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The eXile

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File:Exile136.jpg
Issue #136 of The eXile

The eXile, founded in 1997, is a controversial biweekly English language newspaper based in Moscow. The eXile features a mix of content including satire, press reviews, opinion and polemics, personal stories, and investigative reporting. The eXile also provides perspectives and satire locally tailored to members of the Moscow expatriate community, and publishes a guide to Moscow restaurants and nightlife. The colorful eight year history of the eXile has included many pranks and stunts, a celebrity libel case, and many detractors. The newspaper is currently in its 225th issue.

The eXile is currently co-edited by Mark Ames and John Dolan, and published by Konstantin Boukarev. Since 1998 most issues have been available online in full at the eXile's website.

Creation of the eXile

In 1997 Mark Ames left the English-language Moscow newspaper Living Here to found the eXile. Ames considered the Moscow Times and the Moscow Tribune his main competition at the time. The concept was first proposed by Manfred Witteman, who also convinced Marina Pshevecharskaya to provide $10000 of start-up capital. Ames was initially joined by former Living Here sales manager Kara Deyerin, and Matt Taibbi (then a Moscow Times contributor) was recruited after the third issue as co-editor, but returned to America in 2002.

Ames later wrote that the word 'exile' was chosen as a title for its contextual triple meaning. First, Ames considered himself an exile from California. Second, he intended to lampoon the way Western expatriates complained of the minor annonyances of Moscow life. Finally, Ames was aware of the painful connotation of exile (изгнание or сослание) in Russian culture, and that he was in a some sense "selling the national tragedy as a joke."

Content

Articles published in the eXile articles have focused both on Moscow and Russia related topics, as well as issues of more general interest. Reviews of Moscow nightlife, concerts, and restaurants, commentary on politics and culture in Russia and America, film and book reviews, and mocking replies to its readers' letters appear in most issues.

The Whois lookup for the eXile's web domain, exile.ru, reads: "An alternative nightlife paper providing in-depth reporting combined with an extensive guide to Moscow's night."

Regularly Appearing Columns

(past and present)

  • "The War Nerd," in which self-proclaimed war nerd Gary Brecher provides commentary and analysis of past and present military conflicts.
  • "The eXile's Field guide to Moscow," a description of the stereotypically colorful characters that can be encountered in Moscow, parodying the descriptive style of wildlife or bird-watching guides.
  • "Whore-R Stories," in which Mark Ames describes an encounter with a female prostitute, solicited specifically for the purpose of providing material for the column. While descriptions of sexual performance, body type, etc. are usually included (and sometimes accompanied by a picture), the main column's main focus is usually relaying Ames' impressions of the background, opinions, and personality of the prostitute. The more subtle economic and social aspects of prostitution in Moscow are often an important theme as well.
  • "Feis Kontrol," consisting of impromptu photographs of Moscow nightlife. The title derives from a double transliteration of the phrase 'face control' from English to Russian and back to English.
  • "In Brief," a collection of parodical headlines and short news blurbs in the style of such satirical newspapers as The Onion, typically with the aim of lampooning other news sources.
  • The "Club Guide", a review of Moscow clubs, bars, strip clubs, and other night venues. Each location is given rated as a place to drink, as a place to find casual sex, and on its level of face control.
  • The "Restaurant Guide", a frequently updated review of Moscow restaurants.
  • "Dyev's Diary," in which Lyolya Androsova reflects on the colorful experiences of her Moscow youth.
  • "Press Review," consisting of scathing cricticism of Russian affairs in Western media.
  • "Chess," wherein eXile writers and editors play and analyze chess games against Russian masters (lost) and Russian prositutes (won).
  • "Death Porn," which describes and categorizes particularly gruesome and unusual violent crimes occurring in Russia. This section adopts the graphic and cynical style of Moskovskiy Komsomolets's "Скоро в Номер" section.
  • "Mandela Porn," in which Natasha Marchetti covers violent crime and law enforcement in South Africa, with an emphasis on particularly vicious and dim-witted criminials.
  • "Schoepenhauer Awards," covering the most unpleasant creatures of the animal kingdom, especially human parasites.

Political Coverage and Commentary

American Politics

Edward Limonov and the NBP

The eXile regularly publishes columns by neo-Fascist [1] Edward Limonov [2] who is the founder and leader of Russia’s banned National Bolshevik Party [3] and a felon convicted for purchasing automatic weapons [4].

