tries to pass it off as truth. Hell, I've heard rumor he uses old KGB techniques like hooking testicles to car batteries to frighten critics in the media towards silence or at least acquiescence.

Putin's lhasa apsa

"He's almost as anti-America as Kruschev, blaming his country's middle-class anger on American infidels infiltrating Russia and causing trouble while he and his pals have been raking in illicit profits hand over fist while his lesser minions rig elections and sell arms to middle-eastern dictatorships. The other day I heard he called Barack Obama a Muslim muzhik who belonged in the fields. And I have sources that say Putin starts every morning by kicking a pony-tailed lhasa apsa he keeps in a cage alongside a calf being fattened to make wagyu beef."

"Yes, yes and is all true. But in spite of great leadership strength, Putin crying is like fall of Berlin wall. Horrible for everybody."

"Actually, most people believe the fall of the Berlin wall was a good thing," I told him, suddenly feeling very exposed as I looked around me at the grand, uniform buildings surrounding the square with a haunting Soviet imperiousness.

"And most people believe you land on moon. But when America finally land on moon, you know what you will find? A perfect square with hidden steel door and sickle and hammer flag, planted by Tolstoy himself while we send in alcoholic cossack to pretend to be Count Tolstoi dying in train station."

It then occurred to me that Yuri was extremely drunk and had been smoking at a corner hookah bar for a few hours before I'd arrived. What I'd thought was a glove he kept suckling on was actually a flask full of cheap Russian potato vodka. Yuri'd lost his hand during the Cold War, on a visit to Cuba when he'd been attacked by a crowd of street thugs claiming to be Che Guevara's kids and calling him a white devil, and I'd been too cold to remember that.

As I slowly backed away, afraid to turn my back on this tricky Russian the last thing I heard was "Putin protested by middle class? What middle class? Just like a real Russian not cry, a real Russia has no middle class. Landowners and serfs, my comrade. I mean droog, heh heh. No middle class. Now you excuse me, I have large Russian boot to shove down crybaby Vladimir Putin soft oil-filled ..." but I'd moved far enough away to not hear the bastard finish.

I jumped on the first plane out the next day, a crop-duster heading out to province and from there found myself in a Mercedes van headed to France. On my way through the countryside I caught a billboard advertising free rides on Russia's newest submarine, soon to be acquisitioned. The Red October. God help us all.

The only thing more dangerous than a sham democracy in Russia is a sham democracy run by a crybaby autocrat.

- Oscar Gam, foreign correspondent