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Follow me @noahsneider.","twitterScreenName":"NoahSneider","social":{"userId":"lo_3213c8c1330b","targetUserId":"e02aeff5f495","type":"Social"},"facebookAccountId":"10202336220060754","type":"User"},"homeCollectionId":"","title":"Additional Feedback ","detectedLanguage":"en","latestVersion":"37815638ee28","latestPublishedVersion":"37815638ee28","hasUnpublishedEdits":false,"latestRev":537,"createdAt":1402569989177,"updatedAt":1402578666344,"acceptedAt":0,"firstPublishedAt":1402578666344,"latestPublishedAt":1402578666344,"isRead":false,"vote":false,"experimentalCss":"","displayAuthor":"","content":{"subtitle":"Inside an edit","caption":"Noah Sneider","image":{"imageId":"1*wy9K5z2ibqQBwBRcJV7DDg.jpeg","backgroundSize":"full","originalWidth":3264,"originalHeight":2448,"strategy":"crop-fixed"},"bodyModel":{"paragraphs":[{"name":"2ab0","type":1,"text":"Привет! (Hi!)","markups":[]},{"name":"59bb","type":1,"text":"I’m here in Moscow, sipping a double espresso from a blue cup at cafe ‘Good Enough’, listening to a phenomenal mix by Nicolas Jaar, and working away on ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. (As a freelancer, I’m currently living what I call the ‘cafe lifestyle’ — my “office” becomes whichever cafe I choose for the day. Good wifi and strong coffee are the primary criteria.) Throughout the past week or so, I’ve been sitting at such makeshift desks, and trading emails and drafts with my editor, Mike Hoyt. We’ve agreed to work through the piece in sections as I go, rather than as a complete draft at the end. (As The Big Roundtable’s resident writing guru Michael Shapiro wisely advised, problems are easier to fix during the drafting processes.)","markups":[{"type":3,"start":70,"end":83,"href":"https://www.facebook.com/goodenoughcoffee","title":"","rel":""},{"type":3,"start":118,"end":130,"href":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjWumGIqe8&feature=kp","title":"","rel":""},{"type":3,"start":152,"end":177,"href":"https://medium.com/the-empire-strikes-back","title":"","rel":""},{"type":3,"start":444,"end":458,"href":"https://medium.com/the-empire-strikes-back/pitfalls-part-1-bf15308b0d4","title":"","rel":""},{"type":3,"start":605,"end":623,"href":"http://thebigroundtable.com/","title":"","rel":""}]},{"name":"5d91","type":1,"text":"Earlier this week, Mike and I had our first phone call. The first real talk w/ your editor is a step of the writing process that can be, well, disheartening, but ours ended up going about as well as such conversations can. (Mostly because Mike is a fantastic editor.) We’ll post the audio tomorrow, so you’ll have a chance to hear more from both of us. In the meantime, I wanted to share the email I just got from Mike following up on our chat.","markups":[]},{"name":"3126","type":1,"text":"You can find his note below, as well as the attached file of the latest draft, complete with all of our (digital) editing scratch marks. I’ve been slowly adding/deleting/moving bits and pieces of the text, so if you read the original Part I, you’ll notice some of these changes. I’ve also written some chunks out of order, so they don’t have a place in the narrative yet (you’ll find those at the end of the story).","markups":[{"type":3,"start":234,"end":240,"href":"https://medium.com/the-empire-strikes-back/part-i-deep-history-b63ec3918672","title":"","rel":""}]},{"name":"5df7","type":1,"text":"My additions are in CAPS, deletions are in [[double brackets]], and movements marked with XXX annotations in italics XXX. Mike’s commentary is written in bold.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":143,"end":158},{"type":2,"start":90,"end":122}]},{"name":"0810","type":1,"text":"Yours,","markups":[]},{"name":"b993","type":1,"text":"Noah","markups":[]},{"name":"17f2","type":1,"text":"P.S. You can still sign up to get email updates as this project continues! Also feel free to make notes on these posts in the margins using Medium’s unique commenting system.","markups":[{"type":3,"start":19,"end":26,"href":"http://thebigroundtable.us6.