Material from the eXile is published on the party’s official website – including one article calling Limonov “our hero.” [5] Ames (eXile’s editor) calls the neo-Fascist “The eXile's own Edward Limonov, one of the intellectual leaders of the radical right…” [6] The eXile regularly reports on NBP activities and links to their website (click on the NBP flag) [7] Ames has also published his own original articles in the official Russian-language NBP publication “Limonka (Hand Grenade)”

In one of Limonov’s eXile columns, he explained the strategy behind the NBP terrorist raid on St. Peter’s Church in Riga, Latvia on the eve of the Latvian National Holiday. [8] Four NBP members were later convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to 10-15 years in prison. [9]

In this article, Limonov tried to raise money for the terrorists’ legal defense and included a printed Russian bank deposit form (after asking permission from the eXile’s editors).

Limonov sketched his violent history in his own words in the eXile. [10] and [11], including how he was filmed by the BBC as a “guest sniper” of indicted war criminal Radovan Karadjic, shooting at civilians in Sarajevo. [12]

The Oligarchs

Putin and the Kremlin

Russian Financial Crisis

Ideology

An Audience for Fringe Voices

The eXile prides itself on printing articles from perspectives not often heard or read elsewhere, as elaborated by John Dolan in his 2004 Budapest lecture "Conceived in Sin: The Online Audience and the Case of the eXile." According to Dolan, these subaltern perspectives have been discounted by mainstream discourses as "sinful," irrelevant, disgusting, mysoginistic, or otherwise too objectionable to be heard. In the aforementioned lecture, Dolan gave the example of the eXile's war nerd Gary Brecher as an example of this phenomenon:

"Brecher's sensibility...has found hundreds of thousands of fans online. Every day devoted followers write to the War Nerd, giving homage to the only online voice they trust. Yet Brecher's sensibility could never be admitted either to mainstream journalism or to academic writing."

Dolan, himself a former academic and self-labeled subaltern, cited the attraction of a wide audience as a reason for leaving academia, and what he called its "starchy sensibility," to embrace a life of sin in Moscow. Beyond his own personal choice, however, Dolan proclaimed a central role for his concept of sin in the eXile's ideology:

"By contrast, the eXile was conceived in sin - "and proud of it," as Bart Simpson would say - by refugees from the moral world of the American academic. Its editor, Mark Ames, fled Berkeley to set up his own paper in Moscow, then the sin capital of the world. In 1997, when the eXile began publishing, Moscow was without law - especially libel law."

Dolan was not the first eXile editor, however, to mention the importance of libel in the paper's ideology.

Libel

The eXile has admitted to printing many statements, satirical and otherwise, that would be considered libelous under most legal jurisdictions. In the ideology of the eXile's editors, these statements are justified both by the odiousness of their targets ([13],[14]) and by the inefficieny of ordinary journalism at raising public awareness.[15] This abandonment of journalistic norms for a specific end is a common point with the gonzo journalism style of certain other eXile content.

Former editor Matt Taibbi has claimed that weak Russian libel laws provide a certain immunity to the eXile ([16], see also the book “The eXile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia” by Mark Ames, Taibbi, and Edward Limonov) and Mark Ames has also claimed in his article “Democracy Sucks” that “(W)e'd be sued out of existence within a few weeks of appearing in any Western democracy, but here in Russia, in the so-called kleptocracy, the power elite has been too busy stealing and killing to give a fuck about us, allowing us to fly around the capital beneath their radar, like a cruise missile. A real democracy would never let us get off the ground.” Nonetheless, the eXile was found liable in a 2002 Russian libel judgement (see below).

Contributors

eXile bylines have included:

Pranks, Scandals, and International Incidents

Buns McGillicuddy

To mock face control policies at elite clubs in Moscow, the eXile fashioned their intern into a fictitious international nightclubbing celebrity, Buns McGillicuddy. Creating a fake entourage and an absurd music single "Touch my Buns," eXile intern Jeremy Lanou was allowed into the VIP rooms of Moscow's most elite and restrictive clubs.

