Chapters (58)
- Cover
- Also by Oliver Harris
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
She got me access to a copy of the relevant GRU report. It included a picture of us in Kiev’s Navodnitsky Park, together with attempts at establishing our real identities and the nature of our relationship. Not believed to be sexual partners. Yet he had coupled us, before we were together.
‘He’s convinced that we were involved in a US-led coup in Ukraine. Refuses to buy genuine democratic yearnings. I think we’ve found his own paranoia.’
I felt his shadow over us.
You met him. What did he say?
He said: People who believe in nothing still believe in oil.
The rape story had been picked up internationally from one local news site. The originating website was called InformAsia: it was big on graphics and pop music, and drew heavily on social media. It had been set up a year ago, and seemed to survive without much advertising. Some rudimentary searches gave me ten Vkontakte accounts that appeared to have linked to the story almost simultaneously, mostly women, mostly young, with several thousand followers each.
Where had I seen that website? I found the dating app on my phone, checked the first match.
You seem interesting. Check out this site – lots of fun there.
I clicked through to InformAsia, which had put a photo of the victim on its landing page.
THIRTY
I spent too much of the night browsing, until I started to believe the region’s entire internet had been gamed. Stories fuelling Russian resentment came up everywhere you looked.
Fired for speaking Russian. Statue removed. Beaten up on the way to school.
People in public services were being forced to speak Kazakh rather than Russian; a politician who resisted the new language laws had been assaulted at a rally. Alongside those kinds of stories was a low-level hum of outrage and titillation: mother shamed in Kazakh restaurant; teacher beats pupil; child crucified by Muslims. Meanwhile, on the same sites, the epidemic of homosexuality in the West got good coverage, as did Europe’s spiritual bankruptcy in general. NATO was heading for extinction, Russia ready to bring peace to the Middle East.
I logged in as Yuri Cherchesov, my Russian sailor, and clicked Like on pictures of ‘Kazakh militias’ targeting Russians in northern Kazakhstan. They posed with horse bows apparently looted from a museum. They urinated on a portrait of Putin from behind blurred pixels.
Vishinsky’s great insight: propaganda didn’t have to be believed to be effective. No more than pornography had to be believed to make you come. It just had to keep you staring, feed you fantasies.
Women’s tears, women’s shame, everywhere I looked.