MOSCOW. Tim, I’ve been watching you and your friends for some time now and make no mistake: you seem to have problems with your so-called wine writing. You’re being snobbish. And sarcastic at times. Our State language experts proved it. Don’t expect that being snobbish will help you in Russia: our people rarely have enough sense of humor to realise you’re being snobbish.
Tim, here’s the thing: if you were Russian, you’d not have a chance to survive in a welcoming circle of local wine writers and experts. Unlike James Suckling, who probably would
What you publish is way over the line. You have to show a bit more respect to your fellow colleagues — wine writers, many of them being much older and — I might add — wiser than you are and have way more tasting experience. This Washam guy, God knows who he is, should be safely locked in a cold Sakhalin prison and given a “dvushechka” (2 years jail time, da). What is this “Call me Jancis” text supposed to be? My sources indicate he is actually a male. Tim, pay attention here. Understand you’re just another rebelling show-off trying to shake the way Russian people live. Those articles of yours only pretend to have deep thoughts when, in fact, are just misinterpretation of truths about wine, life and good people.
You mention many wine brands in your articles, Tim. Good, I do respect your right to do so. But are there commercial relations here, are those all promotional materials? Is there actually a single unpaid word on that timatkin.com? Is it actually an advertising catalogue, your web-site? I need to have it clear.
Were there any cuss words in your wine texts recently? Maybe not, but beware — not allowed in Russia. Please, erase all the cuss words now. I found some suspicious ones in that fella Jamie Goode’s article on wine journalism — “I’ll be sucked into” he said? We are clean country and our people don’t swear, except for in Oscar-nominated movies every once in a hundred years.
Tim, you and your so-called colleagues write a lot about wines, but not Russian wines. This is a disturbing fact: I smell a lack of patriotism here. What stops you from talking about the brands we can be proud of in our country, the country that has its own sacral, unique path? Why not describe how good those wines are, why not talk about long winters that make our wines so good and dangerous to produce – with temperature variations from -25 to zero? You know it’s good for grapes’ finesse and subtle aromas, don’t you? Why still so much buzz about the wines that are too expensive for us to buy? We planned to impose some sanctions on those anyway, just a hint for you.
Tim, I see you write for many magazines — Harpers, Wine-Searcher, some obscure newspapers nobody reads in Russia. Please, let me know if the money you get for these publications are properly outlined in your annual tax declaration and also if the taxes are paid in Russia.
By the way, haven’t anyone informed you yet that you should place a health warning sign on all your web-site pages — at least 10% of the page area and to be clearly seen? Then your fellow Russian readers will realise how harmful what you’re doing is and probably go to some other, more safe web-site, for example the web-site of Russian TV’s First Channel.
Tim, you will probably have to immediately report to the Russian mass communications watchdog because I feel your web-site maintains more than 3000 readers. Means your blog is a mass communication service. Please, fill in a form. It’s pretty simple and won’t take more than 3 hours of your time. Then, please, deliver the form in person.
Finally, my advice to you: if you do intend to report to our authorities in person and board a BA flight to Moscow anytime soon — be aware. Jeremy Clarkson had this experience and I don’t think he liked it. The Sunday Times article looked great, though, half of English-speaking Russia was laughing out loud. Another half banned Clarkson in Twitter. We intended to ban Twitter itself but not right now.
Tim, let me finish with these inspiring words sent by an unnamed FBI agent to Martin Luther King back in 1964: Tim, “there’s only one thing for you to do. You know what it is”. Please, register your UK citizenship with our State authorities. Right now.