Pie Attack on Timesman Michael Wines

In March 2001, in a play on 'March Madness' the eXile setup a single-elimination "contest" to determine who, in their eyes, was the most foul hack journalist in Russia. In each issue, they paired up the previous week's survivors, which were then compared and analyzed side-by-side. The losers were eliminated until only Michael Wines of the New York Times remained. As a result, the eXile decided to pelt Wines in the face with a creamy pie full of equine semen, publishing a narrative of the pelting, complete with photographs, in the following issue.[17]

Kiriyenko Letter Forgery (Meta-Prank)

In July 2004, the eXile claimed responsibility for the "Kiriyenko letter", a forged document purportedly from five US Republican Congressmen which expressed concern over Russia's "democratic transition," and accused former Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko of stealing IMF funds. After the eXile took credit for the letter, Ames was condemned by US Representative Henry Bonilla (R-TX), who demanded that he be punished for forgery. Many media outlets also believed that the eXile had sent the letter. In the next issue Mark Ames retracted his confession, saying it had merely been inserted as filler on production day. Ames wrote that he feared for his safety as a result of these events, drawing a parallel between his own case and that of recently murdered Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov. This episode also earned the eXile a "website of the week award," from the Philadelphia weekly City Paper. ([18])

Detractors, Critics, and Enemies

Throughout its contentious history, the eXile has found several notable detractors, whom it has generally derided in turn. In October 2005 the eXile also published the first eXile Shit List, composed of people and things disliked by its editors. Particularly prominent rivalries have included:

Michael Bass

In September 1997, Michael Bass was the subject of an eXile story entitled Bass: the LDPR's New Hire. The story was published shortly after Bass' appointment as imagemaker for Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a Russian politician of the LPRD party. The story, written by Matt Taibbi with Mark Ames, wondered at Zhirinivosky's choice, and summarized what little was known about Bass' life, including a previous conviction for fraud in the United States. The article recounted much notorious behavior ascribed to Bass by rumor, though at times also expressed sympathy with Bass' persona, and admired his sudden and inexplicable rise in Russian politics.

The authors also recounted a death threat they claimed to have received from Bass, in response to the eXile's syndication of an excerpt from the recently published book "You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again." The published excerpt contained a model's account of her experiences with Bass in Paris, in which she alleged that Bass had promised a runway modelling contract, locked in her hotel room, and demanded she prostitute herself for visiting Arabs. Taibbi and Ames further alleged that Bass called to threaten them in retaliation.

Pavel Bure & the Libel Case

In May 2001, shortly after Anna Kournikova and international hockey star Pavel Bure had broken off their engagement, the eXile ran a satirical story claiming that "Bure dumped Anna Kournikova after he discovered that she had two vaginas." One year later, in "Pavel Bure Kicked our Asses", Mark Ames revealed that Bure had won a civil case against the eXile in a Baumanskaya court. When asked by the judge why Kournikova herself had not filed the claim, Bure responded that "a real man should protect his girl’s dignity."[19] Bure's initial claim was for 2,000,000 rubles, and the final damages awarded were 500,000R (then about $16,400 US [20]). In his column, Ames claimed not to have taken the libel suit seriously and not to have attended the trial past an initial hearing. In accordance with the court's ruling, the eXile published a withdrawal of its previous statement, announcing, "although we do regret the error, we are unable to apologize for it at this time."[21] Bure has stated that he has spent the money on a charitable cause.[22]

Peter Ekman

After the 2000 US election, Moscow Times columnist Peter Ekman praised the US electoral system over the Russian one in "Some Lessons in Messy Democracy". Two weeks later, Matt Taibbi's eXile article "Peter Ekman Groped Me" criticized Ekman's piece as naive and patronizing: "Ekman has only one idea (“Russia has a lot to learn from America”), which he tries endlessly to sell and resell as a varied package of ribald wit and insight." Taibbi also alleged that a sex proposition to an eXile secretary had been made by (the married) Ekman, who denied the accusation (considereding it libelous) in a letter to Johnson's Russia List. His letter claimed that "the eXile is fascist and racist," that "every eXile issue contains unverifiable stories that smear someone's reputation," that the eXile "is associated with the fascist party of Eduard Limonov," and that previously Mark Ames had threatened him with physical violence, written about framing a US official for bestiality, and dressed up as a Nazi on Russian television. Ekman encouraged JRL readers to boycott the eXile and its sponsors.[23]

Michael McFaul

Kim Murphy

The eXile Book

In 2000, Grove Press published The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia, composed of essays by Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi, and a foreward by Edward Limonov. The book described itself (on the back cover) as "the inside story of how the tabloid came to be." The book was printed in the USA by Grove Press and distributed by Publishers Group West.

See also

References

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