The eXile

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The eXile, founded in 1997, is a Moscow-based English-language biweekly free newspaper, aimed at the city's expatriate community, which combines outrageous content with investigative reporting. The eXile has "a clear editorial position. 'Yeah,' says the co-editor, Jake Rudnitsky: 'We shit on everybody equally.'" according to The Independent in October 2006.^[1]

Rolling Stone magazine said in 1998 that then-coeditors "Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi take the raw material of this decadent new Moscow and convert it into 25,000 instantly snapped-up issues of The eXile, consisting of misogynist rants, dumb pranks, insulting club listings and photos of blood-soaked corpses, all redeemed by political reporting that's read seriously not only in Moscow but also in Washington." ^[2] A CNN documentary in 1999 focusing on the eXile agreed, saying, "Brazen, irreverent, immodest, and rude, the eXile struggles with the harsh truth of the new century in Russia...Since 1997, Ames and Taibbi have lampooned and investigated greed, corruption, cowardice and complacency."^[3]

Its history has seen a number of practical jokes or stunts, including reportedly getting Mikhail Gorbachev to enter negotiations to secure a position as "perestroika coordinator" for the New York Jets.^[4]

As of 2006, the paper's readership was 25,000 in print, as well as 125,000 unique web readers every two weeks.^[5] The eXile is currently edited by Mark Ames, John Dolan, and Jake Rudnitsky, and published by Konstantin Boukarev.

Contents 1 Origins 2 Content 2.1 Features 3 Ideology 4 Libel 4.1 Pavel Bure libel lawsuit 5 Edward Limonov 6 Stunts 6.1 Buns McGillicuddy 6.2 Pie attack on Michael Wines 6.3 Kiriyenko letter 7 Contributors 8 See also 9 References

[edit] Origins

In 1997, Ames was editor of the English-language Moscow newspaper Living Here. The concept of Living Here was first proposed by Manfred Witteman, who convinced his wife Marina Pshevecharskaya to provide $10,000 of start-up capital.^[6] Citing Manfred and Marina's "incessant petty squabbles over money and title" Ames quit Living Here and begin planning his own publication. Ames convinced most of the intermittently paid staff of Living Here to defect to the newly conceived newspaper, the eXile, including sales manager Kara Deyerin, and his replacement editor Kevin McElwee. Manfred and Marina hired Matt Taibbi to counter this rebellion, but he became disillusioned after producing one issue of Living Here. Taibbi also defected and became co-editor of the eXile. ^[7]

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 annoyances of Moscow life. Finally, Ames was aware of the painful connotation of exile (изгнание or сослание) in Russian culture, and that he was in some sense "selling the national tragedy as a joke." ^[8]

[edit] Content

Articles published in the eXile have focused both on Moscow- and Russia-related topics, as well as issues of more general interest. Investigative reporting, 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 eXile is known for its descriptions of Moscow life. Andrew Meier, who served as Time magazine's Russia correspondent from 1996 until 2001, was quoted by Rolling Stone as saying: "No one describes expat life in Moscow better than the eXile. They hit it right on its ugly head." ^[9]

As Taibbi remarked in 2000: "We wrote a whole bunch of editorials about the size of Putin's penis," and "[t]he 90s in Moscow were a great time ... like what they say about the 20s in Paris or the early 30s in Berlin. It was completely hedonistic and nihilistic and full of crime." ^{[citation needed]} Drugs were a characteristic of this culture: Taibbi said he wrote most of the book ^[10] on heroin, with Ames adding "A lot of his prose was written on smack and a lot of mine was written on speed" (New York Observer, June 19, 2000).

[edit] Features

(past and present)

• "Whore-R Stories," in which Mark Ames describes an encounter with a prostitute, solicited specifically for the purpose of providing material for the column. Ames includes descriptions of her sexual performance, and body type (and sometimes includes a picture), and focuses on the background, opinions, and personality of the prostitute, as well as the economic and social aspects of prostitution in Moscow.
• "Death Porn," which describes and categorizes gruesome and unusual violent crimes occurring in Russia. This section adopts the graphic and cynical style of Moskovskiy Komsomolets's "Срочно 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 criminals.
• "Gandhi Porn" in which Alexander Zaitchik covers and reflects on news from India.
• "SIC," contains letters to the editor and the eXile's response.
• "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.
• "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 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.
• "Press Review," consisting of criticism of the coverage of Russian affairs in Western media.
• "Schoepenhauer Awards," covering the most unpleasant creatures of the animal kingdom.
• "Chess," wherein eXile writers and editors play and analyze chess games against Russian masters and Russian prostitutes.
• "Dyev's Diary," in which Lyolya Androsova reflects on the experiences of her Moscow youth.
• "Kino Korner / Kino Kwikeez," which is a review of films currently running in Russian and English language cinemas, as well as a rundown of popular pieces selling at pirate kiosks.

