When I was about eight, my uncle Neil introduced me to a riddle-game called “Beyond the Green Glass Doors.” Beyond the green glass doors, there are streets, but no roads. There are bees, but no honey. Beyond the green glass doors, there is glassware, but no china. We played this game, going around the dinner table at Thanksgiving, each trying to guess at the underlying rule and make a statement about what was or wasn’t behind those peculiar Twilight-Zone-like doors. Sometimes, I feel like being in Russia is like that. Like I’m always trying to figure out some underlying pattern that would explain why things are as they are here. For example: