Time here flows slowly, in that waking moment beyond consciousness and sleep. You struggle to keep your eyes closed for as long as you can, but alas, the television screen just beyond your field of vision again flickers to life. Is it possible you really went to sleep on the sofa again? You find yourself rubbing your red-rimmed eyes and scanning the room, fumbling for the TV remote. No work in the morning, thank God, so at least there's no shame in staying up this late and binging on the marathon of whatever episodic game show or string of Kaboom commercials is on at this ungodly hour.
Your fingers brush the remote idly, and the screen flickers again.
Most Krasny-Volnans like to imagine that, in the grand scheme of things, their country is well-regarded as the idyllic mountain paradise of spy thrillers and winter vacations, of ski resorts and movie stars, and fresh footprints in the sparkling, unspoiled snow.
"Life in the Grand Duchy of Krasny-Volny has been unpredictable since last week's general elections - the first in over a decade, ended amid recounts and accusations of vote-rigging by all parties and the ruling Popular Front suspended the constitution, arrested the main opposition leader, and declared the election invalid..."
How naively deluded they are.
"Tanks were seen in the street today as the government launched what it described as a massive show of force aimed at discouraging bloody revolution, and which opposition parties attacked as a blatant display of intimidation targeting an already cowed populace..."
Haunting images of hollow-cheeked, hungry, men and women - dressed in ragged, hopelessly inadequate clothing against the cold - standing in ration queues and somber, crumbling, buildings weave a picture of a bleak, bitter, nation struggling to keep afloat through a half dozen interwoven news clips. The veteran anchor's voice takes on a practiced, dispassionate tone as you wearily hit the mute button. Enough of those faces.
What were you thinking, anyway? It's one o'clock in the morning. News at this hour is never good.
Joints creaking, linen rustling, you swing your feet off the sofa and onto the soft carpet below. Even in your sleep-muddled mind you remain acutely aware that the fridge must be somewhere nearby. Yeah, a second nightcap never hurt anybody. The news about that country - Krasnia, Kasnia, Volotovia, Zimbaboozleistania, shit, it's already slipped off the radar - stays with you for a minute, but not much longer than that. The synapses in the human brain can send out anywhere from one to one thousand signals per second. And right now those signals have already filed that information somewhere where even you can't find it, somewhere in one of about a million overflowing cabinets to gather dust until forgotten. Figures. By tomorrow you won't remember any of this anyway.
If you'd taken anthropology courses in college, perhaps you would've recalled the Most Sovereign Grand Duchy of Krasny-Volny as a footnote, an obscure little piece of worthless, resourceless soil where simple peasants eked out a modest living. Perhaps your sister - the humanitarian, the aid worker, the one the family never talks about and spends all her time abroad - had sent you a postcard from there once. Maybe even posing with the large shipments of pencils they were taking to Krasny schools.
But that was it. Nowhere in the grand scheme of things was this country important or significant, not even to scholars of international affairs. It had no industry to speak of. Little diplomatic recognition overseas. Its people and government dwelt in isolation, too fixated on their own petty squabbles and humdrum everyday affairs to appreciate the vastness of the world around them.
And frankly, you felt obliged to return the favor.
You return to the sofa, cold beer in hand, and absently reach for the remote again. The special report on the slow death of a country is replaced by a smiling lunatic mopping up soap scum with a rag and a spray bottle. Life goes on.
M a r c h, 1 9 7 8
The Grand Duchy of Krasny-Volny
A passenger ferry makes slow, unhurried progress down the Krasny River - as it has done every day, for the past hundred years that its destination has been of any administrative or economic consequence. Locals in fur caps and quilted jackets and one or two foreigners, a menagerie of suited businessmen there under the pretense of a scenic vacation plus a handful of mangy, unshaven backpackers, brace themselves against the pitch and the roll of the small vessel as it continues the plodding journey towards the claptrap, haphazard low concrete boxlike structures on the Chorstad wharves and a shallow waterfront that appeared to have been thrown together about two hundred years ago and abandoned to the ice and silt ever since.
This is no country for old men, and although Krasny-Volny looks to be the furthest thing from Yeats' Byzantium to warrant literary description, there are a number of subtle similarities nonetheless. No Grecian goldsmiths touting their precious wares, but plenty of cars, women, drink, and mansions to keep the drowsy nomenklatura entertained when they weren't looting the treasury and robbing their own people blind. Chorstad was small, squalid, and undeveloped, much like the rest of the country, but it had that toxic air of big city corruption you simply couldn't find anywhere else. Beyond its ugly state ministry buildings of recent construction and the more dignified, Romanesque Palace of Justice which dominated the capital's skyline, an immense forest loomed primeval- Mother Nature poised on the edge of civilization, as if watching, waiting to reclaim the land with lush verdure long after the last human inhabitants were buried and their nation forgotten. As the ferry prepared to dock at the wharf, the foreigners cooed at the raw beauty of it all. The biggest trees they'd ever seen, so tall and thick they couldn't see the forest floor. Red too, red like freshly spilled blood, which in turn reflected upon the water and gave the Krasny River its name.
So many trees, centuries old, for the forest here had never been cut for timber.
Chorstad itself was a collection of mostly shuttered and dingy storefronts, so much so it was impossible to actually tell which shops were open and which ones weren't, their shelves barren and dusty within. There was a chill in the air, clouds building on a horizon the color of the river. No gulls or pigeons here. Only crows, their coats slick and shiny like oil, observing the people below from rooftops and power lines. The commercial buildings were dull, weathered brick, the official ministry headquarters and house of parliament chipped, mismatched concrete. They were all situated along Sbitnev Avenue; in fact, the whole city was situated along Sbitnev Avenue, which ran alongside the waterfront. As far as urban planning went, Chorstad was built as a conventional elongated grid centered on Kurkhov Square. On the western outskirts of town Sbitnev Avenue became the Airport Road, at least for want of a better name. Towards the east, it angled south and became National Route 1.
Two major installations on Sbitnev Avenue were the National Bank of Krasny-Volny and the State Broadcasting Corporation. The bank occupied the only building over seven stories in Kurkhov Square, and indeed, in Chorstad; its upper floors housed consular offices, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Directly adjacent to the bank was the building which housed the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Defense. Across the street was the imposing Palace of Justice with its gritty turrets and gables, next to which the three story, boxlike National Assembly building seemed ridiculously ineffectual and inadequate: drab, featureless concrete intended to convey the impression of grim, faceless state authority. The recording studios of the State Broadcasting Corporation were well past the square, on the southern edge of the city where Sbitnev Avenue joined the highway and the more unscrupulous Krasny policemen banded together to set up roadblocks and extort bribes from passerby.
Beyond the de facto city limits, in the outlying suburbs and villages of Chorstad nestled comfortably in the forest's embrace, the weary traveler could catch glimpses of the black and white and blue of the Koroscov Mountains above the treetops, and the opaque, leaden gleam of broad, icy rivers. There, humbler lives were led - where the men, distinct in their leather caps and handsome, gaily hued tunics, scoured the timberland for dead wood for their fires, and the settlements alive with the din of hammering and chopping and singing. Peasant women in their bright scarves mending cloaks or scrubbing them with ash to prevent rot, and scarce girdles and coifs and lengths of cloth and needles and thread being fought over like gold and bartered at inflated values. Here and there graybeards sat in their drab sweaters and medals, veterans of the independence war over twenty years passed. Even beyond the villages thence were the great estates of the aristocratic landowners, relics of the Feudal Age, and further still the picturesque ruins of medieval citadels and basilicas interdispersed with shrines to the saints.
There is a spring drought on this year, as in '76, and the village girls perform the customary rainmaking ceremony - a hangover from the pre-Christian age - to summon the dodolas. Clad only in leaves and garments of expertly sewed vegetation, they wander from house to house, imploring in their singsong lilts for the mistress of the clouds above to answer their prayers. Such rituals, though frowned upon by the policemen and officials whose professions bring them in line with the government's policy of discouraging superstition, are greeted with approval by those of the older generation, perhaps because it harks back to greater (or at least more fantastical) times.
The news wasn’t so different then, either.
March 11 – “Rumblings of Discontent”, Eyewitness Krasny-Volny
Serious rumblings of discontent broke out across the Grand Duchy of Krasny-Volny in early 1978. On February 2 the country’s ruling National Assembly adopted a motion extending Premier Artem Makovetskiy’s term of office for life, which he accepted. The following day the government’s detention powers were extended from forty-eight hours to twenty-eight days or more without charge, and by late February an unofficial state of emergency was in effect following mass protests by thousands of peasant farmers who were told they must accept a 30% slash in prices for agricultural products as part of the premier’s latest austerity budget. Diet staples such as turnips had been given reduced allocations on ration cards last year as turnip prices rose, and long lines waited outside butcher shops for meat and dairy products. The water content of butter was increased to 20% and milk only sold to those on special customer lists, who were public employees in the main. Despite the recent reduction in prices, Krasny citizens could buy little in the shops – their savings in banks have almost doubled since March 1977.
Premier Makovetskiy, 37, was head of the Socialist Krasny-Volnan People’s Congress (SKVPC), which turned nine years old last month. Makovetskiy, through a shrewd alliance with the conservative monarchist movement in Koroscova Province, was swept to power in the April, 1970 elections. Koroscova is the wealthiest region of Krasny-Volny and by far the more populous, with a population of nearly two million. Its monarch, Ulrich XI, who became the first Grand Duke of a unified Krasny-Volny in 1954, had consistently stood against the strong central powers of a national government.
Despite garnering widespread praise for his backing of Makovetskiy, as well as his decision to abolish the absolute monarchy and hold parliamentary elections under a universal suffrage in 1970, Ulrich’s relationship with the SKVPC has become increasingly tenuous. A constitutional crisis arose scarcely four years later when the Grand Duke attempted to retain wider personal powers, including the ducal family’s right to eminent domain. The National Assembly responded by evoking a constitutional amendment granting executive powers to the prime minister (premier)’s office. This resulted in a major falling out between Makovetskiy and the Duke.
