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Yeltsin, Pinkie, and the Long Road to Petersburg
Chapter 1: The Post-Election Pony-Crisis of 1996
Location: Offices of the Communist Party, Saint Petersburg, Leningradskaya Oblast, Russian Federation
Date: July 12th, 1996
Time: 7:20 PM
“No… No, please, I’m sorry! Get that thing away from me!”
Gennady Zyuganov, chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, awoke in a cold sweat, nearly vaulting off the seat in which he had fallen asleep.
“Where is she!? Where’s the pink pony with the cannon!?” Zyuganov asked as he frantically looked all about the office. His heart pounded at the walls of his chest, and his hands shook uncontrollably. When it finally became apparent that he was alone at his desk, he sighed and reclined in his chair, realizing that the bizarre events that had just transpired were actually nothing more than a bad dream.
But it was such an odd scene... Zyuganov dreamt that the Moscow offices were under attack, and, one by one, influential politicians of the Party were being taken down with custard pies, fired with staggering velocity from the bore of a small, blue cannon. The uncanny weapon was being operated by a little pink pony with a poofy mane. This pony sought to punish the Party for what it had done to the Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. She wheeled her cannon closer and closer to Zyuganov as he backed away in fear, and just as the weapon fired, Zyuganov awoke to find that it was all in his mind.
Yes, everything was coming back to him now. He had been working since 6:00 AM and had unintentionally fallen asleep in his office. After a long day of conferences, he had spent hours alone in his office, debating the Party’s next move with respect to Yeltsin’s “pony situation.”
“All I’ve heard about for the last day and a half is Yeltsin and his talking ponies,” Zyuganov sighed. “Now, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m having dreams about them. Pink ponies, tiny cannons, and custard pies. Am I starting to lose it, too?”
The mid-90s were strange times in Russia, but Yeltsin’s recent episode was more bizarre than anything of which Zyuganov had heard in the recent years. During the early hours of July 10th, two militsiya officers found an inebriated Boris Yeltsin running down the streets of Barvikha, a village on the outskirts of Moscow that contained the presidential dacha. The president of the Russian Federation was wearing nothing but a pair of pajama pants as he frolicked about, deliriously shouting up to the sky about a pink pony. They rushed Yeltsin to the hospital, convinced that he had completely lost his mind.
All the while, Yeltsin repeatedly insisted to the doctors and officers that colorful ponies had appeared in the office of his dacha. He claimed that they could talk. He said that one had wings and could fly like the Pegasus of legend, and that another possessed a unicorn horn and used it to work some kind of magic. Naturally, no one believed him.
Everyone at Barvikha did what they could to keep the situation quiet, as Yeltsin didn’t exactly have a spotless record when it came to public episodes and drinking. Unfortunately, it did no good. Several workers at the hospital were supporters of the Communist Party, and worked quickly to provide the communists in Moscow with official documentation and photographic evidence of the scene at the Barvikha Sanatorium. Zyuganov, meanwhile, was working at the Saint Petersburg branch of the party offices, and was being informed of the situation as news came in.
If publicized, the episode had the potential to ruin whatever shreds of credibility Yeltsin had left and thwart his victory in the recent 1996 presidential election. The Pravda newspaper offices had received the information, and the drafts of the articles had already been written and sent to Zyuganov for review. All he had to do was say the word, and the street corners of Moscow would be piled high with issues of the communist gazette that could end Yeltsin’s career. If all the planets were in alignment, the Communist Party could jump from majority in the State Duma to total control of the Russian Federation. And if that happened, they would try to restore the Soviet Union.
Gennady Zyuganov adjusted his tie as he stared at the articles on his desk, among which was a photograph of a deranged-looking Yeltsin on a gurney, fighting with doctors and nurses. For some unknown reason, a nagging nervousness at the back of his mind made Zyuganov uncomfortable with the publication of the story. What would the public think? The Pravda newspaper had lost a sizeable amount of its credibility in the recent years. If they published a story about Yeltsin’s pony episode, would anyone believe it, or would they simply write it off?
Zyuganov rubbed his eyes and reached for the telephone on his desk. He punched in the number of his trusted campaign manager, Valeriya Boldireva, and waited for her to answer.
The phone was lifted from the hook, but shortly thereafter sounded as if it had been dropped. Zyuganov heard a grunt from the other end of the line and a series of clicks and thumps before the weary voice from the other end finally answered,
“Allo .”
“Comrade Boldireva. It’s Zyuganov.”
“Still at the office?” Boldireva asked.
“Yeah, and I just dozed off,” Zyuganov replied. “Listen. When you get to the offices tomorrow, I want you to call the Pravda editors and tell them put the Yeltsin story on hold.”
“What ?” Boldireva was in disbelief. She thought she had misheard Zyuganov.
“Look, I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’m not entirely sure that we should publish anything about Yeltsin’s ponies just yet,” Zyuganov continued. “Let the editors know that all bets are off until my comrades and I return to Moscow and meet with the rest of our constituents.”
“But we’ve already arranged plans with the distributors,” Boldireva explained.
“Then cancel the plans with the distributors. Tell them there’s no green light until we get back to Moscow.”
“But Gennady Andreyevich… so many people are expecting-”
“I don’t care who’s expecting what,” Zyuganov snapped, cutting her off. “If they question anything you tell them to do, let them call me here in Petersburg and I’ll set them straight.” Valeriya Boldireva hesitated on the other end of the line. “Look, I know that everyone wants to jump on top of Yeltsin and this pony thing, but… I’ve got this nagging feeling about it. If we get too cocky, the whole thing might explode right back in our faces.” Valeriya’s sigh came through the receiver.
“Alright. I’ll take care of it when I get to the office.”
“Thank you, comrade Boldireva,” Zyuganov responded. “I’ll let you go, then. Goodnight.”
“Night.”
Zyuganov put the phone back into its cradle and turned to the window. The skies over Moscow were surely dark by now, but far north in Saint Petersburg, the White Nights of the summer months made darkness an impossibility. The courtyard of the apartment block next to the communist party offices appeared almost as bright as it did during the day beneath an almost unworldly blue and white sky.
“Ugh. It makes you feel like you’ve accomplished nothing,” Zyuganov said aloud as he thought about the neverending daylight of the summer months. “You work for twelve hours, see it’s still light outside, and it seems like the day is only half-done, yet you’re ready to collapse into your bed.”
Zyuganov pushed the chair back from his desk and rose to his feet. With his arms folded across his chest, he slowly made his way toward the painting of Lenin that hung in the far corner of the room.
“What do you think, Vladimir Ilyich?” Zyuganov jokingly asked the painting. “What do you make of everything that’s happened to Yeltsin? You know. Thinking he saw talking ponies and everything.” The painting, of course, remained silent. “Hey, I don’t blame you,” Zyuganov laughed. “I’m speechless, too. Yeltsin was never the brightest bulb in the box, but now it looks like that feeble, peanut-sized brain of his just tore itself in two. Unicorns, magic and rainbows… What has he been drinking lately?”
At that moment, Zyuganov felt an odd sensation overcome him as a mysterious sound was heard from the hallway outside his office. The building shook, albeit gently, and a couple of books were knocked off Zyuganov’s shelves. The door leading into the corridor was closed, but a strange light suddenly began to emanate from underneath.
“What the hell’s going on now?” Zyuganov asked, watching the strange glow from under the door.
He marched over, grabbed the doorknob, and threw open the door to the hallway, but was forced to bring up his hand and shield his eyes from the blinding light in the corridor. Though Zyuganov could barely see it, a figure was walking toward him through the unearthly glow. It drew nearer and nearer, causing the communist to stagger back toward his desk as he muttered,
“Sweet mother of Lenin…”
* * *
Location: Горки-9 Presidential Dacha, Barvikha, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation
Date: July 12th, 1996
Time: 8:20 PM
“...so my counterparts and I cough up millions of roubles, lend support from our television networks, and put our blood, sweat, and tears into your goddamned election campaign. And you know what? It worked . By some act of God, it worked , and we brought you back up from nothing !” Boris Berezovskiy roared as he strode angrily around president Yeltsin’s office. “But now, everything we did is going to be destroyed from the ground up. And why? Because of goddamned talking ponies ?”
Yelstin, seated across the room behind his desk, was frozen on the spot as he watched the angry oligarch pace around in rage.
“I don’t have much hair left on my head, Yeltsin,” Berezovskiy growled as he pointed at his balding scalp, “but I’ll be lucky if I have any left by the end of the week !”
“Boris Abramovich… you have to believe me!” Yeltsin begged from across the room. “I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried! The ponies were real ! And they were here, in this office! On the same spot where you’re standing right now!”
“You were pumped full of vodka, Yeltsin. Hell, I’d bet that there was more liquor in your veins than blood!” Berezovskiy shouted as he charged over to the president’s desk. “It was the drink! Don’t you get it?”
“It wasn’t the drink…” Yeltsin stuttered as he shakily rose to his feet. “They appeared before I drank anything… The purple one with the unicorn horn… the golden one with the pegasus wings… and the pink one, the carefree little pink pony that made me happier than I’ve been in years...”
“Damn it, Yeltsin, do you realize how idiotic you sound? You’re lucky that they let you out of the sanatorium after only one day!” Berezovskiy shouted. “If it were up to me, I’d have kept you locked up for a month !”
“I know it’s crazy… but it’s true ,” Yeltsin mumbled as he came around the desk and grabbed Berezovskiy by the shoulders. “I didn’t believe my eyes when I first saw them. But then they touched things around the room… the pink one started to eat my kasha… I could feel changes in the air when the purple one waved her horn around... Boris Abramovich… they were all real, as real as you and I.”
“The only thing that’s real is the impending consequence of all this bullshit !” Berezovskiy seethed, shoving Yeltsin back. “At least six of the hospital’s employees were loyal to Zyuganov and the communists. At least six. Maybe more. They hand-delivered all the juicy details about your psychotic breakdown to the communist party!”
“You told me a thousand times!” Yeltsin cried as his hands caressed his temples.
“I expected to wake up this morning to find Zyuganov having a field day, delivering a speech about this whole mess! I expected to see stacks of Pravda gazettes with your face on the front page. It’s a goddamned miracle that an entire day went by without any mention of your crazy-ass pony-psychosis on any communist media outlet. It’s mind-boggling as to why he didn’t jump on the issue. If I were in his shoes, I sure as hell would have. But how much time do we have left before he does?”
“We’ve got a few guys talking to the communists,” Yeltsin said. “They’ve threatened that if the story is released, we’ll start publicizing some of the dirt we’ve got on Zyuganov.”
“We don’t have any dirt on Zyuganov!” Berezovskiy screamed.
“It’s a bluff.”
“And what if they call the bluff ?”
“I don’t know, Boris Abramovich! I don’t know !” Yeltsin cried as he leaned against one of the office windows.
“Listen to me, Yeltsin,” Berezovskiy called to him from across the room. Boris Yeltsin turned to find the oligarch at the door that lead to the upper-story vestibule. There was no knob to grab - Yeltsin had destroyed it during his frenzy. Boris Abramovich Berezovskiy pointed menacingly at the Russian president. “When your first term tanked, we saved your miserable ass. But if the whole of the Russian Federation becomes convinced its president is a lunatic, I’m not sure we’ll be able to save you again. We’re not miracle workers.” Berezovskiy opened the door and was about to step out, but instead hesitated and looked back at Yeltsin with a smirk. “But that’s okay. You don’t need miracles. After all, you can just ask your unicorn friend to wave that horn of hers and work a little magic. She’ll fix everything.”
The Russian president could not find the words to reply.
“Shape the hell up,” Berezovskiy ordered before leaving the office and slamming the door.
Yeltsin sighed and looked around his office, still in disarray from his intoxicated breakdown that had transpired two days prior. The books from his shelves littered the floor. The painting of Alexander Nevskiy on the far wall was still covered with globs of custard from where Yeltsin had pied it in the face. A wooden board had been taped in place over the pane of a window that the president smashed in his fit of inebriated rage. He looked through the good pane of the glass at the street below, where an enraged Boris Berezovskiy, one of the key backers of Yeltsin’s campaign, was storming over to his car.
Once again, it seemed that things were falling apart, and the stress wasn’t helping Yeltsin’s poor state of health.
“Just when things start getting better, they break down again,” Yeltsin told himself as he unsteadily made his way back to his desk chair. “He’s right. It is a miracle that the communists haven’t already publicized anything.”
Yeltsin leaned on his desk and buried his head in his arms.
