A Mob of Russians

During the three years that we have been running the Crimewriters' Chronicle blog I have been puzzled, off and on, by a curious statistic. Russians are watching us. Why Russians?

You may ask, how do I know? I know because Blogger offers statistics to the blog administrators. The chart for today is in Figure 1. Look at that. 38 Russians looked in on our blog today. What is it, do you suppose, that they find so fascinating? Not that we don't offer our readers a thrill a minute, but hey, this blog is in English. Show yourselves, Russians! Leave us a comment! Who the hell are you and why are you reading this blog?

As you can see, every now and then I tear myself away from the absorbing work of writing to do geek stuff, like checking on Blogger statistics (not that I can find any useful meaning in them, but it gives me the illusion that I'm on top of things). Always I find the Russians, patiently piling up their pageviews. Then last week I stumbled upon something really strange. I've been quite unable to get to the bottom of it, since Blogger doesn't offer a phone number for support.

It's this: Somebody copied our entire blog from the beginning of 2012 to the week before last, pictures and all (even the pictures I stole! surely this is actionable), and reposted it on another blog called Louise Yvette. The layout is different, but it's our content, with no opportunity to leave comments and no dates on the posts.

Naturally the first people I suspected were those Russians who pay so much attention to a foreign blog that has no relevance to their lives. Russian spambots, I said. Spambots that copy your content and use it to inflate the search engine statistics of the entities whose many links they put at the bottom of your stolen posts.

Thelma suggested that it was Putin himself, looking in on us to further some devious anti-American plot. I would argue that it's the NSA, cleverly bouncing their signals from a secret installation in Moscow. But probably it's neither. Anyway if I start down that road I could wind up like the crazy library cataloger Harold used to know who wore a hat made out of tinfoil to keep the government from reading her thoughts. Hmm. Might not be a bad idea at that. I'll have to try it. Perhaps it will scare people into refraining from ripping off my posts.

Or maybe a simple declaration of my copyright will be enough to do the job.

© 2013 Kate Gallison

The Russian Fan Club

The guy didn't look like any plumber I'd ever met. Stylish tee shirt, pressed slacks, gold chain on his neck as big as a Cartier window display, a fist-sized diamond on his pinkie, he smelled like an ad for Bergdorf for Men!

The gentle giant moved with grace and spoke with such a heavy accent I had to concentrate hard.

After he finished the work in my shower, he glided on his buttery-soft loafers into the hall and studied the book-cover posters I'd taped on the walls. For a launch party in honor of Bob Knightly's debut novel, I'd made photo-copies of the cover and stuck them on the walls and never taken them down.

Bodies in Winter by Robert Knightly.

The plumber, whose name was Boris, told me he was an emigre from Russia and lived now in Little Odessa (Brighton Beach) with what sounded like half the population of the Motherland, all of whom were his close kin.

After close scrutiny of one poster his face lit up. "Ha! Miss Sllubtaw - (Straw does not translate well in Cyrillic) your very fine president! We love Mr. Kennedy. Most great man, yes?"

Plumbers' fees being what they are in New York City, I did not argue, question or correct him.

I quickly realized he saw the capital K and his mind read the familiar K-word to him - Kennedy not Knightly!

"Uh, no, this is a picture of a book by my friend Mr. Knightly," I stammered, trying to steer him toward the front door.

But he stood his ground and waved his arm toward the wall. "Ah, yes, Kennedy – your friend?"

Clearly we were on different mind-tracks.

"Your friend, Robert Kennedy!" he exclaimed, with devotion all over his wide smile.

"You worship the Kennedys in your house," he said, glaring at me with a beatific smile.

"No, my friend's name is Robert. But his last name is Knightly, not Kennedy," I repeated, trying to dig in my memory what you called names in correct Russian grammar.

"Oh, we are being kindred souls," he said, sounding like a Russian orthodox priest pronouncing a benediction, "My family is liking your President Kennedy and his family. My wife she have pictures on house wall of man. We live in Kennedy country now. We are leaving our country many months to live your American dream, now."

I pulled out my purse and fished for my wallet.

He touched my hand gently.

"No charge," he said proudly. "All in the Kennedy family!"

Out of my dim past I found the word. "Spacibo," I said quietly.

How do you follow that act?

Thelma J. Straw