BORIS AND NATASHA IN SIBERIA
By Atana
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"Boris – don't you want to have a little Boris? A little Natasha? Wouldn't that be wonderful! We could rent a cottage on sea of Pottsylvania and teach them to lie and cheat…they would be worst children in world! They would be monsters! Oh, it would be awful! We could be so happy!"
- Natasha Fatale in Universal Studio's "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" (2000)
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One might joke that if things weren't Badenov, just wait a few minutes.
This might have been humorous to Rocket J. Squirrel or Bullwinkle J. Moose (their middle initials being a legacy from their creator), but they were anything but that to Boris and Natasha. Because they had failed to eliminate the plucky heroes of the nineteen-sixties television show, the pair now found themselves permanently ensconced a few hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle.
At the end of Fearless Leader's last thwarted Dastardly Plan ™ (patent pending), the three Pottsylvanian nogoodniks had been sucked up into the Internet. For an indeterminate time, they drifted past innumerable websites, dodging spam and suffering glancing blows from various pop-ups. Finally, they were fortunate enough to be eagerly downloaded by a "Rocky and Bullwinkle" fan girl. It was still more fortunate that she pulled them from the monitor a la Sadako Yamamura from The Ring rather than sending them to the printer, which would have made a mess of her mother's autumn gold shag carpet.
Thus, Fearless Leader – Boris Badenov – and Natasha Fatale became flesh-and-blood people once again.
The three had promptly made their escape from the fan girl's room (there was a brief skirmish with the family dog in the hallway; Boris' fedora would forevermore bear Bedlington Terrier bite marks). They eventually wandered out onto the main highway where they were nearly flattened by a southbound tour bus, ultimately making their way to a theme restaurant.
After a tense and hasty meal of buffalo wings and deep-fried mozzarella sticks (and shortly before stiffing the restaurant for the bill), Fearless Leader promptly exiled both hapless spies to Siberia for lying to him about killing "Moose unt Sqvirrel".
Pottyslvania was too temperate in climate. Fearless Leader wanted Badenov and Fatale to suffer, particularly because the latter had gotten lipstick on the cuff of his pant leg, kissing his feet in begging supplication while pleading with him for their lives.
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To say that it is cold in Oymyakon is like saying water is wet. Located in the Sakha Republic of Russia, Oymyakon is the coldest continuously-inhabited place in the world. On the 26th of January, 1926, a temperature of slightly over seventy-one degrees below zero was recorded. Of course, it was to Oymyakon where the hapless couple had been exiled. Boris became a potato farmer (he occasionally herded reindeer, an activity that painfully reminded him of Bullwinkle) and Natasha finally attained her dream of becoming a stay-at-home mom.
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Natasha had repeatedly shared her feelings on the matter over the long time the pair had been together.
"I been vit you years and years! Vere it get me? Vy couldn't I been Chames Bond girl instead?"
Predictably, Boris had either scrunched his head into his trench coat collar (causing him to resemble an extremely malevolent tortoise) or had muttered "Hau boy!" and slunk into another room. It had done the poor man no good.
"Boris dollink! My time clock goes tick! Tick! Tick! Chust like bomb! One day, kablooey! Dat's it! Game over!"
Boris had managed to sidestep the issue of starting a family until Fearless Leader had settled their proverbial hash for them. Besides, other than trying to keep from freezing to death, there wasn't much else to do in Northeastern Siberia.
Thus it was that Natasha's days of merry widows, Eau de Joy, and opera gloves were over. She couldn't have cared less. After long last, this peripatetic woman had found her true mission.
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Yet, Fate was cruel to Boris and Natasha.
In spite of their parents' worst intentions, the Badenov children had grown into the most admirable of youngsters. They did beautifully in school. They were well-mannered, good-tempered, diligent, thoughtful, and benevolent.
In short, they were everything their parents were not.
"Vere ve go wrong, dollink?" Natasha said to Boris.
"They vill drife me to trink," Boris said to Natasha.
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The children all had names that began with "A" (Natasha hadn't yet started on the "B"s). Aleksandra Borisovna Badenov (also known as Sasha) was sixteen years old, and if the former Soviet Union could have generated a stereotypical inky-haired, multiply-pierced, and black-clad Goth girl, she would be its shining star. Sasha's dream was to win Russia's Next Top Model and to move to a temperate climate.
