Government cars

So, here Government cars, invariably black Mercedes with blacked out windows, have flashing blue lights on the top, like ambulances. They also have a god given right to break the rules of the road and every evening’s TV news includes at least two reports of high level civil servants getting killed as they scream at 150 mph down the wrong side of the road trying to reach their mistresses in time.

  As with everything in a country riddled with corruption, these flashing lights spread as criminals and general bigwigs pay bribes to have the right to act like maniacs in their turn.

 It got so out of hand that Putin even had to mention it in a speech as the city streets began to resemble an Einstürzende Neubauten concert.

 But lately there’s been an exciting new development: Loud speakers.

The power brokers have started installing huge amplifiers and speakers in the cars for those moments when the screaming sirens don’t do the trick, and the other rich thugs quickly followed suit. You can often hear a sudden cursing rant as some power crazed twat starts screaming at the plebs to get out of the fucking way, and this morning, outside our flat on a main city street it finally turned into a Monty Python routine.

Two blacked out Mercedes come up against each other at the crowded junction and one has to give way. “Get out of the fucking way!” thunders the first, and then the other booms out “Fuck you!” This went on for five minutes of curses and threats and proclamations of power and all at the volume of a Motorhead concert.

I’m on the fifth floor about fifty meters from the junction, but we could hear it as thought they were in the next room.

You get used to weirdness, but just occasionally the absurdity of it all breaks through.

2004