Soft Skull’s Richard Nash broke the news late last week that the eXile, the Mark Ames-edited Moscow alternative newspaper that “shit[s] on everybody equally”, had ran into trouble with the Russian Feds. According to the Moscow Times, “authorities are scrutinizing the English-language tabloid…to determine whether it has violated media laws, a step that could lead to the shutdown of the notorious biweekly.”
This kind of controversy isn’t new: you may recall that in 2006 3:AM reported that Alex Kervey’s Tough Press faced charges in Russia of publishing pornography and “insulting Christian values”, and Ames himself has received death threats over the eXile on numerous occasions down the years.
This, though, could be the final blow for the eXile. Writing in Radar Ames, author of Going Postal - reviewed by 3:AM here - says:
The Exile is shutting down. Last night I met with my Russian publisher to “put one in its brain,” as George Romero’s humans would say. Except that putting this paper down is not so easy—imagine if Romero’s zombies had things like tax bills that can’t be ignored, debts to pay off, favors owed to other important zombies—because you never know when you’ll run into that zombie again.
The partners who’d financed us fled for the hills, leaving my publisher and me holding the debt-bomb in our hands. This is not an easy situation. As a rule, my publisher is unusually easy-going for a Muscovite, but he’s also quite large and intimidating—I mean Baltimore Ravens defensive end large. He also runs a massive nightclub, and, well, let’s just say that my publisher knows a lot of people, including a pal of his who runs the Rasputin Gentlemen’s Club, a multi-floor fleshpot that is everything a male wishes the Winchester Mystery House would have been: rooms that lead to everywhere, to desires and fantasies that you never even knew you had, and that you’ll never admit to the following morning. Rasputin is more than a strip-club and more than a Moscow institution: It’s the apex of a flesh-network, involving scores of smaller, lesser strip clubs that feed into Rasputin like minor league teams feeding into the major league club. For nearly five years, from 2002 to 2007, my newspaper’s office was located in the back of Rasputin’s sex club; when we’d order business lunches during work hours, strippers in see-through negligees and glass high-heels brought Borsch and Kotleti to our offices for a mere 40 rubles ($1.50), leading one American former editor to spasm in dangerous palpitation sweats.
Point being: These are good friends to have, but bad enemies to make.
So when my publisher told me last night, “As far as I see it, the Exile’s debts are yours as well, Mark,” my little saga took a very unforeseen and unpleasant turn.
And then today the media circus finally erupted here in Moscow. What set it off was an article about the Exile’s closing in today’s Der Spiegel, which was translated into Russian for the online media. Throughout the course of the day today, I’ve been deluged with phone calls and e-mails from the Russian media, who have already begun posting articles misquoting me in that special way that only the Russian media can manage.
First posted: Friday, June 13th, 2008.
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