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=e045096dac5725db3ecfb8adc&id=804a54d8fe","title":"","rel":""},{"type":3,"start":156,"end":173,"href":"https://medium.com/about/why-medium-notes-are-different-and-how-to-use-them-well-5972c72b18f2","title":"","rel":""}]},{"name":"6cc8","type":6,"text":"Noah,","markups":[]},{"name":"7859","type":6,"text":"It was great to talk to you yesterday, a productive conversation, and the piece is going to be fantastic. As discussed, we now know its basic structure and the question at the heart of it.","markups":[]},{"name":"ed5d","type":6,"text":"The structure is a journey through space and time—your travels through Crimea, eastern Ukraine, and Moscow. And the argument directing that journey: the deep history of those places shapes what we are seeing unfold there. You’ll show and tell us.","markups":[]},{"name":"a6d0","type":6,"text":"Agreed: we’ll include maps to help locate the reader and italize the straight history parts. And we’ll make the illuminating scenes (what we’ve been calling “Illumination Rounds,” after Michael Herr’s great Vietnam book) longer than Herr’s, with more context, detail, sense of place, etc. And we’ll think of the reader as someone like me—not very steeped in this story yet but eager to understand.","markups":[{"type":3,"start":158,"end":177,"href":"http://books.google.ru/books?id=QcWumjEd-HIC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA167#v=onepage&q&f=false","title":"","rel":""}]},{"name":"22e4","type":6,"text":"Line editing will come later but, as promised, here are a few additional suggestions/questions that we did not touch on in the conversation. Looking forward to the next intallment and write-through","markups":[]},{"name":"eeef","type":6,"text":"Mike","markups":[]},{"name":"165d","type":1,"text":"“Russia is a great power, and the West has forgotten this fact,” Tanya tells me.","markups":[]},{"name":"3134","type":1,"text":"We were having lunch in the corner of a second-floor cafe near the Moscow conservatory where she teaches piano; I had just returned from Crimea after a month of reporting on the Ukrainian crisis. Tanya is a decorated artist, and her eyes dance when she speaks of the Russian soul. That day, she wore gold wireframe glasses, a thin gold wrist watch, and bangles of deep maroon. That day, she was defiant, uncharacteristically so: “There’s a line you cannot cross. There’s only so much disrespect any person, any country can tolerate. Ukraine is ours. They are our people. Our family. You cannot come into someone else’s home, put down your suitcase, and start telling them how to handle their family. Russia, Belarus, Ukraine — it’s all one place. It’s thousands of years of collective history. It’s religion, it’s culture, it’s tradition. Thousands of years back to Kievan Rus. Thousands. What does America know, you’re what, a few hundred years-old?”","markups":[]},{"name":"8071","type":1,"text":"I WANT TO TELL YOU [[This is]] a Ukrainian story, but it’s not really about WHAT’S HAPPENING IN UKRAINE NOW [[Ukraine]], not really about soldiers and seizures and referendums. The cold rationality of geopolitics IS SECONDARY [[has no place]] here. This — the precipice that the world is teetering on — is about identity and memory and (deep) history. This is a story about the Russian Empire.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":249,"end":253},{"type":1,"start":260,"end":269},{"type":1,"start":303,"end":350}]},{"name":"0dee","type":1,"text":"XXX ADDED NEW SECTION HERE, SHIFTED OLD MATERIAL DOWN XXX","markups":[{"type":2,"start":0,"end":57}]},{"name":"062e","type":1,"text":"In late February, I set out for Ukraine from my current home in Moscow. I took a nearly empty night train, riding in a blue and yellow carriage across a border that seemed to exist only on maps. The former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, a deeply corrupt autocrat with a penchant for rare pheasants, had just fled Kiev. Months of