“I’m on borrowed time. But what am I supposed to do now?” he said into the desk. After a moment, he picked his head up. “Hey, I could just blame it on the pensioners! That always worked before! It’s not like those morons would vote for me either way.”
But before Yeltsin could devise a way to effectively blame the situation on Russia’s pensioner voting block, a bright flash suddenly filled the office. The president squinted through the blinding light as it faded, and before he could reopen his eyes wide enough to see anything, he heard a someone speak.
“Twilight! You did it! We’re back in the office!”
“My God…” Yeltsin gasped.
He knew that voice. It belonged to a little pink pony with a poofy mane and a spring in her step. Slowly, Boris Yeltsin was able to open his eyes. And there they were, three little ponies in the office of the Gorki-9 Presidential Dacha, just as they had been two days earlier.
“Oh no…” moaned the wide-eyed Russian president, sitting straight up in his office chair as he clutched the arms of the seat with trembling hands. He wasn’t sure if he was excited or terrified. “The ponies… they… they’re back again…”
Yeltsin, Pinkie, and the Long Road to Petersburg
Chapter 2: The Rabbit Hole Deepens
Location: Горки-9 Presidential Dacha, Barvikha, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation
Date: July 12th, 1996
Time: 8:35 PM
“Hiya, Mr. Boris!” Pinkie Pie called, waving pleasantly to the convulsing man at the desk in the corner of the room. But her hoof stopped in midair as she looked about the trashed office in confusion. “Wow, this place turned into a real dump. What the heck happened in here while we were gone?”
“H.. hel… hello, pink pony,” Boris Yeltsin stuttered as he weakly returned the wave. “Wait… no. No!” Yeltsin gasped as he jammed his eyes shut and caressed his temples. “Get ahold of yourself, Yeltsin. Remember what they told you at the hospital. Remember what Berezovskiy said… The ponies aren’t real. They’re all in your mind. Tell yourself that they don’t exist, open your eyes, and they’ll all disappear.”
The president slowly opened his eyes to find Pinkie sitting on his desk.
“Blyad’ !” Yeltsin screamed as he tried to push his seat away from the desk. The chair fell backwards, taking with it a flailing Russian president who toppled to the floor.
“Oh great, he’s afraid of us again,” Twilight moaned as she proceeded toward the president’s desk with Fluttershy.
“Come on, Mr. Boris, did you really forget everything we talked about last time?” Pinkie asked with a giggle. Yeltsin, still wide-eyed and timorous, was struggling to climb to his feet.
“Reality itself is breaking down,” Yeltsin stammered. “I’m losing my mind. I need a stiff drink.” He staggered toward the server covered with liquor bottles that stood by the wall, grabbed a half-filled bottle of vodka, but stopped before he opened it. “Wait. Don’t do it, Yeltsin,” he said aloud as he left the bottle on the server and backed away. “Remember what happened last time. Shirtless in the street at 2 AM in the morning.” He turned around, leaned on his desk, and let his head hang down. “I… I need to…”
“Aw, what’s the matter, Mr. Boris? Do you need another hug?” With that, she hopped to the other end of the desk and threw her hooves around the distraught politician, just as she had done during the final moments of their previous visit.
Suddenly, Yeltsin felt that distinct sensation again. It was the warmth and happiness that he had been without, but desperately needed, during the four long, trying years of his first term. There was that strong, vibrant heartbeat of a happy little pink pony that could put perhaps even the largest, most loving human heart to shame. And unlike the last time, where half a bottle of vodka was coursing through his veins and distorting reality, he knew that there was nothing imaginary about Pinkie Pie. Everything he was experiencing was unquestionable reality.
“They… they were wrong. All of them. They’re... so horribly wrong…” Yeltsin whispered. The Russian president suddenly wrapped his arms around Pinkie Pie, lifted her right off the desk, and gave her a tight squeeze. “Ahah! I knew it! I knew I didn’t imagine it!” Yeltsin shouted happily, almost on the verge of tears. “I knew I wasn’t crazy! You’re as real as anything else in this room!” Yeltsin danced out from behind the desk, spinning Pinkie Pie around in the air as Twilight and Fluttershy stepped out of the ecstatic president’s path.
“Well, that’s one way to get him to come around,” Twilight said to Fluttershy as they watched Yeltsin cavort with joy.
“You’re all real!” Yeltsin said. “I just knew it! You, the pink pony with the cannon!” He let Pinkie hop down to the floor as he turned and pointed to Fluttershy. “And you! The golden one with the pegasus wings!” Then, Yeltsin pointed to Twilight Sparkle. “And you, the unicorn with the attitude!” Twilight rolled her eyes. “I was right! I’m not crazy!”
“I don’t know about that last part,” Twilight grumbled under her breath.
“But wait,” Boris Yeltsin said as he put a hand to his head. “You said you all were going back home. You said you were heading back to… what was it? Ponyville? And then you disappeared from the office. And now you wanted to come back?”
“Not exactly,” Twilight sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Well I’m all ears, my little friends,” Boris Yeltsin said as he motioned for the three ponies to follow him over to the other side of the room to the sofa and chairs around the small glass table in the corner. “Tell me, please. What happened?”
“We never made it back home,” Twilight said as she flopped down on one of the sofa cushions. Much like the first time she appeared in the office, the unicorn was completely worn out. Fluttershy hovered over and sat beside her as Yeltsin made his way to one of the chairs with Pinkie hopping behind him. “I’m starting to worry that we’re all stuck here.”
“But… where did you go?” the Russian president asked as he took a seat in one of the single chairs. Pinkie took the seat next to Yeltsin. “You were gone for a whole day. No, even more!”
“We ended up in a really creepy place,” Fluttershy explained. “Twilight’s spell didn’t work, and we just poofed into a dark alley in between a bunch of tall buildings.”
“Huh. I guess you ended up somewhere in Moscow proper,” Yeltsin surmised. “I hope you didn’t try to cross any streets. The traffic in Moscow is legendary, and nobody knows how to drive. They’ll run you right down.”
“We stayed in the alley for a while,” Twilight continued, “but we had to find somewhere else to go when a bunch of guys came out of one of the buildings.”
“They were scary, Mr. Boris,” Fluttershy said, shuddering as she talked. “They were loud and crazy, and we didn’t know what they’d do if they saw us. So we ran around, trying to find somewhere to hide for the night, and eventually we found a spot under some giant pipes on the side of one of the streets.”
“Giant pipes by the roadside?” Yeltsin asked as he loosened his tie. “Tell me, was there some big factory out there somewhere? Lots of stacks pumping out smoke?” Fluttershy nodded in response.
“Yeah, that place reeked,” Pinkie added.
“And these people in the alleyway… What were they wearing?” the president inquired.
“They all had tracksuits and really shiny shoes,” Fluttershy said.
“And beanie hats!” Pinkie added.
“And they weren’t just in the alley,” Twilight said. “There were a bunch of them hanging around those pipes, too. We had to walk around for a while before we found a clear spot.”
“Christ, you ended up in Kapotnya,” Yeltsin groaned as he reclined in the chair and looked up toward the ceiling. “The pipes by the roadside, the smoke… it must have been the refinery at Kapotnya. Of all the places in the city, it had to be the armpit of Moscow. It’s a disgrace. A dump. Nothing there but a bunch of frigging gopniks.”
“What?” the three ponies asked in unison.
“The guys in the tracksuits,” Yeltsin elaborated. “They were gopniks. A bunch of lowlife morons that loaf around all day smoking cigarettes and guzzling energy drinks. They reek of shaurma and blast their crap techno music everywhere they go. Damn, you three were lucky you didn’t get knifed.”
Twilight, Fluttershy, and Pinkie exchanged confused glances.
“Look, anyway, what happened after you hid behind all the pipes?” Yeltsin asked them.
“Well, we had to wait around until Twilight was able to cast the teleportation spell again,” Fluttershy said. “She was really drained. It took almost a full day.”
“Trying to teleport around here is one of the most exhausting things I’ve ever tried to do,” Twilight sighed. “It drains magic like nothing I’ve ever felt before, and it takes me way longer to get it flowing again.”
“So Twilight tried another spell to get us back home, but we just ended up in the woods somewhere,” Fluttershy informed the president. “And the weird thing about it was… It was late afternoon when she tried to teleport again, but when we appeared in the woods, it was nighttime.”
“Yeah, that was crazy,” Pinkie added. “It was like five hours passed in five seconds.”
Yeltsin found himself amazed once again, just has he had been when Pinkie Pie had told him about Equestria during their first meeting. As if the unicorn’s ability to transport from place to place wasn’t already fascinating enough, it seemed that time was being traversed in addition to distance, and inadvertently, at that.
“So then what happened?”
“Well, we had to wait for Twilight to get charged up again. But instead of trying to go back home, she tried to come back here.” Fluttershy said as she shifted in her seat on the cushion and stretched a wing.
“I figured that this would be the safest place to go,” Twilight said to the president, adding quietly, “even if it meant putting up with you again.” Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes and rolled onto her back. “Surprisingly enough, it was easier to get back here. When you teleport, you have to envision the destination and see yourself on the other side. Whenever I tried to get back to Ponyville, the visions were cloudy. I tried as hard as I could to put myself there in my mind, but I just couldn’t do it. Then, when I thought about coming back here, it was crystal-clear.”
“And here we are!” Pinkie said to the president as she threw her hooves up. Yeltsin leaned forward and shook his head. An incredulous smile was plastered on his face.
“Incredible,” he said. “Absolutely incredible. Hell, I still can’t believe you appeared at Kapotnya.”
“Can we stay here with you for a little while? Twilight's still trying to figure out how to get us back home,” Fluttershy asked.
"Of course, my little friends, of course!” the president said with sincere concern in his voice. “You know, I’m glad you’re back. Things haven’t exactly been sunshine and rainbows over the last two days for me, either.”
“Aw, what’s wrong, Mr. Boris? Did that Zooganzo guy make you cry again?” Pinkie asked Yeltsin.
“Hah, no, Zyuganov hasn’t done anything… yet,” Yeltsin groaned as he rested his head on his hands. “After you left two days ago, nobody believed me when I told them what happened. They took me to a hospital. Claimed I was crazy when I tried to tell them about you three. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, some of the employees - a bunch of lousy pensioners, no doubt - informed Zyuganov and the communists about the whole thing. Now he wants to tell the whole country about it, convince them that I’m insane, and get me impeached.”
“A peach?”
“No, pink pony. Impeached. Kick me out of office so he can be the new president.”
“That’s terrible!” Pinkie cried with her hooves over her mouth.
“But it could happen very soon,” Yeltsin murmured as he reclined in his chair once again. “And at this point, I have no idea what I could possibly do to…” The president’s voice trailed off as a stupefied look appeared on his face. Slowly, he sat up in his chair and looked each pony in the eye one by one.
“My God. I’m an idiot… You’re all back! You’re here with me, in my office!” Yeltsin shot out of his seat and began pacing around the room, stepping around the books and office supplies that littered the floor. “Yes! I can fix everything now!” the president exclaimed as he pumped his fist into the air. “I can take you to the Barvikha Sanatorium! I can show them all that the ponies exist! Then they’ll realize that I’m telling the truth! And then we can bring the communists to Barvihka to see for themselves… And if they’ve already started distributing their story… we can counter it with our own story!”
Yeltsin was getting more excited by the second as he paced about the room while Pinkie and friends tried to comprehend exactly what was going on.
“And if we have to tell the public, so be it. I’ll go down in history as the first Russian head-of-state to make contact with talking ponies! It’ll be like something out of a Strugatskiy Brothers novel. Except, you know, you replace all the extra-terrestrials and spaceships with ponies. And once my name is cleared, I’ll do everything I can to try and get you three back home before the world tries to swamp you and do anything crazy.”
Yeltsin turned back to the seating area in the corner of the office to find Pinkie, Twilight, and Fluttershy staring at him with incredulous expressions.
“What do you say, ponies? Will you come with me to the Sanatorium?” Yeltsin begged.
“But what are all the other people going to do when they see us?” Pinkie asked Boris Yeltsin.
“You help me out, and I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that nobody lays a finger on you. Not Zyuganov, not the doctors, not the scientists that will undoubtedly try to break my doors down... not a single person from anywhere in the world, no matter what they say or do.”
The three ponies exchanged concerned glances.
“Girls… I don’t know about this…” Fluttershy said as she sunk down to the cushion on which she was sitting.