In the 1975 elections, Makovetskiy’s SKVPC was swept back into office with 87% of the votes. He took the opportunity to lobby for a new constitution giving the office of premier more exceptionally strong powers, another step in Makovetskiy’s concept of a one-party Socialist state…
The role of the armed forces
The Armed Forces of the Grand Duchy of Krasny-Volny (AFKV) are currently in the process of undergoing a massive reorganization and demobilization campaign as part of the current government's undertaking to alter the ethnic and political composition of the armed forces so as to better reflect the SKVPC's political supremacy. The appointment of partisan officers, often selected for their political connections to the party rather than their competence, to senior positions highlighted a trend of accelerated politicization of the AFKV. Nevertheless, during the annual SKVPC Congress of 1976 Premier Makovetskiy complained that the military was still composed of "reactionary elements" which predated his ascension to power in 1970. He sharply criticized the AFKV for its apparent political inbalance, particularly since two-thirds of the officer corps still owed their careers to the Grand Duke and many were unrepentant royalists. The AFKV's most elite unit - the Ducal Guard, once credited with suppressing dissent to the reigning monarchs and putting down revolutions - also remained composed of partisans handpicked for their allegiance to the ducal family.
Makovetskiy and Defense Minister Yulya Kuzmych set out pulling the AFKV's teeth. They demobilized half the Ducal Guard, renaming it the "Ministerial Reserve" and integrated it with the normal army chain of command. The next step - and the most conspicuous change in the AFKV in the past two years - was reorganizing the officer corps. Makovetskiy claimed that "8,000 old guard" appointees of all ranks were in the army at the end of 1976, and they dominated the officer corps; by January 1978 there were "fewer than 3,000". Among the personnel demobilized for political reasons were a disproportionate number engaged in technical and logistical specialties.
A storm of protest erupted from all ranks of the AFKV, the most common charge being that the army as an institution was being systematically demolished, its cohesion and competence eroded, and its professional standards diluted by the unrealistic promotion of so many politically connected individuals and the equally rapid expulsion of senior personnel - whatever their philosophy with regards to the feuding between Makovetskiy and Duke Ulrich - whose skills were badly needed. Entire battalions were now being commanded by men who had been junior NCOs prior to the reshuffle. Army equipment was becoming unserviceable due to the shortage of personnel with adequate technical training. A new elite unit, 1 Para-Commando was formed as a counterweight to the Ministerial Reserve while its remaining troops were awaiting demobilization or transfer to other units; Makovetskiy insisted they were a fresh stab at forming an elite force without political connotations, while his critics insisted he was merely swapping one "praetorian guard" for another.
It is difficult to say whether the premier was aware of the immense damage he was causing to the morale and conditions in the AFKV; certainly, if history was any indication the SKVPC government was more concerned with maintaining effective security services rather than a military. Policemen and counter-intelligence operatives after all, could be relied on to monitor subversives and crush internal dissent. Krasny-Volnan soldiers, most of whom were conscripts resigned to doing their two years? Not so much. The AFKV regulars, who held royalist sympathies for the most part, were fast becoming extinct.
Defense Minister Yulya Kuzmych was astute enough to grasp and recognize the practical fallout from her and Makovetskiy's reforms, and was likewise aware that if the problems in the AFKV continued, the premier would look for a scapegoat. She tried going to the SKVPC politburo on multiple occasions but was made aware in no uncertain terms that nobody else wanted to hear about failures. As far as the party was concerned, the AFKV was being purged of royalists and other undesirable elements, so there was no issue. It did not occur to them that equipment shortages were acute, the logistical structure of the army had imploded, and that the men were unskilled, undisciplined and badly motivated due to the shortage of senior training instructors. The air force was in better shape, as even the SKVPC politburo was aware that a degradation of quality in the technically oriented air fleet was not worth the political benefits of a similar reorganization effort. However it did not escape the purges unscathed either. Pilots were allowed to remain; the attrition among technical support personnel was much higher.
Like the premier, Kuzmych was an idealist, not a soldier. However she had also served as a judge on the Krasny-Volnan Supreme Court and had been in politics for nearly two decades, under both the monarchist regime and Makovetskiy's new order. She was neither blind nor stupid. The exodus of professional career soldiers due to the purges needed to be relieved by an influx of newcomers. Foreigners - well-trained and well-skilled foreigners, not sbrod from other developing countries, could hold the AFKV together by compensating for the shortage of officers and training and logistical staff, fill in the gaps where needed, and prevent further disintegration of the country's sagging defense capabilities.
Makovetskiy didn't like it.
But then again he didn't like admitting the shortcomings of his pet projects, either.
On February 21 he approved the Defense Ministry's proposal to advertise for foreign troops to serve in Krasny-Volny under contract.
Kuzmych, clever girl that she was, hadn't wasted any time. She already knew where to find some.