[edit] Ideology

According to John Dolan, the eXile publishes articles from perspectives not often heard or read elsewhere. [11] He has referred to eXile columnists as "subaltern," claiming they have been discounted from mainstream discourses as "sinful," irrelevant, disgusting, mysoginistic, or otherwise too objectionable to be heard. As an example, Dolan referenced Gary Brecher:

"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 has cited the eXile's audience as a reason for leaving academia and what he called its "starchy sensibility," and 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."

Additionally, the eXile aims to publish articles about Russia from outside the perspective of mainstream western journalism. According to editor Jake Rudnitsky western reporting on Russia is often biased: "Western newspapers have an agenda, to show that everything in Russia is related to oil prices, and that Putin's this competent but quasi-fascist leader. They don't have the freedom to go out and actually find out what's going on."^[12] Rudnitsky has also stated that the eXile aims to give a more detailed view of Russia than is available in the western press: "We can write about things that Western journalists are too lazy or apathetic to write about...what makes this country fascinating is the details, and that's something we're allowed to focus on."^[13]

[edit] Libel

Former editor Matt Taibbi has said that operating a periodical in Russia was much easier without the burden of American libel laws.^[14] Similarly, Ames asserted in his article “Democracy Sucks” that “we'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.”[15]

Some have interpreted these statements as an admission that the eXile freely engages in libel. Others interpret these remarks as a criticism of western libel laws, suggeting that these laws are too easily abused by the powerful to suppress marginal viewpoints. Spy, an inspiration of the eXile, needed to employ a team of lawyers to defend against libel allegations -- a contributing factor to Spy's bankruptcy.

[edit] Pavel Bure libel lawsuit

In 2001 the eXile published an article claiming hockey star Pavel Bure broke up with Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova after discovering she had two vaginas. Bure successfully sued the eXile under Russian libel law for 500,000 rubles (about $16,000 US ) in damages.^[16] The eXile claimed that the original article was a parody and suggested Bure's influential status may have compromised the judgement.[17] In 2005, Bure launched a similar suit against the perfume chain Arbat Prestige.^[18]

[edit] Edward Limonov

"The eXile" regularly publishes columns by the politician, Russian dissident, and avant garde writer Eduard Limonov. Limonov is the founder and leader of Russia’s banned National Bolshevik Party.^[19] In 2002 Limonov was imprisoned on felony charges of purchasing automatic weapons and explosives, but was released halfway through his four-year sentence at the request of several members of the Russian Duma who protested that the case was politically motivated. ^[20][21] In his "eXile" column, Limonov has described several violent episodes from his personal history.

[edit] Stunts

[edit] 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.[22]

[edit] Pie attack on Michael Wines

In March 2001, "the eXile" setup a single-elimination contest to determine who, in their eyes, was the "most foul hack journalist" in Russia. [23] In each issue, they paired up the previous week's survivors, who were then compared and analysed. The winner, New York Times Moscow bureau chief Michael Wines, had a cream pie allegedly made from equine semen flung into his face by Matt Taibbi.^[24]

[edit] Kiriyenko letter

In a July 2004, an eXile article entitled "We Dunnit! the eXile Prank Hits Halls Of Domer" claimed authorship of the "Kiriyenko letter", a forged document purportedly from five U.S. Republican Congressmen which expressed concern over Russia's "democratic transition," and accused former Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko of stealing IMF funds. After claiming to have forged the letter, Ames was condemned by U.S. Representative Henry Bonilla (R-TX), who demanded that Ames be "prosecuted" and "punished" for forgery.^[25] Some US media outlets also believed that the eXile had sent the letter.^[26] After the letter was printed verbatim by Novaya Gazeta, both it and the eXile's claim of responsibility were covered by Russian news media.[27][28][29] Kiriyenko won a libel suit against Novaya Gazetta on the grounds that the paper had not fact-checked properly.[30] The episode also earned the eXile a harsh critique from Novaya Gazetta^{[citation needed]} and a "website of the week award," from the Philadelphia weekly City Paper, while the Moscow newspaper Kommersant Vlasti, which believed Ames' claim of responsibility, called him a "hero of Russia."[31][32]

In the next issue, Ames clarified that the contentious article was a joke, saying it had been inserted as filler on production day.[33] In columns for the eXile and Metroactive, he wrote that he had been followed and harassed as a result of the claim, and that he feared arrest or violent reprisal.[34]

[edit] Contributors

• Mark Ames
• John Dolan
• Mark Greuter
• Edward Limonov
• Jake Rudnitsky
• Matt Taibbi
• Kevin McElwee
• John Heisel
• Kirill Pankratov
• Thierry Marignac
• Dan Higgins
• Denis Salnikov
• Gary Brecher
• Alex Shifrin
• Jared Lindquist
• Hannah Katz
• Yasha Levine
• Alexander Zaitchik

[edit] See also

• The Hungry Duck
• Gonzo journalism
• The Beast (newspaper)

[edit] References