“Oh, come on!” Yeltsin wailed. “If Zyuganov has me thrown out and becomes the new president, he’ll reform the whole goddamned Soviet Union!”
Yeltsin dug into the back of his mind for something to say. He had to persuade the ponies to go to the Sanatorium. It was the one chance he had to salvage his hopeless situation. Suddenly, a smile came to his face as he snapped his fingers.
“Do you remember what I told you a couple of days ago, pink pony?” Yeltsin inquired, kneeling down by the chair in which Pinkie Pie was resting. “Do you remember what I said about the communists? They’re the ones that killed the Russian royal family all those years ago! Didn’t you say that you have a princess back home? Princess What’s-Her-Name would want you to help me, wouldn’t she? Imagine if there were a bunch of princess-killers trying to take her down. Would you just stand there and watch and let them take her place?”
“Of course not!” Pinkie exclaimed.
“Then please, please, PLEASE, come to the hospital and help me fix this whole mess,” the Russian president pleaded. He knew he couldn’t force them, or they’d just teleport back to Kapotnya, or to the woods, or somewhere else, and all hope would be lost.
Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle didn’t know what to think. They had no idea what would happen if they just made themselves known to a whole bunch of humans at this hospital that the president kept talking about. But at the same time, Yeltsin seemed so incredibly desperate that they couldn’t bring themselves to refuse. He seemed so helpless as he kneeled there by the side of Pinkie’s chair, watching each and every one of them with a forlorn face - the product of a calamitous first term and his post-election pony-fiasco.
Twilight motioned for Pinkie to join her and Fluttershy on the sofa, where the three ponies huddled and whispered among themselves, occasionally stopping to look back at the distressed politician by the armchair.
“Remember what this guy was like the first time he saw us?” Fluttershy asked her two friends. “Imagine what these other people might do! I’ve got a really bad feeling about this…”
“But Fluttershy!” Pinkie whispered shrilly, “Mr. Boris needs our help! He wouldn’t be in all this trouble if we didn’t show up in his office!”
“So you’re trying to say that this is all my fault?” Twilight hissed angrily. “I didn’t bring us here intentionally! Well, not the first time, anyway.”
The ringing of the telephone on Boris Yeltsin’s desk interrupted the group huddle. Yeltsin groaned and rose to his feet.
“Of course, only at the most inopportune times,” the president sighed. “Give me a few minutes, okay? This could be something very urgent. I can’t just let it ring.”
Uneasily, Yeltsin approached the desk and with unsteady hands, reached for the phone.
“Please don’t be bad news. I don’t need more bad news…” He picked up the phone and put the receiver to his ear. “Allo .”
“Allo , Boris Nikolayevich?” was the question that came through the receiver. Yeltsin raised a brow. Although it was slightly distorted over the line, Yeltsin thought knew who the voice belonged to, but almost didn’t believe it.
“Who’s calling?” was Yeltsin’s response.
“Gennady Zyuganov.”
“WHAT ?” the Russian president roared into the transmitter as the three ponies on the sofa nearly jumped out of their skin.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Boris?” Pinkie asked. Yeltsin covered the transmitter with his hand and lowered the phone.
“It’s Zyuganov !” Yeltsin fumed. He put the phone back up to his ear. “Excuse me, ‘comrade’ Zyuganov,” Yeltsin said mockingly, “I didn’t realize this was a Party line.”
“Boris Nikolayevich, please, hear me out,” came the desperate voice from the other end of the line.
“You’ve got some balls, Zyuganov,” the president seethed. “Calling me in my own office, after everything you and your lapdog pensioners have done.”
“But that’s what I wanted to-”
“We know about everything !” Yeltsin interrupted. “Your moron supporters didn’t cover their tracks well enough. We know what you’re going to do, Zyuganov, and I’m going to put a stop to it. And when I shoot down your little plan, your head will spin when you meet a few friends of mine that helped me do it.”
“Damn it, Yeltsin! Listen to me!” Zyuganov shouted over the line. “I know that the ponies exist!”
“Alright, asshole, let’s get one thing straight-” Yeltsin began, but stopped when he realized what had just been said. He simply stood there, his mouth stupidly hanging open, as he tried to make sense of what Zyuganov told him. “Wait… what?”
“I know that the ponies exist,” Zyuganov repeated. “I… I realize now that it ‘s not just some crazy story. We’re not going to publish the Pravda article.”
This has to be a joke , Yeltsin thought as he stood with the phone to his ear, glancing back at the ponies on the sofa that were watching him with concerned stares. As if Zyuganov is suddenly going to stop the publication. This has to be some kind of trick. It must be. Maybe he’s recording the call… he wants to record me talking about the ponies to use as audio evidence that I’m crazy. Not like it matters anymore, now that the ponies came back. Guess I might as well play along with his stupid game.
“Allo ? Yeltsin?”
“So you know the ponies exist, huh?” Yeltsin laughed into the transmitter cup. “That’s funny, Zyuganov, because just yesterday the very notion of talking ponies was your way of making me the laughing stock of Moscow.”
“The game has changed, Yeltsin,” Zyuganov said.
“And how is that?”
“Well… an hour and a half ago, I opened my office door, and-” Zyuganov began, but was cut off by a voice on his end of the line. Yeltsin couldn’t make out what it was saying. “Well what am I permitted to tell him?” Zyuganov asked. Yeltsin strained to listen to the second voice, but it was still inaudible. “Um. Okay. Listen, Yeltsin. I’m only allowed to tell you so much… I have a… source… that has filled me in on everything... a source that knows who these ponies are. There’s no doubt now that your stories are true. Listen - they’re still here in Russia. They haven’t gone home.”
Yeltsin looked over at the ponies again. They had stepped off the couch and were slowly approaching.
Here’s my question… does Zyuganov really know that to be true? Yeltsin thought. Or is he making up a story and getting very lucky?
“Still here in Russia, huh?” Yeltsin asked. “So where in Russia are they?”
“I… I don’t know,” came Zyuganov’s hesitant response from the other end of the line.
“Do me a favor, Zyuganov, and stop wasting my time,” Yeltsin said dismissively. “If you’re still trying to make an idiot out of me, it’s not working, and I sure as hell am not laughing yet.”
“Look, Yeltsin, what do I have to do to make you believe me?” Gennady Zyuganov asked. Yeltsin looked at the ponies by his side and cracked a smile. “Give me a minute, ‘comrade.’”
Yeltsin again covered the transmitter cup and gestured at Pinkie.
“Tell me something about yourself that I don’t already know,” the president whispered.
“Hmm. We talked about a lot of stuff the last time we were here,” Pinkie said as she sat on the floor and scratched her head. “Well, I have a pet alligator.”
“You have an alligator ?”
“Yeah, a really tiny one.”
“Uh… okay... That works. I guess,” Yeltsin said as he shook his head in disbelief. “Alright, Zyuganov,” the president said into the phone. “If you’ve got this all-knowing source of yours that’s filled you in on everything… Then answer me this: the pink pony that came to my office has a pet. But what kind?”
Zyuganov’s voice became a murmur as he conversed with what Yeltsin assumed was the “source” of his.
That’s something that I couldn’t have possibly talked about in the hospital , Yeltsin thought. There's no way Zyuganov could know the answer, unless of course this new friend of his really knows about these ponies.
Then he heard a thump and a couple of clicks as Zyuganov adjusted the phone.
“She’s got an alligator named Gummy,” Zyuganov answered confidently.
Yeltsin’s heart skipped a beat. His breaths became short as he covered the phone with shaking hands and turned to Pinkie.
“Your pet alligator… what’s its name?”
“Gummy!” Pinkie answered with a grin.
Yeltsin felt his knees buckle as his stomach tied itself into an inordinate number of knots. He steadied himself with a hand on his desk as he made way to his office chair, picked it up off the floor, and slowly took a seat.
“My God…” Yeltsin said into the phone. “How did you possibly-”
He was cut off by Zyuganov, who began to provide even more information. Yeltsin waved his arm, motioning for the ponies to join him behind his desk. Once again, he covered the phone, and leaned toward Twilight.
“Do you… have an owl?” he weakly asked the unicorn, who nodded in response. He then said to Fluttershy, “And you… you have a rabbit named Angel that throws temper tantrums and takes advantage of you all the time?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Fluttershy said, looking at the carpet. “Angel’s just a little misunderstood...”
“Zyuganov, how did you know!?” Yeltsin whimpered into the phone. “How the hell could you have known all this?”
“It’s a long story, Boris Nikolayevich,” the communist on the other end of the line sighed. “But that’s not important right now. We need to find these three ponies that you saw so we can get them back home before anybody else sees them.”
“I’ve already found them!” Yeltsin cried as he gestured to the ponies with his free hand. “They’re here with me again! They returned to my office because the unicorn said she couldn’t take them back home and then didn’t know where else to go! I have reason to believe they spent a day wandering around Kapotnya…”
“Kapotnya ?” Zyuganov said in disbelief. “And they came back alive ? They didn't get shanked by some gopnik?”
“I know, can you believe it?”
Gennady Zyuganov began conversing with the other person on his end of the line as Yeltsin strained once more to hear what was being said.
“Hey, can I talk to Mr. Zooganzo?” Pinkie asked she propped herself up on the arm of Yeltsin’s desk chair.
“Ssh. Quiet,” Yeltsin grunted with a wave of his hand.
“How did Mr. Boris know about Angel and Owlowiscious?” Fluttershy asked her two friends.
“That Zooganzo guy must have told him. But... how did he know?” Twilight wondered as she kept an eye on Yeltsin.
“What, you do?” Yeltsin said in shock as he sat straight up. “How?” He paused. “No, to my knowledge, nobody else has seen them but me.” He paused again as he listened to the politician on the line. “We have to WHAT ? Zyuganov, be serious! How the hell am I supposed to do that? Can’t you just come to us?” Yeltsin leaned on his desk as he stared off toward the other end of the room in disbelief. “And how sure are you? How do we know that it’s up there, and not here, or in Vladivostok, for the love of God? And more importantly, how do we know it’s going to work ?” The Russian president covered his eyes with his hand as he sighed wearily. “Yes. Yes, I do know what the world would do. It’s not the same place into which we were born.” Again Yeltsin became quiet as he listened to Zyuganov’s response. “Alright, Zyuganov. I’m willing to shove aside everything we’ve done and said to one another over the last six years, just for a little while, and I’ll trust you on this one. I’ll do it for the sake of my three little friends, here. They need to get back home. But let’s make one thing very clear, Gennady Andreyevich. You better not be bullshitting me.”
Pinkie, Twilight,and Fluttershy listened as Yeltsin’s call came to an end. The president nodded, and leaned forward in his seat.
“Alright then, Zyuganov,” the Russian president concluded. “Let’s hope I can pull this off. So-long.” Boris Yeltsin placed the phone back in its cradle. He kept his hand there for a few seconds, warily eying the thing, as if he wanted to call Zyuganov back and tell him that he couldn’t do what had been asked of him. Once again, the president surveyed his office - the broken window, the holes in the wall, the knobless door that led to the foyer, the pie-covered painting of Nevskiy - and knew that this crazy episode had to be put to bed before it exploded into something even more severe and wreaked more havoc on his already-fragile state of health.
“Are you okay, Mr. Boris?” Pinkie asked the president.
“Mmm-hmm,” was the president’s defeated response as he spun his chair around and stared up at the outdated map of Russia, still labeled as the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, that hung on the wall. He leaned to one side, resting his head on his hand, and closed his eyes.
“Believe it or not, we’ve got a shot at getting you three back home,” Yeltsin mumbled as he turned to the ponies by the side of the desk.
“We do?” Twilight Sparkle asked as she rose from her seat on the floor.
“I think so,” said the Russian president, turning his attention back to the map. “And at the same time, we might just put this scrape with the communists to bed.”
“So what’s the plan?” Twilight wondered, stepping closer to the president’s chair.
“You three have already come a very long way, but you're going to have to get ready for another trip,” Boris Yeltsin told the ponies as he tapped the arm of his desk chair with his fingers. “Because we’re leaving for Saint Petersburg. Tonight.”
Yeltsin, Pinkie, and the Long Road to Petersburg
Location: Горки-9 Presidential Dacha, Barvikha, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation
Date: July 12th, 1996
Time: 9:00 PM
“But how do we know that this will get us back to Equestria?” Twilight called into Yeltsin’s bedroom from the office.
