Not an Optical Illusion

The murder of Boris Nemtsov is a non-event.
And the one that I need to write about.

Nothing that happens in Russia surprises me. Nothing that Putin does shocks me. Sometimes the things he says puzzles me (particularly when they are rational, devilishly hypocritical and printed in the NYT op-ed page, because then the riddle is: who wrote this?), but never do I balk at the unabashed thuggery that is Russian power. There is no crime — neither brazen and shameless nor genius and cool — committed in the shadow of the Kremlin, that strikes me as unbelievable.

But when I heard that they killed Boris Nemtsov, I had to sit down.

I’m still sitting.

I’m wondering, why does his murder affect me? Why, after Politkovskaya, Litvinenko, Magnitsky, Yushenko, Markelov and Baburova, do I feel saddened that the Kremlin fears enemies more than it fears blood? Why do I mourn a former politician and one-time power broker more than a crusading journalist or a champion of widows or a hapless whistle-blower? Why, after the outrage engendered by the persecution of Tolokonnikova, Alekhina, Navalny and Khodorkovsky, should I finally sit down to write about the assassination of a guy who could have gone this way at any point since 1997?

The Guardian might tell me because he was “charismatic, good-looking and genuinely popular” (and also wore tight jeans and leather jackets). But I’m inclined to argue that Boris Nemtsov’s charisma went out of style when Yeltsin-era reformers did, even if his good-looks didn’t. And genuinely popular? Among whom? Among the miniscule percentage of educated, opposition-supporting, urban citizens who are old enough to consider him the old-guard of reformists and young enough to forgive him for it? Among glamorous Ukrainian models like the one who was spotted at Nemtsov’s side at the time of his assassination by Kremlin cameras that failed to identify his killers?

The New York Times might suggest that it’s because he was once an “up-and-comer” and his death indicates that the “doors are now closing on the vision of a pluralistic political system of the type he had said he had wanted for the country.” To which I say: Dude. The doors are so closed. And watch your past perfect subjunctives.

I haven’t lived in Moscow for twenty years, so how would I know? How would I know whether fifty-five year-old Nemtsov’s exhortations, imprecations, interviews and tweets of the last five years have endeared him to a populace I no longer know?

Perhaps Nemtsov’s condemnations of the annexation of Crimea as nothing more than a means for Putin to augment his power that would ultimately create “an unrecognized republic with semi-criminal governance”, indeed, made him “genuinely popular,” but I doubt it. There is genuine distress and opposition in Russia about the war in Ukraine, about the forced conscription of soldiers, about the wordless and unofficial disappearance of those soldiers in the Donbas. But that distress does not stem from the fact that the Black Sea beaches are now nominally, as well as culturally, Russian.

Yes, Nemtsov was calling for a rally — a march against war and the financial wreck it has caused. But Putin figured out how to deal with demonstrations in 2012. And no amount of force on Bolotnaya is going to help the poor bastards in Donetsk. Nemtsov is not ignorant about the real source of the government’s financial woes — hell, he was the Minister of Energy once upon a time. Ultimately, he seemed to threaten Putin less this year than he did in 2013, when he defended his native Sochi against the indignities of Putin’s Olympics.

So why the nagging feeling that this time, the loss is greater?

I have to conclude that I grieve for Boris Nemtsov because he was the Russia I once knew. When I was young and the Russian Federation was younger, Boris Nemtsov was lionized in the press as the golden boy. He was “young” (though older than me and the Russian Federation combined). He was smart as well as educated. He was, as one of the new country’s first locally elected officials, both experienced and a democrat. He was also handsome and charismatic. Even if he wasn’t yet wearing tight jeans and leather jackets.

I met Nemtsov twice, interviewed him once, and I admit, I had a crush on him for years. And then I forgot about him for years. It saddens me that this is how he resurfaces, not just in my memory, but in my emotions. Dead on a bridge. Shorn of dignity. And that I will move on and forget him again. I will grow numb again. I will look at that picture of the dress and see white and gold where others see black and blue.