anti-government protests on the captial’s “Maidan” [EXPLAIN] culminated in a few days of harrowing violence as Yanukovych unleashed snipers onto the streets, hoping to retain his tenuous grip on the teetering nation. The nominal cause of the unrest was Yanukovych’s decision last year not to sign an association agreement with the European Union, and to turn, instead, to Mother Russia. AFTER THAT [MORE BACKGROUND/REVIEW OF THE STORY SO FAR] But as I witnessed events unfold in Ukraine, Crimea, and Russia while reporting on the crisis over the subsequent months, I found myself slipping backwards in time, seeking explanations for the present-day chaos in the shady recesses of history.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":388,"end":397},{"type":1,"start":724,"end":779}]},{"name":"301b","type":1,"text":"[IN GENERAL, THIS GRAF IS A CHANCE TO SUPPLY A BIT MORE BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT] I arrived first in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, NEAR THE EASTERN BORDER WITH RUSSIA[RIGHT? IN GENERAL, LOCATE US, EVEN IF WE INCLUDE MAPS]. On the city’s main square, a teardrop-shaped expanse of forced grandeur, two groups stood guard. One had set up a makeshift tent camp around the central statue of Lenin. Many on that side called the square by its old name: Derzhinsky. On the fences they hung signs: “Fascists: Don’t test Kharkiv’s patience”, “We don’t need NATO”, and “Don’t tear down monuments!”[WHAT IS THIS A REFERENCE TO? MORE CONTEXT PLS] Across the way, another crew representing the Maidan movement had occupied the regional administration building[WHY? ISN’T THE GOVERNMENT ON THEIR SIDE?], donning blue and yellow ski masks. They called the square by its current name: Freedom. “They need to study history,” Pytor, a retired factory worker on those barricades, said of the Lenin defenders. “And not just the propaganda.” Vlad, sitting nearby and eating ramen from a clear plastic cup, went further: “Ukraine lived under occupation until 1991. The monument means nothing to us.” Caught in between the two sides were the many Ukrainians with no interest in what seemed at the time like yet another political squabble. “All our politicians are thieves,” one young mother told me as she cooed at her stroller and shuffled across the square. “Some just bigger than others.” [AS DISCUSSED, HERE IS A CHANCE TO ALSO SAY/EXPLAIN HOW SO MANY PEOPLE HERE HAVE AN AFFINITY TO BOTH UKRAINE AND RUSSIA, THAT THEY ARE PART OF EACH. AS YOU MENTIONED, THEY ARE LIKE BROTHERS—SO CLOSE WHEN THEY ARE CLOSE, SO VICIOUS WHEN THEY TURN AGAINST EACH OTHER]","markups":[{"type":1,"start":0,"end":80},{"type":1,"start":139,"end":229},{"type":1,"start":594,"end":642},{"type":1,"start":753,"end":795},{"type":1,"start":1476,"end":1741}]},{"name":"86e1","type":1,"text":"From there, another night train carried me SOUTH, ALL THE WAY [OK? OR ETC.] down across the darkened steppe to Crimea. When I arrived, I was still in Ukraine. By the time I left, TK DAYS/WEEKS LATER, I was in Russia.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":43,"end":76},{"type":1,"start":179,"end":198}]},{"name":"ee6d","type":1,"text":"XXX END OF ADDITION XXX","markups":[{"type":2,"start":0,"end":23}]},{"name":"70a2","type":1,"text":"[LINE /BREAK SPACE]","markups":[{"type":1,"start":0,"end":19}]},{"name":"e81c","type":1,"text":"For Russia, the Ukrainian question is one of origins. In the twenty-three years since the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia has been struggling to forge a new identity, to identify a new national idea. What does it mean to be Russian, to be Russian now, absent Tsarism or Socialism or the culture of Tolstoy? What these recent events make clear is that for Russia, Empire is an existential need. Russia cannot be merely a country; it must influence others in order to justify its prodigy. (It’s worth noting that Russian national identity and imperial identity developed at the same time, rather than in sequence like most Western powers.) And at the heart of this Russian imperial project lies Ukraine. For Putin, the answer to why Russia exists lies in the Dark Ages when pagan princes roamed these lands. In what may turn out to be the most most important speech of his political life — a ‘Putin Doctrine’ for Eurasia, if you will — he said, “Crimea speaks of our shared history and pride. This is the location of ancient Khersones, where Prince Vladimir was baptised. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilization and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.” PRINCE VLADIMIR, IT IS WORTH NOTING, LIVED TK,000 YEARS AGO. [OR SOMESUCH?]","markups":[{"type":1,"start":1244,"end":1319}]},{"name":"4241","type":1,"text":"THE CRIMEAN PENINSULA JUTS SOUTH INTO THE BLACK SEA. ON ITS SOUTHERN COAST, [OR SOMESUCH PLACE DESCRIPTION] South of Sevastopol, not far from what’s left of Khersones, Russian and Ukrainian military bases chicken poxed the hills. Sometimes their walls nearly intersected, sometimes you saw old Russian license plates behind Ukrainian gates. Before, it did not matter — they were all of one strain. I met this Colonel named Laptev at one of the Ukrainian spots. His post had been surrounded by Russian forces for days: a green KAMAZ transport truck idled outside the entrance and seven or so guys in fatigues and masks meandered, looking bored with AKs slung across their shoulders. They did not answer questions, but did let us through the checkpoint to see Laptev. He, in turn, led us through the halls, pointing to overturned cabinets as signs of “full blockade position.” He sat us down in his office — a narrow room with only a single bed and a dilapidated desk — and began briefing as if it was real, as if all of this was really happening. Well, he said, we’ve got some dynamite ready. He fished out a backpack — it could’ve been the faded Jansport I wore to the first grade — and revealed a stack of explosives. We’re ready, he said, see? Look — and here he stopped… Why? No one ever thought it could come to this, no one ever thought we would be poised to fight Russia. Why would our brothers do this?","markups":[{"type":1,"start":0,"end":108}]},{"name":"9774","type":1,"text":"[ITAL] Prince Vladimir consolidated his rule over the eastern Slavic tribes in the late 10th century. His father, Svyatoslav, had been killed by Pecheneg nomads along the Dnieper River; legend has it that the Pechenegs made a gold-plated goblet of Svyatoslav and drank from his skull. Prince Vladimir, in turn, was a ruthless warrior who came to power as a zealous pagan. He erected an idol of Perun, God of Thunder, outside his castle in Kiev. The idol’s body was wooden, its head silver, and its mustache gold; Vladimir’s subjects sacrificed their sons and daughters at its feet. For years, Vladimir was a womanizer — “insatiable in vice” — with five wives and 800 concubines. In 986, a procession of guests began arriving, proselytizing the world’s major religions. First came the Muslim Bulgars, according to the Primary Chronicle, Kievan Rus’[EXPLAIN KIEVAN RUS] foundational text. They said that Mohammed demanded circumcision and abstinence from pork and wine in this life in exchange for “complete fulfillment of carnal desires” in the next. Vladimir rebuffed their offer: “Drinking is the joy of the Russes. We cannot exist without that pleasure.” The Germans arrived next, preaching the teachings of the Pope, but to no avail. Then came the Jews. They too were turned down. Vladimir saw the loss of Jerusalem as evidence of God’s abandonment: “If God loved you and your faith, you would not be thus dispersed in foreign lands. Do you expect us to accept that fate also?” Finally Vladimir received a Greek scholar, who dismissed the other faiths and promoted his own Orthodoxy. He enraptured Vladimir, telling the history of the world, from creation to its present day. The Prince was so taken that he sent scouts out to observe the rites and rituals of these various religions. Predictably, they came back with tales of the Greeks’ preeminence: “On earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We only know that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty. Every man, after tasting something sweet, is afterward unwilling to accept that which is bitter, and therefore we cannot dwell longer here.” In 988, Vladimir accepted baptism and married the Byzantine Emperor Basil’s sister, Anna, in a church in a Greek town called Khersones on the southwest coast of what we now call Crimea.