“Look, I already told you, we can’t be completely sure, but at this point you’ve got nothing to lose,” president Yeltsin said as he emerged from his bedroom carrying a stack of folded blankets. “Me, I think it’s worth a shot. Gennady Zyuganov’s ‘source’ somehow knew very specific things about you three… Stands to reason that this mystery guest of his might also have a good idea about how to get you back to your Ponyville.”
“Zooganzo didn’t tell you anything about his friend?” Pinkie asked as Boris Yeltsin set the blankets down on his desk.
“Like I said before,” Yeltsin said to Pinkie Pie, “he claimed that he couldn’t say a word about his know-it-all comrade. He was really insistent about that. I guess we’ll have to wait until we get to Petersburg to find out.”
The Russian president began stuffing the blankets and pillows that sat on his desk into a large laundry bag that he had earlier procured from his bedroom, occasionally peering out the windows by the desk to see if anyone was looking in from the outside.
“Um, Mr. Boris… how long is this trip going to take, anyway?” Fluttershy asked as she approached the president from behind.
“Mmh… about ten hours,” was Yeltsin’s reply.
“Ten hours? ” the ponies asked in unison.
“Hey, what do you want? Russia is a big place. You’re lucky that we’re only going to Petersburg. Imagine if Zyuganov had us go all the way to Vladivostok... Besides, it’s ten hours with traffic and speed limits. The roads will be clear at the ungodly time of night we’ll be driving, so we can probably cut it down to eight. Maybe even seven if I really floor it.”
As Yeltsin continued to pack the laundry bag, Twilight began pacing the length of the room, avoiding the array of books that littered the office floor.
“I still can’t believe that the other guy on the phone knew about our pets…” Twilight pondered aloud to her friends. “He even knew Gummy’s name! But how ?”
“Maybe Zooganzo’s new friend knows because he’s been to Equestria before,” Pinkie hypothesized. “You know, in some freak accident like the one that brought us to Mr. Boris’s office.”
“Or maybe one of our friends from back home ended up in Russia like we did,” Fluttershy said as she hovered behind Twilight. “What if it wasn’t just our spell that went wrong… What if a bunch of other ponies had the same thing happen to them?”
“But what are the chances of them coming out of a magical misfire and running into someone that knows Boris?” Twilight asked. “It makes you wonder if-”
“Oh blyad’ ...” Yeltsin growled from the other side of the room, cutting off Twilight, who turned to face the politician by the window.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Boris?” Pinkie asked.
Yeltsin had one hand on his hip and another on his forehead. He stared blindly ahead out the window as he shook his head.
“My car… How could I have been so stupid ?” Yeltsin spat. “I can’t just up and leave. If I take my car… or any of the state cars on the property… The guards will see that it’s missing and know that I took off. They’ll come after me. Or they’ll organize a search. Because they still think that I’m off my rocker. The last thing that I need is to make headlines again as the subject of a federal manhunt.”
Yetsin turned abruptly to face the three ponies in his office. His brow wrinkled in frustration as he stormed over and sat on the edge of his desk.
“Now that you mention it,” Twilight began with a raised brow, “whether we take your car or not, isn’t somebody around here going to realize that you’re missing?”
The three ponies looked back at Yeltsin, whose concentrated stare was directed at the far wall.
“So long as you don’t work that magic of yours and make me disappear forever, there’s a good chance they won’t,” Yeltsin said, his hand still on his forehead as he began to aimlessly walk about the office. “Everyone was told to leave me be for a few days. Said that I needed time to rest. No presidential business, no visitors, no nothing. In theory, I have two or three days to myself. Then again, that didn’t stop Berezovskiy from coming in here a little while ago and blowing his top, but I’m sure he won’t want to say much more to me for a while. My temporary absence itself isn’t the problem. It’s the cars … they’re all government cars on the property. One of those goes missing, and the whole operation is doomed before it even begins.”
“Well,” Pinkie Pie asked, hopping along behind Boris Yeltsin as he walked about, “can’t you just use somebody else’s car?”
“Yeah, sure,” Yeltsin smirked, turning and leaning against the bookshelf by his desk as Pinkie waited by his feet. “I’ll just take someone else’s car. And then when they find out it was me, I’ll get arrested. That’s a crime, pink pony.” Pinkie’s ears drooped. “Now listen, don’t think for one second that I couldn’t do it if I really thought I had to. I broke into a Red Army supply depot when I was a kid. If I can pick those locks, I can definitely handle a car lock.”
Yeltsin looked up the the ceiling and smiled, crossing his arms as he reveled in the glory of his younger days.
“Yeah, I was good with locks. I still am. Especially the ones on those old junkers. But that doesn’t say much. Those things are a cinch. You know, I had to help the caretaker when he had to pick the lock on his own Lada that time he lost his keys. He had a spare set, but he kept them under the front seat. Heh. Gleb was a real piece of work. I remember one time when...”
The Russian president stopped mid-sentence as an incredulous smile spread across his face. The sensation of enthusiasm that overcame Yeltsin was the diagnostic sign of the strike of epiphany.
“Of course! Why didn’t I think of it before? Gleb’s Lada! It’s still in the garage at the caretaker’s guesthouse!” Yeltsin kneeled down to come eye-to-eye with Pinkie. “You had the best idea all along, pink pony. We’re taking someone else’s car.”
“But Mr, Boris,” Fluttershy asked, “won’t that Gleb guy know it’s missing?”
“Unfortunately not,” Yeltsin said as he turned to Twilight and Fluttershy. “Gleb Ivanov, our caretaker, died two months back. Poor man had a stroke. But everything he had - including his Lada - is still at the caretaker’s house on the other end of the property. And it’s going to be our ticket out of here.”
Yeltsin sprang up from the floor and took the seat behind his desk. He went through the drawers underneath, pulling out some fresh paper and a cluster of pens.
“Don’t you worry, the road trip to Petersburg is still on,” Yeltsin said aloud, testing the pens to find one that worked. “All I need to do is leave a couple of notes in the unlikely event that somebody comes up here while I’m gone, then pack a few more things…” Suddenly, Yeltsin looked up and motioned with his pen to the pegasus. “And you, Fluttershy. Out of the four of us, you’ve got the wings. So you’ll be doing a little... reconnaissance.”
* * *
Location: Горки-9 Guesthouse, Barvikha, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation
Date: July 12th, 1996
Time: 9:23 PM
Yeltsin had opened one of the office windows and instructed Fluttershy to fly up onto the roof of the Gorki-9 dacha, survey the property, and return to the office to explain what she had seen. Naturally, a good number of guards were at the gatehouse up front, and several more were patrolling the streets. But Fluttershy also saw three more walking the grounds, and those were the ones that posed the largest problem.
Fluttershy then (after much persuasion) hid in a tree and watched the back of the property as Yeltsin, Twilight, and Pinkie slipped out the rear entrance of the dacha. Their eyes had been on her the whole time as she waved to them from the tree, letting them know when they could proceed and when to stay hidden. Slowly and cautiously, they had made their way to the woods that bordered the presidential dacha grounds.
Then, after a short trek through the trees, Yeltsin and his entourage finally reached the small guesthouse on the property’s perimeter. As the president had expected, the windows were dark, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. The place hadn’t been touched since Gleb Ivanov, the Gorki-9 caretaker, had passed away.
By the side of the guesthouse’s garage, Yeltsin rested the sack he had been carrying. It contained blankets, pillows, and a few other necessities that the president had seen fit to take for the long road to Petersburg. He then bent down and lifted the door of the garage to reveal its well-kept interior. Bags of stones and potting soil sat at the left, beside an old wheelbarrow and a number of gardening tools that leaned against the wall, ordered by size. On the right was Gleb’s workbench and supply cabinets, clean and orderly, save for the dust that had settled over the past couple of months. Not a single tool, plank, or hose was out of place.
And there, at the center, was Gleb Ivanov’s Lada. It was a VAZ-2101 - a small, red, compact sedan with little circular headlamps. Ivanov was lucky enough to have acquired the car in 1971, merely a year and a half after its production began, when demand greatly outweighed supply. At the time, it was something of a marvel. But twenty-five years had passed since then. The bumpers had rusted, and some of the paint was starting to peel. A 1.2 liter engine with 58 horsepower was a relic of days gone by, but given the situation, it was the best that Yeltsin could do.
“Gleb always was a neat-freak,” Yeltsin remarked as he entered the organized garage with the ponies behind him. “Even his workshop was treated like an office. But this…” Yeltsin rested his hand on the roof of the Lada. “This little beauty here is our ticket to Saint Petersburg.”
“This?” Pinkie asked, staring and the headlamps and the grille on the front. “It’s really tiny, Mr. Boris.”
“Yeah,” Fluttershy agreed, hovering up to examine the vehicle. “I’ve seen carriages in Appleoosa that are bigger than this.”
“We have to spend ten hours sitting in this thing ?” Twilight asked as she poked one of the tires with her hoof.
“Listen, I told you I’d take you to Saint Petersburg, but I never said I’d do it in comfort or style. What did you expect, a Rolls-Royce?” Yeltsin said with a dismissive wave of his hand as walked behind the Lada, making for the driver’s door. “Christ. Everyone that comes to this country can’t wait to start throwing insults at Russian cars. Even three ponies from some magical land far, far away. You’re starting to sound like those goddamned American journalists.”
Boris Yeltsin pulled the door handle, but the driver’s door wouldn’t budge.
“Figures its locked,” the president muttered.
“Now what do we do?” Twilight groaned. “How the heck are we going to find the key?”
“Well, when Gleb misplaced his key that one time, I told him that he should keep the spare behind his cabinets instead of under the front seat,” Boris Yeltsin replied. “Let’s see if he considered the idea.”
Yeltsin, with the help of Twilight and Fluttershy, moved the free-standing cabinets by the workbench. Sure enough, hanging on an angled nail that had been driven into the wall was a single key on a ring.
“Thanks a million, Gleb,” Boris Yeltsin laughed as he took the key. “At least you took my advice once in a while. That’s more than I can say for Berezovskiy and his cronies.” Yeltsin again approached the car and unlocked the doors. “Alright. Two in the back, and one up front, with me.”
“Ooh, can I sit in the front? Pretty please, Mr. Boris?” Pinkie begged as Boris Yeltsin stepped outside to pick up the sack of blankets and supplies.
“Of course,” the president replied, returning with the sack. “Your unicorn friend seems like the type that would critique my driving the whole way there. The last thing I need is a backseat driver in the front.”
“Thanks, Boris,” Twilight huffed, waving her horn and pulling at the handle on one of the rear doors. She and Fluttershy climbed into the cramped back seats of the Lada. While springy and yielding, the cushions were made of some low-quality material that didn’t offer the most agreeable seat. Worse, the interior of the car reeked of soil, grass, and old borscht. As Fluttershy and Twilight climbed around in the back, trying to orient themselves in a way that was most comfortable, Yeltsin stepped over to the open door and threw the sack into the back seat with them.
“There’s barely enough room back here for the two of us, and now we have to find a place for this stuff?” Twilight moaned as she climbed over the bag.
“I know it’s a tight squeeze, but you’ll have to make do,” Yeltsin answered. “Now listen. Dig into that bag and take out the blankets. They must be at the ready so you can cover yourselves up if need be.”
“Cover ourselves up?” Fluttershy asked the president.
“Of course,” Yeltsin said as he leaned through the doorframe. “In the morning, it’ll be bright enough to see right into the car, especially with the White Nights up north in Petersburg. And with colorful coats like yours, somebody is bound to notice you if they’re sitting next to me at a stoplight. And Zyuganov’s friend said that I’m not supposed to let anyone else see you. Remember?”
Twilight and Futtershy exchanged glances, shrugged, and dug into the sack.
“I’m closing the door. Watch your hands. Or hooves, I guess,” Yeltsin said as he shut the rear door and opened up the one in the front for Pinkie, who eagerly hopped inside the Lada. “Make sure you take a blanket, too,” Yeltsin said to Pinkie as he closed the front passenger door. He then lifted the hood and inspected the engine. Yeltsin was no mechanic, but as far as he could see, everything seemed to be in order. He checked the dipstick, on which a bold mark signified a healthy level of oil, granted it was most probably due for a change regardless. The president then shut the hood, walked back to the driver’s side, and climbed in.
“It’s really smelly in here, Mr. Boris” Pinkie said with a wrinkled nose.
“Can’t be as bad as Kapotnya,” Yeltsin replied.
“Here, Pinkie,” Twilight called from the back as she pushed a blanket up front for Pinkie Pie. “Okay, we’re good to go.”