Aleksei Borisovich Badenov, fifteen, stood much taller than his father, which wasn't saying much. He was a technological whiz kid, able to pick up Internet access from the lone satellite that passed overhead once a day. The enterprising lad had even constructed a computer from the remains of an old crystal radio set, an Etch-a-Sketch screen, and a broken roller skate. He could also pick up satellite TV, but it did him no good. The Badenovs were the only family in Oymyakon that got HBO but couldn't afford a television.
Anna Borisovna Badenov was fourteen, short like her father but fortunately blessed with her mother's exotic looks. Anya (as she was known to friends and family) had a fixation with 'sixties nostalgia and favored bouffant hairdos and go-go boots. She was also quite religious, wearing a gold Russian Orthodox cross around her neck. A large icon of the Romanovs (the Holy Royal Martyrs) also stood in a prominent place in her bedroom.
"Vy ve need holy picture size of electronik board in Times Square Noo Yawk?" Natasha had asked her.
"You vouldn't understand, Mama," Anya had replied. "You and Papa are godless Commies."
Anya had long resigned herself to becoming a mail-order bride someday in order to get the heck out of Dodge, as the Americanskis were fond of saying. Her latest draft letter read:
Dear Amerika man
My nam Anya very nice pretty in nice cold willage good cook make fire milk reindeer dig potatoes clean clothes Want live St Petersburg Florida not Russia pazhalusta near fountin or pretty beach where is warm
thank you many pretty kiss hug
ANYA
Arkadiy Borisovich Badenov (otherwise known as Arek) was just two years old and his scowling little countenance already resembled that of his paternal parent. He was fond of playing with matches and throwing things, which gladdened his father's heart.
"He be big-time bomb tosser sumday, nyet?" Boris had beamed.
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It was another typical day in the Badenov household, er, wooden hut-hold. The place wasn't much; just picture a typical home in Borat's home village, except twice as shabby and a lot colder.
"Raskolnikov! Vy I become human again? Cartoons don't freeze to death," groused Boris, entering the room, shivering with cold and exhausted from trying to hoe potatoes in permafrost. "Wass for dinner, Poopsie?"
"Is buffet tonight, dollink. Potato soup, potato goulash, potato patties, potato knishes, mash potatoes, and potato blintzes. Knock youself out."
"Sveetie Pie, is alvays same t'ing!"
"But Boris dollink! Tomorrow we have horsemeat! Day after, nize bowl snow for breakfast!" Humming Ochi Chornya under her breath, she turned and called, "Sasha! Anya! Aleksei! Your favrit' time day!"
The family assembled around the small and wonky chipped formica-and-aluminum table (after all, they were exiles). Boris, frowning, used his spoon to break the rim of ice covering his potato soup. Splink!
"Pass black bread, pliz," he said to Aleksei.
The boy, always eager to be helpful (Boris winced at his instant compliance), promptly passed the basket. Little Arek squawked and flung a glob of mashed potato across the table, pegging his father on the shoulder.
"You done homevork?" Boris inquired, wiping it away with a smear and giving an approving wink to the toddler, who was now engaged in greasing back his hair with buttered mashed potatoes. Boris reached for a pepper shaker bearing the legend "SOUVENIR OF CHERNOBYL, PRIPYAT" (N. B. Boris and Natasha had gone there for their honeymoon).
"Uf caws I did homevork," Aleksei replied, smiling proudly.
"Too bad," Boris sighed, shaking his head.
"Lookie how cute," Natasha announced, chucking the befouled baby under his greasy chin. "Arek look like Michael Douglas in Vall Street!"
Sasha turned to her sister. "Loan me gold cross?"
Anya sniffed. "Don't go to church, don't get cross."
"But please! Is big dence tonight at club! Got bleck corset, bleck stripe tights, bleck hot pants, bleck waffle-stompers. Need cross!"
"Where you get black corset?" her sister replied ominously.
"Vas Mama's long time ago," Sasha said nervously, aware that she was breaking her mother's confidence. Iron Curtain or not, the Natasha of Old had managed to amass an extensive collection of fancy underthings, none of which still fit her.
"Hau boy," Natasha sighed.
The proverbial barn door was not only ajar, but had swung wide open. "Mama," Anya said decisively. "In trunk I found old purple dress from Sixties. Can I have, or it still fit you?"
"HOO HAH!" Boris fell to the floor, convulsed with laughter.
"Shaddap you mouth, dollink!" Natasha retorted, wounded.
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