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":0,"end":7},{"type":1,"start":847,"end":867}]},{"name":"b85a","type":1,"text":"XXX SECTION MOVED FROM EARLIER XXX","markups":[{"type":2,"start":0,"end":34}]},{"name":"7bf0","type":1,"text":"Outside Crimea’s modern Parliament, [WHICH CITY? WHERE ARE WE?]in the shadow of a gold-domed church and a WWII memorial, I found people spray painting silver hammers-and-sickles onto red flags. Locals hung a homemade banner on the base of a retired tank at the center of the monument: “Hands off our history! our memory! our pride!” A diminutive older woman, Lyudmila, led the operation, laying out the backdrops and admonishing the younger men around her: “Spray! Spray faster! Don’t dawdle!” She had on white gloves, a red headband over her white hair, and a red and white “RUSSIA” tracksuit made by Bosco (official clothing provider of Sochi 2014). She looked like a mascot for the Babushka All-Stars. “Today is a historic day, a historic day,” she told me, before yelling at a Cossack for missing a spot.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":36,"end":63}]},{"name":"4739","type":1,"text":"The money behind it all (as I heard often during those weeks, “there is always money behind it all”) turned out to be a slick local politician from the city of Kursk in Crimea’s neighboring Russian region of Krasnodar. He stood out in a neatly pressed suit, and handed out glossy fliers with a letter to the people. It read, in part, like this:","markups":[]},{"name":"05c5","type":1,"text":"“Residents of multiethnic Crimea!","markups":[]},{"name":"3893","type":1,"text":"Ukrainians, Tatars, Crimean Tatars, Armenians, Jews, Russians, and many others!","markups":[]},{"name":"52ac","type":1,"text":"In the distant Soviet times, there were not divisions based on nationality, we were all brothers!","markups":[]},{"name":"2ad3","type":1,"text":"Time passed and divided us into different governments, but we, Russians, still believe and will believe that no matter what, we are one whole, we are one big family!… And if you ask for our help, we will fulfill our brotherly duty and help you!","markups":[]},{"name":"f031","type":1,"text":"Russians do not abandon their own!","markups":[]},{"name":"311d","type":1,"text":"The Western press doesn’t support us, but when have they supported us? Yes, and do we even need their help and approval?!… If a Russian says that the long-term fate of the Crimean peninsula and its residents is all the same to him, he is lying. Undoubtedly, every Russian will say without hesitation that he would be incredibly happy if we become one big country!… And what of a crew of American and pro-American politicians? They’ll be thrown onto the trash heap of history. The world will remember him[OBAMA?] only as the first African-American President of America, and nothing more.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":503,"end":511}]},{"name":"733f","type":1,"text":"But these events will be called significant in the history of the world, and will surely receive their section in the ‘textbook of political history.’ And, most importantly, the battle for self-determination and the beginning of a new life in Crimea will be noted in the history of great and glorious Victories…”","markups":[]},{"name":"8967","type":1,"text":"XXX END SECTION MOVED FROM EARLIER XXX","markups":[{"type":2,"start":0,"end":38}]},{"name":"7b39","type":1,"text":"XXX ADDED NEW SECTION HERE XXX","markups":[{"type":2,"start":0,"end":30}]},{"name":"bafd","type":1,"text":"Prince Vladimir’s exploits have also entered the ‘textbook of political history’ — for the Slavic world, they are its foundation. The reign of Vladimir (or Volodymyr, as he is known in Ukrainan), his father and his son, Yaroslav the Wise, comprise the [HOW LONG?] epoch known as Kievan Rus. This early state lasted until the mid 13th century, when infighting and incessant Mongol invasions led to its splintering and ultimate collapse. On its ashes grew the nations we now know as Russia and Ukraine. Both believe themselves to be the true heirs of Rus.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":252,"end":264}]},{"name":"4ea4","type":1,"text":"Russia sees Kievan Rus as the direct predecessor to the modern Russian state and the Russian narod. In this version of history, Belarus (White Russia) and Ukraine (Little Russia) are merely derivates, subgroups to the true masters of the Slavic peoples (Russia aka Great Russia). The collapse of the Soviet Union is seen as a tragedy, and Ukrainian independence a historical accident.","markups":[{"type":2,"start":93,"end":100}]},{"name":"d36e","type":1,"text":"[NEW GRAF?]Yet modern Ukraine has also claimed the Kievan legacy as their own. The country’s coat of arms — a trident — comes from Volodymyr’s seal. And Volodymyr himself, with flowing hair and wavy beard, now decorates Ukraine’s 1 Hrivnya bill. [HOW IS RUSSIA PERCEIVED IN THIS VERSION OF HISTORY? WHO IS SUBORDINATE TO WHOM? MORE HERE? OR FORESHADOW HERE AND DEVELOP LATER?] And nationalist Ukrainian historiography lauds 1991 as the summit of a millennia-long climb toward an independent state. These clashing interpretations of history, and the disparate world views they underpin, presage today’s bloodshed.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":0,"end":11},{"type":1,"start":246,"end":377}]},{"name":"21e5","type":1,"text":"Which version is actually, factually true is less important than how they have been used by the countries’ elites. Slavic identities (like most political identities) have been reinvented and recast throughout history, serving different purposes in different eras. These are ultimately ‘imagined communities’. But they are palpably real to the people whose lives they govern.","markups":[]},{"name":"c5ea","type":1,"text":"[LINE SPACE/BREAK]","markups":[{"type":1,"start":0,"end":18}]},{"name":"3520","type":1,"text":"The thumbcuffs told us we might be in trouble. The man brandishing them — spinning them, slowly, around each of his fingers as he talked — asked us one question repeatedly: “ARE YOU FOR RUSSIA?!?” We said we were journalists, we weren’t for anyone. He did not look pleased. The man we were interviewing, a slight Ukrainian military officer, stared at the ground, eyes empty. Thumbcuffs asked again: “Why are you here? What business do you have here?”","markups":[]},{"name":"e4b4","type":1,"text":"We were on Crimea’s far western coast. I’d heard from a source in the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense that the Russians had seized a military base and a border control point in the town of Chornomorskoye. Our first attempt at finding these sites led us up a godforsaken dirt road, which ended at an abandoned Soviet-era lighthouse perched on spectacular cliffs. We paused, we admired the beauty, we took pictures. Below, we could see frothy tide pools, filling and emptying, emptying and filling, like memory, at the mercy of the ocean, at the mercy of the moon. [MORE? WHAT HAPPENED WITH THUMBCUFS? AND DID YOU EVER FIND OUT ABOUT THE RUMOR OF RUSSIAN TAKEOVERS?]","markups":[{"type":1,"start":561,"end":662}]},{"name":"cf69","type":1,"text":"XXX END NEW SECTION XXX","markups":[{"type":2,"start":0,"end":23}]},{"name":"6e5e","type":1,"text":"XXX TK TK ON IMPERIAL IDENTITY // NOVOROSSIYA // RUSS CONQUERING CRIMEA TK TK XXX","markups":[{"type":2,"start":0,"end":81}]},{"name":"9348","type":1,"text":"XXX MISC ROUNDS FROM CRIMEA XXX","markups":[{"type":2,"start":0,"end":31}]},{"name":"70de","type":1,"text":"The day before Crimea’s secession referendum, ON [DATE], a collection of mostly