“Alright, then,” Yeltsin said, glancing at the gas gauge, relieved to see that it was almost fully tanked-up. The president then reached to put the key into the ignition, but stopped as quickly as he started, thought for a moment, and pulled his hand back. There was an important matter that first had to be settled. “Wait. Before we head out… Do any of you have to… go?”
“Go where?” Fluttershy asked after a short silence.
“No, not go somewhere . I mean… go,” Boris Yeltsin said. “You know. Like ‘number one’ and ‘number two.’”
“Oh,” the three ponies said in unison.
“Nope,” Fluttershy answered.
“I’m good,” said Twilight.
“Not me!” Pinkie sang.
“You sure ?” Yeltsin asked, turning to face the back seat. Fluttershy and Twilight, on either side of the sack of supplies, nodded in response. He turned to Pinkie, who did the same. “Good.”
Yeltsin again reached for the ignition. He inserted the key and gave it a twist, and while the engine cranked, it failed to start.
“Oh, Christ,” Yeltsin signed. “That’s what we get for using an old car that hasn’t been touched in two months.” The president tried once more, then again, and again. The engine still would not start.
“What do we do now?” Fluttershy asked the group. Twilight Sparkle slapped her forehead with a hoof.
“Great. Just great,” the unicorn sighed.
“Is it broken, Mr. Boris?” Pinkie asked, leaning over and looking at the key in the ignition.
“I sincerely hope not,” Yeltsin replied. “Because if it is broken, I’m not the right guy to fix it.”
He let go of the key and placed his hand on the dashboard.
“Listen, sweetheart,” he said to the car, “we’re in no position to give you a jump. You have to find what little juice is left in that battery of yours and wake up. We need to go to Saint Petersburg, and you’re going to take us there. We’re out of options, these ponies need to get back home, and my presidency is on the line. And I promise, if you make the trip, I’ll pay for the best tune-up of your life, plus new fenders and hubcaps.”
“He’s talking to the car,” Twilight stated. “Oh boy.”
But as Yeltsin reached down and tried the key again, after a few jerky turnovers, the engine sprang to life. The president looked back at Twilight with a smirk and a raised brow.
“There you have it,” he said. “Sometimes, they just need a little sweet-talk before they start to cooperate.”
The entire frame of the tiny vehicle vibrated from the roar of the engine. An excited Pinkie Pie giddily watched Yeltsin work the shifter as Fluttershy and Twilight grew steadily more nervous.
Yeltsin carefully maneuvered the car out of the garage and proceeded down the dirt driveway through the woods that connected Gleb’s house to the rest of Barvihka village. It was a great distance from the dacha’s main entrance and also had no guard-filled gatehouse, but Yeltsin took care to proceed slowly, with the headlights turned off, so as not to catch anyone’s attention.
“Alright. So far, so good. Once we hit the street, we’re golden,” Yeltsin said softly as he squinted down the dark path. “We’ll know when we’re there because they never finished the driveway apron and-”
The Lada suddenly heaved upwards as Yeltsin struck a hefty bump where the dirt road met the paved streets of Barvikha.
“Well, there goes the wheel alignment,” Yeltsin mumbled. “Sorry, Gleb.”
Yeltsin traveled a few blocks before flipping on the headlights, eventually turning onto the wider thoroughfare through which the traffic entered and exited Barvihka village.
“Who’d have ever thought…” Yeltsin breathed. “It’s quarter to ten at night, and I’m ready to drive halfway across the country in my dead gardener’s car, with three talking ponies as passengers. And on top of it all, I’m headed to Zyuganov’s doorstep. The world is a crazy place.”
Fluttershy, and Twilight watched Yeltsin from the back seats. He was cloaked in darkness, save for the soft glow of a small light on the dashboard, as he pondered the state of affairs.
“I’ve seen crazier,” Pinkie Pie said to the president. “Like the time Discord got loose and turned houses upside-down and made it rain chocolate!”
“Really, now?” Boris Yeltsin said. “Chocolate rain?”
“Believe me, Mr. Boris, the chocolate rain was only a little part of it,” Fluttershy added.
“That was an absolute disaster,” Twilight said, reclining in her seat.
“Well, we’ve got a lot of time to kill,” Yeltsin replied, “so once we get on the open road, you can tell me all about this Discord guy and his chocolate rain.”
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Fluttershy asked.
“Are you kidding?” Yeltsin answered. “It’s easy. Once you get out of Barvikha on A106, go a little ways until you hit highway M10, and then it’s a straight shot all the way to Saint Petersburg. Simple.” By the time Yeltsin had finished his explanation, he was nearing the onramp for the first short leg of the trip - highway A106. “And now, my little friends, it’s time to leave Barvikha. When we get on the MKAD roadway, we’ll be able to see the outskirts of Moscow.”
Boris Yeltsin grabbed the shifter and steadied his grip on the wheel.
“Alright, sweetheart,” the president said to the Lada. “Let’s see what you’ve got under that hood.”
With that, Yeltsin shifted gears and floored the pedal. Gleb Ivanov’s old Lada - bearing the president of the Russian Federation and his three guests from an entire world away - picked up speed as it traversed the onramp of route A106 and left Barvikha village behind.
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Yeltsin, Pinkie, and the Long Road to Petersburg
Chapter 4: "I Told You to Go BEFORE We Left!"
Location: M10 Highway, southeast of Tver, Tverskaya Oblast, Russian Federation
Date: July 12th, 1996
Time: 10:51 PM
“But Mr. Boris, I really gotta go!” Pinkie Pie winced as she squirmed in the front seat of the Lada with her hind legs locked together. Twilight and Fluttershy sighed and slouched into their seats.
“I told you to go before we left!” Boris Yeltsin growled as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
“I didn’t have to go before we left, but I gotta go now !” Pinkie moaned.
“Yob moyu zhizn’ ...” the president sighed as he slapped his forehead.
Boris Yeltsin and his Equestrian friends were about an hour and a half into their journey. Their run-down Lada had crossed from the greater Moscow area into the less-densely populated Tverskaya Oblast. They still had a long way to go, but it seemed that, for the moment, the trip had to be briefly postponed. For Pinkie Pie, nature was calling.
“Alright, when I see a clear spot, I’ll pull over,” Yeltsin mumbled as he squinted at the roadside for a place to stop the car. “Bad enough we ‘borrowed’ Gleb’s car. We don’t need to soil the front seats.”
At the right of the road was a forested area that separated the M10 highway from the mighty River Volga that ran alongside it. For the most part, the trees hugged the road, but Yeltsin eventually came to a stretch of the highway with a clear, grassy fringe between the road and the woods, barely distinguishable in the darkness of night. Yeltsin slowed the Lada to a crawl, steered off the highway, and came to a stop.
“Okay,” he said as he turned the key, surveying the road ahead and behind in the rear-view mirror. There was a lone car approaching from the rear. “When this guy passes us and is out of view, you hop out, make for the edge of the woods, do your business and come back here. And if anybody comes, duck down or hide somewhere.”
“Maybe you should wear one of Boris’s blankets out there,” Twilight added from the back.
“That’s a good idea,” Yeltsin agreed, motioning with his hand back toward the unicorn. “The last thing we need is for someone to come out of nowhere and see you before you can hide. Sling that blanket over your back when you go out. And try not to get it wet or anything, okay?”
The single car that had approached from behind had now passed the stopped Lada on the side of the road and pressed on northward toward the city of Tver. Pinkie, meanwhile, had thrown the blanket over her body.
“So how do I open the door?” Pinkie asked.
“Just pull the handle. The little silver thing by the…” Yeltsin began, but his sentence trailed off. “Oh, right. You can’t.” The Russian president leaned over and gave the door handle a tug and a quick push. “Alright, now be as quick as you can.”
Pinkie pie hopped out of the car and made for the treeline, while Boris Yeltsin sat there and shook his head.
“I feel bad for you three. No fingers, no thumbs,” he said as he turned to the back seats, visibly flexing the fingers of his good hand. “Must be a rough way to live. I don’t know how I’d manage to-”
Yeltsin suddenly stopped and shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat.
“Are you okay, Mr. Boris?” Fluttershy asked, leaning forward and putting her hooves on the back of Yeltsin’s seat.
“No…” the president sighed. “Your friend isn’t the only one that needs a bathroom break… Now that she’s been talking about it, I’ve gotta go, too.” Boris Yeltsin fumbled for the handle in the dark car and pushed open his door. “I’m gonna take a leak. You two wait in here, and stay low if you see headlights.”
Yeltsin climbed out of the tiny Lada and shut the door as the mild air of the summer night relieved him from the stuffiness and strange smell of Gleb’s car. He scanned the roadway, thankful that there still were no drivers in sight, and moved quickly but cautiously to the treeline, trying his best to see the ground under the black sky of the dark night.
“Hey! Pinkie!” Yeltsin called out. “Move over, you’ve got company!”
“I’m over here, Mr. Boris!” was the reply heard from the forest’s edge at Yeltsin’s right.
“Just finish up and head back to the car. I gotta go, too,” Yeltsin said as he neared the treeline.
The president’s eyes were still adjusting to the darkness as he picked as spot between two trees, undid his belt and zipper and relieved himself.
“Ugh. I thought I was going to burst,” the president whispered.
Just as the Yeltsin was finishing up, he heard Pinkie approach him from the side.
“Hey, give me some space!” Boris Yeltsin exclaimed. “Can’t a guy get a little privacy when he’s taking a leak?”
“What?” Pinkie called. “I can’t hear you!”
Boris Yeltsin stopped fumbling with his belt buckle. Something didn’t make sense. Pinkie Pie had just walked up to him, but it was very apparent that her voice emanated from where the car had been parked.
A grunt at Yeltsin’s right made his eyes grow wide. He heard the rustling of grass as the thing next to him came a couple of steps nearer. Slowly, Yeltsin turned to face whatever he had mistaken for Pinkie Pie. His wide, adjusted pupils could discern a large, husky silhouette just a few feet from his body. He heard it sniff several times, and then it rose up onto its hind legs. Vaguely, he could see from the faint glimmer of two large eyes that the beast was taller than him. As it stood there, watching the Russian president, Boris Yeltsin realised that he had been approached by a massive bear.
“By God…” the frightened man breathed as his blood ran cold and his heart pounded in his chest. The beast grunted again. “Listen, bear… can you just… go back into the woods? Please?”
A dull growl was the bear’s only reply.
“Hey, come on…” Yeltsin whimpered as his frail frame trembled. “I’ve got a lot to live for! I just won the election for my second term!”
The bear pointed its muzzle to the air and roared menacingly.
“I uh… I guess you must have voted for Zyuganov.”
With that, Yeltsin let go of his unbuckled belt, turned on his heels and raced back towards the Lada. The massive brown bear returned to all fours and lumbered after him.
“Bear! Help! BEAR!” Yeltsin screamed, pumping his arms and running as fast as his flaccid girth would allow.
Pinkie, waiting by the Lada, could barely see the two figures running toward the car, but heard Yeltsin’s girlish screams and the bear’s throaty growls. She turned and pounded on the rear door of the Lada.
“Twilight! Fluttershy!” she yelled frantically. “A bear’s trying to eat Mr. Boris!”
“A bear!? ” the two ponies in the Lada shouted in unison.
“Fluttershy! You have to get out there and give him the stare!” Twilight cried.
“But Twilight, I-”
Before Fluttershy knew what had happened, Twilight covered the door handle with her aura, threw open the car door, and shoved Fluttershy out onto the grass. She then waved her horn and conjured up a small orb that floated above her head, bathing a decent radius around the Lada in light. Fortunately for the group, there were still no cars to be seen on the street.
What Twilight’s lighting orb did reveal, however, was a terrified head-of-state, jerkily charging toward the Lada, with a savage beast on his heels. But as Yeltsin ran, his failure to buckle his belt caused his pants to slowly drop with every step he took. When they came down to his knees, revealing a rather embarrassing pair of underwear that was speckled with images of the lovable cartoon character Cheburashka, Yeltsin misstepped and tripped, tumbling down onto the grass. The bear, snarling and huffing as he went, was ready to make the kill on his grounded prey.
“Oh God, not like this!” a disheveled, sweaty Boris Yeltsin wailed as he struggled to scramble away. The president rolled over and put up one of his feet in a pathetic, last-ditch effort for self-defense. But just as he was ready to give the bear a kick, Fluttershy flew over and hovered above the trembling man on the ground.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the pegasus angrily asked the bear, who turned his attention to the flying pony and roared back a throaty reply. “Hey! Don’t talk to me like that, mister!” Fluttershy demanded as her brow wrinkled in frustration. Her lower lids twitched as her eyes bored deep into those of the massive brown bear.
