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Russian logic

In my building here, there’s a delightful little Russian by the name of Pavel. Pavel boasts sundry endearing specializations, such as drinking a lot, opening bottles of beer in truly bizarre ways—with a CD-R, sans jewel case; with a 1 dollar bill—and regaling us with tales of Russian humor. By far, my favorite joke is that which is dubbed “Russian logic.” I’ve tried Googling for it to no avail, so who knows, maybe this actually happened to Pavel’s family or something.

I warn you, it’s weird.

In a small farming town somewhere in Russia, a family noticed that their cow had gone missing. The men of the family conclude that the cow has been stolen, and proceed to determine the thief. The grandfather says, “Whoever stole this cow must be homosexual. Only homosexuals steal cows.” His son, the father of the farming family, replies, “Then whoever stole the cow must be short, too. All homosexuals are short.” The grandson chimes in with the capstone to their investigation, concluding, “The shepherd that lives at the edge of town is short! Therefore he must be the person who stole our cow.” They all agree to go beat up the poor shepherd.

Upon arriving at the shepherd’s hut, the grandfather declares, “Give us back our damn cow, you faggot.” The shepherd explains he knows absolutely nothing of any cow-stealing incident, and his three accusers decide to take the issue to court.

Once in the courtroom, the shepherd uses as his defense the absolutely absurd chain of logic the men used to accuse him. The judge inquires as to the nature of the reasoning, and the men explain. The judge says, “Well, let’s test the validity of this logic.” With that, he points to a box sitting on a table at the edge of the courtroom, and asks the grandfather, “What is in that box?”

The grandfather thinks for a moment, then replies, “Well, it’s a box, so… it probably has another box inside.” The father says, “A box inside a box would probably hold something round.” The son finishes it off with, “If it’s round and inside a box, it’s probably an orange.”

The judge says, “Just give them back their damn cow, you asshole.”

This joke has become a party classic, and it gets better the drunker Pavel is, because then his English is mangled and newcomers to the joke aren’t sure whether they missed something, or whether the verdict by the judge really is the punchline.

I was inspired to tell this story by reading an article about a Russian doomsday cult that just came out of its cave, evidently having had their doomsday date wrong.

Thirty-five people took refuge in the cave in the Penza region, about 650 kilometres southeast of Moscow, in November, threatening to detonate 400 litres of gas canisters if authorities tried to remove them. The cave dwellers, members of a group calling itself the True Russian Orthodox Church, said they were waiting for the end of world, which they believed would come sometime in May

Oh, yes. What an honor to be a parishioner of the True Hardcore X-treme Russian Orthodox Church, complete with a badly dilapidated cave as demesne and 400 liters of gasoline as a characteristically Soviet tithe.

The story gets better when the cult members explain their decision to leave the cave.

Vice Governor Oleg Melnichenko said more of the cave had collapsed around dawn Tuesday, and cult members told emergency officials that a divine vision overnight had instructed them to leave.

Last Friday seven other cult members emerged as melting spring snows caused part of the shelter to cave in, sparking fears that the entire structure could collapse.

Well I’ll be damned, there’s that comet speaking to you again—you must be a prophet! Just how do you tap into these cosmic messages? What did the comet say this time, anyway? “Get the hell you, you drunken idiots, this shit is falling down!”?

Maybe they’ll get the date right next year.