middle-aged men gathered outside the local chapter of the Afghan Veteran’s Union. They wanted to become “citizen election monitors”. They wore dark jackets and red arm bands, and took orders from a graying guy with a clipboard. They did not care what exactly post-Ukraine life would bring, as long as they became Russia (again). “It’s not important that you have light if you’re going home to your mother,” said portly Igor Trushko. “If you’ve been out in Africa in the desert for 10 years and you’re going home, you don’t care whether there will be light. You’re going home.”","markups":[{"type":1,"start":46,"end":55}]},{"name":"1877","type":1,"text":"There was a big bald bearded Bulgarian man who had been invited to monitor the Crimean referendum. He seemed about six foot six and a few hundred pounds. He hailed from an organization called the “Orthodox Dawn,” and said he had extensive experience overseeing elections throughout the Balkans and Eastern Europe (credentials, presumably, but unclear for what — this part of the world is not exactly known for “free and fair” elections). I asked him what he thought of holding a vote under military occupation. “Russian troops, where are they?” he answered. “I’ve traveled yesterday and today. I haven’t seen any Russian troops.” I suggested that he visit one of the many blockaded bases across the peninsula. He did not take kindly to this idea. “When they had elections in Kosovo and the bombs were falling, I didn’t see any of you western journalists running around asking questions! Where were you then?” I gently informed him that I was all of seven years old when NATO went into Serbia. He did not give a fuck: “And you did NOTHING!”","markups":[]},{"name":"7dc7","type":1,"text":"If I had been at home one of those nights, I might have watched Jon Stewart. He did a bit, which I found weeks later, called “Crimean War 2: Ukrainian Boogaloo”. His guest was Kimberly Marten, a Professor of Russian politics from Barnard. Their discussion encapsulated, albeit in simplistic terms, a typical Western reaction to Russia’s seizure of Crimea:","markups":[]},{"name":"2a7c","type":1,"text":"- Marten: “No one can figure out why he [Putin] has taken such big risks for such little gain.”","markups":[]},{"name":"87c7","type":1,"text":"- Stewart: “What I don’t understand about this on a purely economic level is Russia has benefited so greatly from this trade relationship with Europe. And Europe now uses their natural resources and is in some way dependent on it, maybe in a may that we were with the Middle East. Why would they jeopardize this for what appears to be… I just don’t understand what it is that they’re looking for from Crimea.”","markups":[]},{"name":"0de3","type":1,"text":"- Marten: “I don’t understand it either. They’re acting as if it’s still the 19th century and grabbing land matters.”","markups":[]},{"name":"31c9","type":1,"text":"The thing is, it’s not just any land (and human nature hasn’t changed that much since the 19th century). [GREAT]","markups":[{"type":1,"start":105,"end":112}]},{"name":"f999","type":1,"text":"XXX EASTERN UKRAINE BITS FOR LATER XXX","markups":[{"type":2,"start":0,"end":38}]},{"name":"b9ba","type":1,"text":"Sasha Lubenets. Irina Izotova. Aleksandr Politov. Mark Zverev. It is important to speak the names of the dead. Numbers scrub the human from the act — 12 killed, 22 wounded — and ring like a tuning fork, something sterile to measure against. Names spoken aloud have pitch, have cadence, have timbre. I will never forget the first time I heard the name Irina Boevets. We stood in a stairwell IN TK, NEAR TK ETC., IN [MONTH OR DATE ETC.] In a tender whisper: I-ri-na. Half rest. A hoarse breath. Quarter rest. Calando: Bo-e-vetsss. His eyes were still red. He still wore the sea green hospital scrubs. His wife was dead. “Her name was Irina. Irina Boetvets,” Sergey told us. “She was on the balcony. Our next door neighbor was there on her balcony close by. They can see each other there, and were probably just chatting. I closed