Boris Yeltsin was in shock as his attacker became still as a statue, one paw frozen in the air. The bear seemed suddenly confused, as if it simply forgot that it was about to tear apart the president of the Russian Federation and was unsure of its next move. At one point, it even glanced down at Yeltsin and almost appeared apologetic. All the while, Fluttershy was staring the shamefaced animal down.
“Mr. Boris didn’t do anything to you. He was out here minding his own business, and you scared him half to death and started chasing after him!” Fluttershy scolded. “Was that a very nice thing to do?”
The brown bear put his raised paw down, looked at the middle-aged man on the ground before him, and took a seat on the grass. It lowered its head and let a out a sound that was halfway between a growl and a whimper. Pinkie had now approached the group, and was standing on the other side of the flickering light from Twilight’s orb.
“Now tell Mr. Boris that you’re sorry,” Fluttershy ordered. The bear looked at Yeltsin and then dropped its head back down. “Tell Mr. Boris that you’re sorry .” To the president's amazement, the beast picked its head back up, stared right at him, and moaned apologetically. “There, was that so hard?” Fluttershy asked as she hovered toward the animal.
“Are you out of your mind?” Yeltsin hissed, still paralyzed from fear. “Get away from him!”
“Yeah, I knew it,” Fluttershy cooed as she rubbed the bear’s back. “You’re just a big softie that had a bad day, that’s all.” Boris Yeltsin’s mind was ready to implode as he watched Fluttershy pet a monster four or five times her size like it were some sort of adorable household pet.
“Alright, Fluttershy, he’s learned his lesson,” Twilight said as she turned back toward the highway. “Come on, we need to get back on the road!” Fluttershy nodded as she continued to rub the bear’s back.
“My friends and I need to go now, so you head back home, okay?” she told the massive animal. “And next time you think about eating somebody like Mr. Boris, remember that they have feelings, too.” The bear grunted in what apparently was agreement, returned to all fours, and slowly lumbered back toward the trees. Pinkie and Fluttershy trotted over to the president and helped him get to his feet.
“How… how the hell did she…” Yeltsin stammered. “You… you talked to a bear. And he just… stopped and listened!”
“Fluttershy’s got a way with animals,” Twilight Sparkle explained as Yeltsin finally managed to stand. “This is nothing - you should see her with the dragons.”
“You’ve got dragons back home, too?” the president heaved as he bent over and rested his hands on his knees. “Oh, blyat’ ...”
Suddenly, pinkie started to giggle. She was staring at Yeltsin’s childish-looking, Cheburashka-covered underwear, still in plain sight as his pants rested in a crumpled heap around his feet. Fluttershy turned back to the president and did her best to stifle the laugh that was trying to escape from her throat, but she too started giggling just as loudly. And shortly after Twilight joined in, the three ponies dropped to the ground in stitches of laughter.
“Hey, cut it out!” Yeltsin yelled after he realised that he was still pantless. Bending down to pick up the pants of his suit, he added, “And turn off that light!” Twilight let the golden orb of light fizzle out, but remained on the grass with her two friends, laughing to the point where it began to hurt.
“Yeah, yeah, real funny,” the president barked as he fastened his belt. “Clam up and get back to the car, we’ve still got a long way to go. Thank God nobody came by to see any of this.”
The three ponies did what they could to regain their composure and followed the president back to the parked Lada, where two of the doors remained wide-open. Twilight, still struggling with the remnants of her laughter, closed the doors behind Pinkie and Fluttershy while Yeltsin climbed back into the driver’s seat.
“Looks like this suit’ll have to go in for heavy cleaning,” Boris Yeltsin mumbled as he shut his door. He reached for the key, but stopped and looked back at Fluttershy. “Hey,” he said to the pegasus, “I still don’t know how you did it, but you saved my life back there. Thank you. I thought I was dead meat.”
“No problem, Mr. Boris.” Fluttershy responded. “That bear was a lot nicer than he looked anyway.” The president scoffed.
“A lot nicer than he looked. Sure. Okay.”
After a few unsuccessful turnovers, the old Lada finally roared back to life. The Russian president brought it back onto the M10 highway and resumed the trip northwest toward Tver.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Yeltsin added nonchalantly as he readjusted the rear-view mirror. “If you tell a single soul about my whole pantless episode, you’ll all find out what the inside of a Russian prison looks like.”
Yeltsin, Pinkie, and the Long Road to Petersburg
Chapter 5: Asleep at the Wheel
Location: M10 Highway, Yedrovo, Novgorodskaya Oblast, Russian Federation
Date: July 13th, 1996
Time: 1:08 AM
“BORIS!” Twilight shouted, reaching around the car seat and giving the president a hard whack on the head.
“Ehg, huh? What?” the sleepy president groaned as he shot awake. He had drifted across the line into the left lane, and another car was heading right for him. Yeltsin jerked the steering wheel to the right as quickly as he could. The Lada’s tires squealed when the car dove back into the proper lane. Twilight was thrown against her door and then subsequently squashed by the sack of provisions, as well as Fluttershy, that followed suit. The angry motorist leaned on his horn as he blew past the Lada.
“Christ, I hope that wasn’t a cop,” Yeltsin heaved. “Everybody okay?” He shot a quick glance at Pinkie Pie, who was cowering under the blanket in her seat.
“You’re going to get us killed , Boris!” Twilight raged as she shoved the sack away.
“Hey, cut me some slack,” the weary president said defensively as he rubbed his eyes. “I’m drained from the campaigning we did last month. I can’t remember the last time I had decent sleep. And all the stuff that went on at the hospital didn’t help, either.”
“This is the fourth time I had to wake you up!” the unicorn seethed. “Am I gonna have to spend this whole trip keeping you from dozing off?”
“No. I’ll be fine,” was Yeltsin’s response.
Pinkie Pie poked her head out from under the blanket.
“Are you sure, Mr. Boris?” the pink pony asked. “You said that we still had a long way to go.”
“I’ll be fine,” Yeltsin repeated with a yawn. “Just… just tell them to push my meeting with president Clinton off until… next Tuesday…”
Boris Yeltsin’s head began to droop and his eyelids grew heavy.
“Stay awake, Mr. Boris!” Fluttershy called from the back. The president’s head shot back up, but it slowly began to sink again.
“I know, I know,” Yeltsin mumbled. “Because we need to go see Zyuganov. And when I get there… I’m going to… take a dump in his mailbox…”
“Don’t go back to sleep…” Twilight warned as she raised a hoof.
“Look, Zyuganov’s a good guy and all,” Yeltsin blathered on, almost incoherently, as his eyes slowly closed, “and I respect him. It’s just… the pensioners… they’re like a… a plague…”
“Boris…” Twilight said as she pulled her hoof back.
“Okay… Nighty-night, comrade Gorbachev,” Yeltsin mumbled with a smile as his hands slipped off the steering wheel.
Twilight whacked the president once more and he shot awake in a frenzy.
“God damn it!” Yeltsin cringed, grabbing back onto the wheel. The Lada rocked gently as it went along. “Not so hard!”
“Well, it’ll hurt a lot more if I let you start sleeping and then we crash into a tree,” Twilight said matter-of-factly.
The weary president squinted over at a sign on the roadside. The headlamps of the Lada were barely bright enough to allow him to read the word “Yedrovo” that was printed on it.
“Alright. There’s a small town up ahead,” Yeltsin explained. “But it’s on the highway. There’s bound to be some store here that’s open all night. So when I see one, I’ll go in and get something that’ll keep me awake.”
The old red Lada sputtered along the M10 as it came upon Yedrovo, a sleepy town just across the boundary from the Tverskaya Oblast. It was known to travelers almost exclusively due to the fact that a major federal highway ran right through the center. If you blinked when you entered Yedrovo, you probably missed most of the town altogether. As Boris Yeltsin had guessed, the group eventually saw a well-lit store on the side of a road, sitting behind a weathered sign that read “Produkty .” The president pulled off the highway and into the unpaved lot by the side of the shop. There was only one other car by the store - presumably belonging to whoever was working the night shift.
“Okay. I’ll make it as quick as possible. In and out,” Yeltsin explained as he turned the key. “Hide under the blankets. On the floor if you can squeeze down there. And try not to move too much, okay?”
“But we’re alone out here, Mr. Boris,” Pinkie said, glancing out the window.
“Knowing our luck, somebody will show up,” the president sighed, reaching for the door handle. “Hey, it’s probably been a while since you ate something. You three want anything while I’m in there?”
“Cupcakes!” was Pinkie’s immediate response.
“Of course. Cupcakes,” Yeltsin repeated, shaking his head. “I should have figured. What about you?” He turned to the back seat.
“Whatever you bring out is fine with me,” Twilight said.
“Me too, I’m really hungry,” Fluttershy added.
“Okay. Keep yourselves hidden,” Yeltsin said sternly as he climbed out of the car. The president shut the door and took a quick look around. The road was empty, and the few buildings scattered along the highway were dark, save for the lone store.
“Yedrovo. The busiest spot on the map,” Yeltsin remarked sarcastically as he rounded the corner of the store, passing the “24 chasa ” sign that hung in the window. When he entered the store, he greeted the middle-aged man that was reading a newspaper behind the counter. The man returned the greeting, but then did a double take when he realised who had walked into his store. Who’d have expected the Russian president to show up in his shop at 1 o’clock in the morning, and in an uneventful place like Yedrovo, on top of it?
A funny smell lingered in the store - it seemed to be a mix of cigarette smoke and old fish. Yeltsin did his best to ignore the strange scent as he perused the shelves. He first looked about for something that his pony friends could eat, eventually taking a number of individually-wrapped medovnik slices, two small chocolate cakes, and three cartons of mors . A line of Baltika bottles on the beer shelf was calling Yeltsin’s name, but he ignored them and made for the counter. He dropped everything in front of the store clerk, who was staring incredulously at the president, still unable to come to terms with the fact that Boris Yeltsin was in his store. His newspaper was resting on the counter now, and Yeltsin saw that it was an issue of Pravda.
“I’ll be right back,” Boris Yeltsin said, turning and going back toward the shelves for something that would keep him awake. Under his breath, he added, “Reading a Pravda. Wonderful. Must be one of Zyuganov’s goddamned pensioners.”
Yeltsin looked about, debating what would best keep him awake for the remainder of the journey. He was about to take a couple bottles of cola from the shelves when another item caught his eye. The shelf-tier above the soda was occupied by a mass of tall black cans labeled “Bogatyr.” The image of an old slavic warrior with a pointed helm was printed on the front. But best of all was the hastily-scribbled sign above the shelf that read “Bogatyr Energy Drink - buy 1, get 1.”
"Nice, a two-fer,” Yeltsin said, nodding contently as he grabbed ten cans of Bogatyr. Cradling the pile of sugary drinks in his arms, he carefully returned to the counter, where he dropped the drinks before the bewildered man by the register.
“Okay, that’s everything,” the president sighed, leaning on the counter.
“Long night ahead?” the cashier asked after a short silence.
“Very long.”
“Are… are you…”
“Yeah, I am. Boris Nikolayevich. President Yeltsin. In the flesh,” Yeltsin said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“What are you doing all the way out here in Yedrovo at this time of night?” the man asked, ringing up the energy drinks.
“It’s a long story,” Yeltsin yawned. “Let’s just say I have a long drive ahead of me.”
The cashier finished up and started putting the president’s stash of midnight snacks into bags while Yeltsin took out his wallet. Though the total cost of the food was pretty low, Yeltsin laid out four 1000-rouble banknotes on the counter.
“Listen to me,” Boris Yeltsin said with a half-smile, leaning toward the cashier. “President Yeltsin was never in this store. He was never in Yedrovo. He was never out during these late hours. He never bought energy drinks. And most importantly, you never saw him. Got it?”
Yeltsin slid the cash across the counter. The other man nodded.
“Got it,” was the cashier’s reply. The man gave Yeltsin the two bags, asking, “So are these all for you?”
“Hah, of course not,” the president laughed. “I couldn’t throw all this stuff down at once. No, it’s for the ponies.”
A lump formed in the president’s throat and his eyelid twitched as his brain screamed and hollered at him for the slip-up. The cashier did a double-take.
“Wait, for the what ?” the man asked. Yeltsin tried desperately to think of a way to cover up what he had just revealed.
