The Random Musings of P.H. Schöevstenki

Read. Think... Then Run.


Installment I | Installment II | Installment III



He's seen it all - held in a Russian prison camp for socialist defectors until his escape in 1957, Petrov has spent his years on the run, using the opportunity to witness what makes people tick...as well as involving himself in many hair-raising adventures-cum-boring anecdotes along the way. Unlike Yemi, Schöevstenki (or as his Ukrainian college buddies used to call him, 'The Big Schöev') is not into answering your questions; rather, he is here to let you reap the benefits of his 80-something years on this Earth... and also to extoll the virtues of dodging the KGB.

Take it away Petrov!!


Installment I

 I was in Paris for a short time after fleeing the internment camp in 1957. I quickly fell in love with the people, the language, the culture and the City of Lights and Love, Paris. But it made me think: if this, Paris, was the City of Love, then what is Hobart?


In Paris I tasted just a small sample of the delightful foods on offer...frog's legs, snails, cr-- No, wait, the food was horrible.


If a group of geese is a 'gaggle', then what pray tell is a group of homosexuals?
Not that I'm a homophobe or anything, but I admit it intrigues me.


My beautiful second wife Gladys (whom I married upon arriving in Worchester, England to gain citizenship after my first wife Svetlana died trying to stowaway with me on a Paris-New York flight) gave birth to our daughter Cora on December 7th, 1961. As I sat there with my wife and held our baby, taking in the wonder of birth, I couldn't help thinking aloud: "Wow...Today marks 20 years since Pearl Harbour was bombed!"
She wouldn't speak to me for a few days after that.


As I type this I'm holding in my left hand a letter I sent to the British Home Secretary in 1966, seeking asylum after the KGB blew up my house in Pittsburgh, USA. Here are some excerpts:
Dear Sari,

I am in recently finding I am recently havink a sotrange reakshion to hermit. Von Von Von-Von Vladivostok. Vladivostok and barrel ma-haha--haha. Anyway, in realizing sutch hayness mistreatment KGB dollarcents lala lala, I'm am requesting a immedijut asylum-seeke to tee Merry Ole gay England. Or evenk Scotland.

In requast requesting this, I fully realizing and axxxcept tee terms of your, you know, your Constitution and al of dthat.

Vot? Yo' do not have conSTICHUSHUN?!!!! Oh yes, ythat is ok. Remind me of ol' Bolshevik daze days.
I am apprecuiatign an expedient reepely, tankyou.

Luv and Soviet hatred,
P.H. Schöevstenki

P.S. Please forgive my poor English.

P.PP.S. Do not tell KGB I am wrighting you, mmm-ok?
Needless to say, I didn't get the asylum I sought first time around. I ended up having a man killed and his citizenship papers transferred to my possession, but that's another amusing story, ok?

Installment II

Back in Leningrad (as it used to be), during my youthful days of subservient communist kow-towing, stealing to feed my family and hopscotch, I learned many important lessons. For example: how to spot a defector and have him readily reported to the authorities for concentration and, eventually, grisly execution. One lesson I didn't learn was to brush after every meal - something that I really regret not knowing earlier.


One thing you really notice in the West is the incredible importance placed on 'celebrity'. This wouldn't be such a bad thing, except that none of today's celebrities can hold a candle to my all-time favourite: Viktor Ulamrinavichaa. He's not so popular in the West, and it doesn't roll off the tongue like 'Britney Spears', but that man had talent.


Back in the 1950's in the old country - before I defected from the system and was hunted down like a diseased dog - I used to work for the State in a research capacity. You know the fellows that used to strap monkeys to rockets and make German Sherperds swallow radioactive isotopes and that sort of thing?... I was one of them. Anyway, one day in 1954 I was experimenting on a small rabbit - I think I was seeing whether squirting acid in its eye would make it flinch - and Henri, an old colleague of mine, came in to tell me that the Americans had just successfully made a cat implode upon itself. Needless to say, we were under pressure from that moment on to better their achievement.


Back in those post-WWII days, the Russian peoples were depressed and impoverished - even as the Soviet 'empire' rode the back of communism into Eastern Europe and Asia. As I looked around at the sad faces, I could not help but ask: "How could these people be sad in a country that gave the world vodka?" I still ask myself that sometimes.

Installment III

As my wife, my new-born son and I fled communist rule for the greener and prison camp-less West, we often encountered the same problem: little food or supplies due to our lack of money and our poor command of English. Thankfully, the language of sexual favours is universal.


It may come as no surprise to readers that I have emptied the odd Russian vodka bottle or two in my time [laughs]. What may surprise you is that I never used to drink the beverage - instead, I poured it all over my body to prevent flesh-eating parasites. For the most part, it worked.


Whilst I'm providing these thoughts and reminisces of mine to a 'web-site', as one calls it, the whole 'internet' and 'computer' worlds are foreign to me. Having said that, I'm still trying to come to grips with the 'electric can opener', so you can forgive me for that.


'If a tree falls in the forest...' Oh, Dear Latvian Orthodox God - are the squirrels hurt?! How big was the tree?!!


Younger people may read my musings and think that I was and am a rather staid, old-fashioned individual. I, however, beg to differ. I went to the cinema recently and saw a film... it was called Pretty In Pink or something like that. Granted, that was around 15 years ago, but I was the 'coolest' man there!


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