the car and went up the stairs. Since no one is working while the war is going on, another neighbor was already there as I walked up. She said she heard a crack. A little clap. Probably more like a smack. Like the sound of someone falling.” On May 5th, 2014, a single bullet struck the left side of Irina Boevets’s head. She was not a fighter (she was a teacher, 30 years old). She was at home, more than a mile away from the battle taking place on the outskirts of Slovyansk. If she had taken one step to the side — a difference of half a foot — she might still be alive. This is the new math of the Donbass.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":390,"end":435}]},{"name":"170f","type":1,"text":"As they stacked coffins outside the morgue, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Sasha. [WHO HE?] Bratan. I felt guilty for being happy to see him. (The journalist should be impartial, but at the same time we are dealing with people. Isn’t a contradiction?) We hugged a man hug anyways. Another hand on the other shoulder. Medved. Brother. Another embrace.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":81,"end":91},{"type":2,"start":91,"end":99},{"type":2,"start":316,"end":324}]},{"name":"b041","type":1,"text":"[OK, I SEE THESE ARE BITS, AND WE’LL GET MORE CONTEXT LATER] Medved — “bear” — must weigh over 300 pounds. Tattoos spill out his sleeves and down his arms. He wears his shirt unbuttoned at the top. A giant bear tooth, still sharp at the edges, hangs from a necklace and rests in the cavity of his chest. Yet his eyes are kind, and he has an easy smile, the sort that crests naturally across his face when the conversation turns idle.","markups":[{"type":1,"start":0,"end":61},{"type":2,"start":61,"end":71}]},{"name":"25aa","type":1,"text":"Look to your right: Yuri, incognito in a black leather jacket and black aviator shades. We recognized each other with knowing nods. We walked away from the coffins, around a wall, into a clearing . Where the hell have you been man, what happened? Something about being taken prisoner, four broken ribs, and not feeling pain. A smile. Something about trust. A scowl. Something about fascists and juntas, loyalty and Russianness. This is the new language of the Donbass.","markups":[{"type":2,"start":198,"end":247}]},{"name":"006d","type":1,"text":"THIS WILL BE TERRIFIC. THE READER WILL COME AWAY WITH A MUCH BETTER UNDERTANDING OF THE HEADLINES OUT OF THIS PART OF THE WORLD","markups":[{"type":1,"start":0,"end":127}]}],"sections":[{"name":"fbb3","startIndex":0},{"name":"93cd","startIndex":8},{"name":"f3c9","startIndex":14},{"name":"b49d","startIndex":47},{"name":"686e","startIndex":55}]},"postDisplay":{}},"media":null,"virtuals":{"statusForCollection":"","createdAtRelative":"a year ago","updatedAtRelative":"a year ago","acceptedAtRelative":"","createdAtEnglish":"June 12, 2014","updatedAtEnglish":"June 12, 2014","acceptedAtEnglish":"","firstPublishedAtEnglish":"June 12, 2014","latestPublishedAtEnglish":"June 12, 2014","allowNotes":true,"languageTier":1,"snippet":"Inside an edit","previewImage":{"imageId":"1*wy9K5z2ibqQBwBRcJV7DDg.jpeg","filter":"","backgroundSize":"full","originalWidth":3264,"originalHeight":2448,"strategy":"resample","height":0,"width":0},"wordCount":4168,"imageCount":1,"readingTime":15.928301886792452,"subtitle":"Inside an edit","postedIn":[],"publishedInCount":0,"usersBySocialRecommends":[],"notesBySocialRecommends":[],"proposedAtRelative":"","latestPublishedAtAbbreviated":"Jun 12, 2014","firstPublishedAtAbbreviated":"Jun 12, 2014","emailSnippet":"Привет! (Hi!) ¶\n\nI’m here in Moscow, sipping a double espresso from a blue cup at cafe ‘Good Enough’, listening to a phenomenal mix by Nicolas Jaar, and working away on ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. (As a freelancer, I’m currently living what I call the ‘cafe lifestyle’ — my “office” becomes whichever cafe I choose for the day. Good wifi and strong coffee are the primary criteria.) 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