“Like I said, it’s for the Poles,” Yeltsin replied, trying to keep his cool.
“The… Poles ?”
“Yeah, the Poles, do I need to say it again?” Yeltsin said with a nervous laugh. “There are two other guys waiting in the car. They’re Polish. Really nice guys, too, shame you couldn’t meet them. They’re too tired to get out, that’s why I bought all the energy drinks.” Yeltsin was making haste for the door. “Well, thanks a lot. And remember - you never saw me.”
The president left the bewildered cashier alone as he hurried out the door and into the mild night air.
Whole thing almost went tits-up, the president thought. Too damned tired, too damned nervous.
Yeltsin rounded the corner of the store with the two shopping bags, passing the other car that sat in the unpaved lot. Looking down, he saw something that he had not noticed before. On the rear bumper of this car - the one that most probably belonged to the man in the store - was a big, red bumper sticker that read “KPRF” alongside a massive hammer and sickle. The driver was clearly a supporter of the communist party.
“Damn it!” Yeltsin said aloud. “He was a pensioner! And I just gave him four grand !”
But as soon as frustration took hold, it was washed away and replaced by a devious smile. After looking around to ensure that there wasn’t a security camera on the side of the store, Yeltsin lifted his foot and gave the rear bumper a few solid whacks with his heel, leaving three sizable dents in the metal.
“Oops!” the president smirked. “Looks like this month’s pension check is going to the body shop!”
Boris Yeltsin hustled off to the Lada, where Twilight and Fluttershy, heads covered in blankets, were peeking out the rear window.
“What did you do out there?” Twilight asked the president as he climbed back into the car.
“Nothing,” was Yeltsin’s frank reply. He dug into the two bags from the store. “Here, try one of these,” he said as he unwrapped and handed ones of the pieces of medovnik to Pinkie Pie.
“Hey, this isn’t a cupcake,” Pinkie said disappointedly, taking the small slice.
“No, it’s not. It’s better,” Yeltsin insisted. “It’s the food of the gods. And try not to get anything on the seats, okay? For all I know, Gleb is watching and casting his judgement.”
He unwrapped and passed a few more sugary desserts back to Twilight and Fluttershy, keeping only one for himself. Then after removing the caps on the mors cartons and handing them off, Yeltsin started up his clunker and pulled back out of the lot. Pinkie and friends seemed rather satisfied with what Yeltsin had bought from the store.
“Alright, and now to make sure I don’t start sleeping again,” Yeltsin said. Keeping the wheel steady with his knee as the car continued down the road, the president leaned down and reached for the bag on the floor in front of Pinkie’s seat. He took out one of the cans of Bogatyr, pulled the tab, and took a gulp. Despite the inordinate amount of sugar, the energy drink tasted almost soapy and smelled like an old sock.
“Augh, this is absolute pisswater,” Yeltsin winced. “No wonder why they were giving it away. It better keep me awake.” Cringing, the president quickly gulped the rest of the can down and chucked it back into the shopping bag. He then borrowed one of the mors containers to chase his sub-par drink.
“So how much longer until we’re there?” Pinkie asked with a mouth full of honey-soaked medovnik .
“Four hours, give or take,” Yeltsin surmised, glancing in the rear-view mirror as Yedrovo shrank into an indiscernible cluster of reflected light. “I guess I should probably have another one of those stupid Bogatyrs.”
“Can I try one?” Pinkie asked, finishing up the last piece of honey cake.
“Yeah, I guess, if you really want one,” Yeltsin shrugged, “but don’t expect it to taste like all that delicious stuff from Sugarlump Stables, or whatever it is, that bakery you have back home. This stuff tastes like somebody stole it from an outhouse.” Yeltsin looked in the rear-view mirror again. “What about you? Pisswater energy drink for you two?” he asked Fluttershy and Twilight. They quickly refused. “Okay, suit yourselves.”
Yeltsin again let his knee do the steering as he popped the tabs of another two cans of Bogatyr and handed one to Pinkie Pie.
From what she’s told me, she eats sugary stuff all the time, Yeltsin told himself as Pinkie took a gulp. She can handle a Bogatyr or two.
And so the old, rusty Lada - carrying its precious cargo of one head-of-state, three little ponies, and ten energy drinks that were just barely fit for human consumption - bounced along the highway as Yeltsin continued north on the long road to Petersburg.
Yeltsin, Pinkie, and the Long Road to Petersburg
Chapter 6: The Russian Sugar-Rush
Location: M10 Highway, Outskirts of Novgorod, Novgorodskaya Oblast, Russian Federation
Date: July 13th, 1996
Time: 2:37 AM
Boris Yeltsin had packed a small, battery-powered radio into the sack of supplies that rested in the back seats with Fluttershy and Twilight, and it had remained there for more than half the trip. Now, it was sitting on the dashboard, blasting Russian discoteka as Yeltsin and Pinkie bounced around to the music in the front seats. The entire floor of the Lada was covered in empty cans of Bogatyr, and not a drop was left to drink. But Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle hadn’t touched the stuff. President Yeltsin and Pinkie Pie had downed five cans each in a very short timeframe, and the hyped-up president’s Lada was now flying down the road at nearly 140 kilometers per hour. In the wrong lane. Again.
“And that’s how Equestria was made!” Pinkie Pie shouted over the music, concluding a very long-winded and disjointed story that she had been telling Yeltsin.
“That’s how Equestria was made?” Yeltsin asked, glancing at Pinkie with his wide, bloodshot eyes. “I thought this was the story about how you stopped the Discord guy!”
“Wait, huh?” the pink pony said. “I guess I mixed the stories up again.”
“BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHOCOLATE RAIN?” Yeltsin shouted wildly as he beat the steering wheel. “What happened to the chocolate rain!?”
“I dunno, it disappeared when Discord got turned back into stone.”
“WHY?” Boris Yeltsin roared. “Why would you make the chocolate rain disappear? Who cares if he was turning your houses upside-down and making the world his own funhouse? THAT WAS A SMALL PRICE TO PAY FOR CHOCOLATE RAIN! DO YOU KNOW WHAT I’D DO JUST TO SEE IT RAIN CHOCOLATE IN MOSCOW?”
“Hey, Twilight!” Pinkie exclaimed, turning to her two friends in the back seats. “Do you know any spells that make it rain chocolate?”
Fluttershy and Twilight, hooves tightly wrapped around one another, were having a conniption as they convulsed and whimpered beside the half-empty sack of provisions.
“Answer your friend’s question!” Yeltsin demanded. “Can you make the chocolate rain or not!?”
Twilight’s response was pointing a trembling hoof toward the windshield. Fluttershy screamed and closed her eyes.
When Pinkie spun back around, she could see headlights in the distance that were moving right for the Lada.
“There’s somebody else in front of us, Mr. Boris!”
“I’M NOT BLIND!” Yeltsin growled. Rather than sliding over into the right lane, he simply leaned on the horn as the oncoming car came closer. Yeltsin’s pedal was still floored. The unicorn and pegasus in the back seats were both screaming now as the Lada zoomed toward the other car.
“Move over, Boris, or we’re done for!” Twilight yelled over the diskoteka.
“I’M NO CHICKEN-SHIT!” the president retorted. “HE’LL BAIL, JUST WATCH HIM!” Yeltsin leaned on the horn again, racing right into the oncoming headlights. At this point, the driver of the other car must have figured that the nutjob in the wrong lane was going to stay there. Tires squealing, the oncoming car cut to the left, tried to dive back around, fishtailed, and drove right off the road, tumbling into the ditch that ran alongside it.
“HAH, YEAH! HAIL TO THE CHIEF, BABY!” Yeltsin laughed as he watched the scene unfold in his rear-view mirror.
“What a wimp!” Pinkie snorted as she bounced around in her seat. Twilight and Fluttershy were far less amused.
“When did we ever decide that this was a good idea?” Fluttershy asked aloud.
“When did we ever decide that Boris should be the one to drive?” Twilight remarked angrily.
“No backseat drivers!” the sugar-hyped president seethed. “I’d like to see you try to drive with a pair of hooves!”
At that point, the disco hit on the radio quickly faded away as the host of the station began speaking. She announced that she was going to start playing some classic American rock, and Boris Yeltsin wasn’t too happy about it.
“Augh, why is it always American music?” the president growled. “That’s all we ever hear on the radio anymore!” He quickly switched the thing off. “Almost makes you miss the Soviet Union.”
The Lada’s headlamps faintly illuminated a sign on the roadside that signaled the group’s approach to the city of Velikiy Novgorod.
“Huh, we’re already passing by Novgorod?” Yeltsin remarked. “Man, we’re flying ! We’ll be in Petersburg in no time!”
“What’s in Novgorod, Mr. Boris?” Pinkie Pie asked as she pressed her face up against the glass of her window.
“Absolutely nothing,” the president groaned. “It’s the most boring city in Russia. There’s another Novgorod - Nizhniy Novgorod. That’s the fun one. This is the boring one.”
“You think they have a store where we can buy more of those drinks?” Pinkie asked as her ears perked up.
“Hey, yeah! That’s a great idea!” Boris Yeltsin responded.
“NO!” came the simultaneous responses of Fluttershy and Twilight from the back seats.
“QUIET, YOU DIDN’T EVEN TRY ONE!” Yeltsin countered as he turned toward the back seats. “DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BEFORE YOU DRINK IT! I mean… don’t judge a drink before you look at its cover. Wait… LOOK, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.”
The Lada passed by another sign showing that a petrol station was two kilometers up the road.
“Wait… petrol…” Yeltsin whispered as he blinked several times. “Hey… hey, you, Twilight, make the glowy thing again.”
“The what?” Twilight asked in confusion.
“The thing you did when I was about to get mauled by the bear. The glowy thing! Do it, quick!”
Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated as her horn was shrouded in its aura. Slowly but steadily, another golden orb got conjured up, lighting the interior of the shadowy car. With this newfound light aiding Yeltsin’s vision, he glanced down at the gas gauge. The needle hovered just above the “empty” mark.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Boris?” Fluttershy asked from the back seat.
“Oh boy… we need gas,” Yeltsin sighed. “Pretty soon we’ll be running on fumes. Or maybe we already are. Thank God I saw that sign.”
“What do we need gas for, Mr. Boris?” Pinkie asked, leaning over to see the part of the dashboard at which Yeltsin was staring.
“You think this thing runs on magic and rainbows?” Yeltsin remarked. “No. It runs on gasoline. And we’re almost out. Damn it. I don’t want to risk someone finding you three in here again. But we have to go.”
Fortunately for Yeltsin, there was enough gas in the Lada to take it two more kilometers north to the petrol station. The president once again ran through the protocol with the three ponies in his car, explaining that they had to cover up with the blankets and stay out of sight. When the petrol station came into sight, Boris Yeltsin pulled off the road onto the uneven gravel-covered lot, upon which sat two pumps and a weather-beaten one-story building with a dim light shining through one of the windows. Fluttershy and Twilight managed to conceal themselves adequately, using both the blankets and the sack of supplies while partly crouching down on the floor. Pinkie tried her best to do the same, but there was substantially less room to spread out. She was still half-perched on the front seat, likely visible from the outside as an amorphous, blanket-covered lump.
Yeltsin climbed out of the car and stretched his legs before proceeding to the fuel pump. As he placed the nozzle into the Lada’s tank and started pumping, the door to the tiny building creaked open and someone emerged from within. The man that approached the car moved at a snail’s pace, walking unsteadily but deliberately across the gravel lot in a large pair of felt valenki. Despite the summer weather, this man wore a hunting hat on his head, with the flaps hanging down over his ears, and a thick woolen coat. As the president got a better look at him, he figured that the guy must have been in his eighties. He wore a thick pair of glasses that made his eyes appear twice as large as they actually were.
“Zdravstvui ,” the man said to the president in a wheezy voice. Yeltsin returned the greeting. “You’re out late.”
“Not by choice,” was Yeltsin’s remark.
“Where are you headed?”
“Petersburg.”
The old man was beside Boris Yeltsin now, staring him right in the eyes. But it was very apparent that the man didn’t identify his customer as the president of the Russian Federation.
I guess that’s a plus, Yeltsin said to himself, hands still trembling from the sugar that coursed through his veins. The old codger doesn’t recognize me. Poor guy probably doesn’t even know what year it is.
“You’ve got a real classic,” the old man said as he examined the Lada. “Reminds me of the Pobeda I had back in the day.” He was looking in through the windows now, and Yeltsin was starting to get nervous. “Most reliable car I ever owned,” the elderly man continued as he jerkily walked about the Lada. “Took me all the way from Tula to Odessa and home again. Back when Brezhnev was premier.”
Please. Spare me the life story, Yeltsin groaned in his mind.
“But I don’t live in Tula anymore. Moved to Moscow in ‘79. But it was too busy for me. You know what I mean. So after eight years at Fryazino, I went to Yaroslavl, where my wife was born. But after she passed on I decided I’d live out here. I like it better in Novgorod, anyway.”
“Yeah, if you enjoy being bored out of your mind, I guess,” Yeltsin sighed as he leaned against the Lada.
“Oh no, I could never go back to Odessa,” the man remarked. He had misheard Yeltsin’s statement. “Too old for that now.”
“And you can’t hear, either,” Yeltsin scoffed.
“Oh of course, Odessa is still very dear to me,” the elderly man answered. The president shook his head.
Another action-packed minute of waiting by the pump passed as the petrol station owner blathered on about his past to Yeltsin, the lone member of his captive audience. When the tank was filled, Yeltsin could only pay with big bills, and the old man had to walk back into the little building on the property to make change.
That was when Pinkie Pie started knocking on the window.
“Mr. Boris! I gotta go again!” Pinkie said from within the car, teeth clenched in consternation. Twilight and Fluttershy slouched back in their seats with their hooves crossed. Mother Nature was calling again - this time about the payload of six Bogatyr energy drinks.
“What did I do in the past life?” Yeltsin sighed in defeat. Watching the house to make sure that the old man hadn’t yet come out, the president opened the car door. “Can you just hold it for a little while longer?”
“No!”
Yeltsin sighed again in defeat and looked toward the road to make sure that no cars were coming. Then he yanked open the door and ushered Pinkie Pie out.
“Alright. Keep that blanket over you, run out there somewhere, do what has to be done, and get back here!” Yeltsin demanded. But as the little pink pony pranced off toward the trees, Yeltsin knew that in a minute or so, he was going to need his own potty-break for the six Bogatyrs he pounded down.
“Hey!” Yeltsin called to Fluttershy and Twilight as he tapped on one of the car’s rear windows. “Stay put. I’m going to run inside for a minute.” With that, the president jogged off toward the little building. “Damn it…” Yeltsin huffed. “Of course now I have to go, too…”
The Russian president pushed open the partly-ajar door and stepped into a small, dimly lit room where one dreary light at the center of the ceiling cast a soft glow down upon the two desks, sofa, and ancient television below. There was the petrol station owner, hunched over one of the desks, counting out small banknotes at a caustically slow pace.
“Listen, friend… you have a bathroom in here?” Yeltsin asked, being sure to speak particularly loudly to ensure that the old man heard him properly. The answer to Yeltsin’s question was a quick nod. “Do you mind if I-”
“Of course, of course,” was the man’s response. He pointed to the two doors on the far wall. “The room on the left.”
Boris Yeltsin dashed through the door of the bathroom and locked it behind him. Fortunately for the president, the tiny room was particularly clean. Making haste, Yeltsin did his business and washed his hands, grumbling all the while that the Bogatyrs probably had some horrible implication for his health that would manifest itself later on down the road. After drying his hands with a towel that rested on the counter, Yeltsin threw the door back open to find that the other man was no longer in the building.
“Couldn’t wait for me, could you, old man?” Yeltsin said aloud to himself as he pushed open the door to the outside. But when he saw the scene that was unfolding in front of the Lada by the gas pump, the president’s blood ran cold.
“Oh no. Oh, Christ...” he muttered.
The old man must have made it out there just as Pinkie Pie returned from the fringe of the property, as the little pink pony, still covered in her blanket, stood frozen in fear by the side of the car. Worse, the guy was walking right toward Pinkie and undoubtedly was looking straight at at her.
“Hey! HEY!” Yeltsin screamed as loud as he possibly could into the still air of the summer night, scrambling toward the car. in a mental scramble for anything he might say to save the abysmal situation, he added “Stay away from my dog, she frightens easily! And she bites !”
“You had a dog in the car the whole time?” the man asked, turning around as Yeltsin approached. “She was awfully quiet.”
“Dog?” Pinkie asked, looking around. “Where?”
Yeltsin slapped his forehead as the incredulous petrol station owner turned back toward the pony. Fortunately, Pinkie Pie was still largely obscured by the blanket, with the exception of her muzzle that poked out the front.
“She’s got a very odd bark,” the old man said as he adjusted his out-of-season hunting hat.
“Well, you know how Samoyeds are. Strange bark and all that,” Yeltsin said as he stepped between Pinkie and the old man. “For the next few minutes, you act like a dog. You understand?” Yeltsin whispered sternly to Pinkie, who barked in reply.
“She’s a bit big for a Samoyed, isn’t she? Why is she running around in that sheet?”
“It’s her favorite blanket.”
“What’s her name?”
“Pinkie,” Yeltsin grumbled after a pause.
“Pinkie? ”
“Yes. Pinkie.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“It’s um... Bulgarian.”
“Mongolian?” The old man cupped his ear toward Yeltsin.
“Yeah. Mongolian,” Yeltsin sighed in defeat as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I let her run around for a minute because we’ve had such a long drive.” Yeltsin glanced into the window of the rear door and was relieved to see that Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle were still adequately hidden. “Alright, Pinkie, let’s get back in the car.”
Boris Yeltsin opened the front passenger door of the Lada, and Pinkie hopped on over and climbed inside, all the while barking like a dog in a rather unconvincing manner.
“She sounds awfully sweet,” the old man said, walking around Yeltsin and toward the car door. The president quickly slammed it shut.
“She’s not. She bites . Don’t need her to chew your arm off now, do we?” Yeltsin said. “You have my change?”
“She’s got mange ?”
“Do YOU have MY CHANGE?” Yeltsin repeated, practically screaming into the old man’s ear.
“Oh yes, right here.”
The nearly-deaf man gave Yeltsin what remained of his larger bills. Then, the president hurriedly bid him goodnight and climbed back into the car. Boris Yeltsin put the key in the ignition and gave it a turn before looking over at Pinkie.
“That was way too close,” the Russian president groaned.
Pinkie barked a couple of times in response, and then started panting like a dog. Yeltsin shook his head and slowly turned back to the windshield.
“Give me a break,” Yeltsin grumbled, rolling his eyes. But as he turned the wheel and brought the old car back out onto the road, he couldn’t help but crack a smile.
* * *
Location: M10 Highway, North of Novgorod, Novgorodskaya Oblast, Russian Federation
Date: July 13th, 1996
Time: 3:36 AM
Well-outside of Novgorod, the interior of the Lada had become much quieter. Yeltsin and Pinkie were more settled now, as the effects of the sugar rush had largely subsided. The cheaply-manufactured Bogatyr energy drinks only provided a short burst of intense energy, rather than a longer, more useful stretch of moderate energy. Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle were curled up in the back seats, snoring softly, fast asleep. In the front, the president of the Russian Federation reclined in his seat as he watched the road before him, and his poofy pink companion did her best to see what she could through her window.
The roads were mostly empty now, and the darkness of the countryside in the north of the Novgorodskaya Oblast left Yeltsin with a particularly eerie feeling of isolation. And it was by no means unfounded. Since the arrival of three little ponies in his office just days prior, Yeltsin seemed to be living in an entirely different world, one almost completely isolated from the one that he knew before; a world where colorful ponies could talk, a world where unicorn-horn magic was no longer the stuff of fairytales. And the icing on the cake was that the last six years of political turmoil were being temporarily swept under the rug as Yeltsin drove onward through the night to the doorstep of Gennady Zyuganov.
But to the north, the sky appeared to be unnaturally bright for such a late hour. It was the White Nights, the characteristic phenomenon of the summer months in the north. And if Yeltsin could see them, it meant that their journey to Saint Petersburg was coming to an end.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Boris,” Pinkie Pie said, suddenly breaking the silence.
Yeltsin glanced over to find that Pinkie, who only moments ago had her face and hooves pressed up against the window, was now slumping in her seat with a dejected look on her face.
“Huh? Sorry for what?” Yeltsin asked. “It’s not your fault, pink pony. How were you supposed to know that grandpa whats-his-name was going to walk out to the car without me?”
“No, not that,” Pinkie said as she turned to Boris Yeltsin. “I mean… I’m sorry for all the stuff that happened since we showed up.”
Boris Yeltsin was in shock. It was the first time he had ever seen Pinkie Pie show such a dismal expression. Since the first moment that they had met, Pinkie Pie had been a little ball of sunshine with a permanent, cheery smile. The somber pony in the passenger’s seat seemed to be an entirely different animal.
“Ever since we poofed into your office, a whole bunch of stuff has gone wrong,” Pinkie continued. “We scared you a couple of times and got you in trouble with a bunch of people. Then they made you go to the hospital. We almost got caught by your guards, then you had to do all this driving. And then we met the bear, and then we almost got caught by the old guy in the weird hat-”
“Are you kidding?” Yeltsin interrupted. Pinkie, taken aback by the president’s response, turned to find Boris Yeltsin grinning as he stared through the windshield, nearly on the verge of a laugh. “Are you kiddin g?” Boris Yeltsin repeated as he quickly looked over at Pinkie and then returned his eyes to the road. “Don’t be sorry for anything. I haven’t had this much fun since the August Coup!”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, sure, half of Barvikha Village thinks I’ve gone off the deep end. Sure, Boris Berezovskiy isn’t too happy with me. And yeah, I had to escape from my own compound, drive halfway across the country, almost get mauled by a bear, and cooperate with that idiot, Zyuganov. But all the same, since you three showed up, it’s been a blast.”
“Really?”
“Really!” Yeltsin insisted with a nod. “Listen, pink pony. Being president of anything will take its toll on you after a while. With all the stress I’ve had to deal with over the last six years, this whole thing is like a vacation!”
“Really really ?”
“Yes. Really really.”
A brief pause followed, before Pinkie asked,
“Do you think we’ll be able to go back home?”
Yeltsin wasn’t prepared for that one. He didn’t know how to answer this question. And if he placed all his faith in Gennady Zyuganov’s plan and said yes, he didn’t know if he’d be telling the truth. Yeltsin didn’t want to look back at Pinkie Pie now, for he knew that he’d only be met with a pair of wide, uncertain eyes from an entirely different world that would make his heart melt.
“We’re going to find out, won’t we?” Yeltsin asked after a few moments of silence. “I’m going to hope that Zyuganov wouldn’t have set this whole thing up if it didn’t hold any water. It’s the one chance we’ve got. That’s why we’re on the road to Petersburg. And we’re very close now, Pinkie. Do you see that light in the sky?” Yeltsin pointed ahead to the glowing fringe of cloudy sky to the north. “That’s how we know. We’re driving right into a White Night.”
“A White Night?”
“In Saint Petersburg, you’re so far north that even when the sun sets, the sky is still light. Every summer is just like that. It never gets dark, and the nights are white. It’s beautiful.”
“So who raises and sets the sun?” Pinkie asked inquisitively. Yeltsin raised a brow.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the president asked. “Nobody raises the sun. The world turns, and in the daytime you see the sun, and at nighttime, you don’t.”
“Well that’s weird,” Pinkie said, squinting ahead towards the light sky. “In Equestria, Princess Celestia makes the sun rise and set. And her sister, Princess Luna, does the same thing with the moon.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” Boris Yeltsin pondered aloud. “Not only do you have your two princesses, but one princess brings the day, and the other brings the night. That’s amazing.”
From the backseat, Twilight mumbled in her sleep and rolled around until she felt comfortable. Fluttershy was quietly snoring all the while.
“You know, Pinkie, you should probably try to get some sleep, too,” Yeltsin added. “This’ll be the last chance you get. Only a couple hours left until we’re in the city.”
“But then you won’t have anypony to talk to, Mr. Boris.”
“I think I’ll be able to manage,” Yeltsin said. “It’ll give me some time to think about what we should do when we get to the KPRF offices and find Zyuganov.”
“Oh. Okie dokie, then,” Pinkie said as she pulled the blanket around her and curled up on the seat.
“Don’t worry, I’ll wake you up when we get there,” Yeltsin said with a grin.
“Nighty-night, Mr. Boris.”
“Goodnight, Pinkie.”
And so, the little Lada chugged along through the night toward the softly-lit sky summer sky as Yeltsin and the three ponies drew ever nearer to Saint Petersburg - the Venice of the North.
