Gender Studies

They call it zopa in Russia — literally, ‘to be on your ass.’

Two weeks later, the tables would turn, and the boys handed gifts to the girls for March 8th — International Women’s Day, as it’s known in Russia. Usually, it was tulips, the flower of spring, which you could find growing in the backyards of most Moscow apartment buildings at that time of year or sold by some old witch on the street.

I was in eighth grade (out of Russia’s eleven) at a hardcore mathematics school in Moscow when my teacher, Maxim Igorevich — a tree of a man who taught history and simultaneously served as our class coordinator — asked the boys to buy flowers. March 8th was coming up.

Our class had 25 people, out of which 22 were boys. So after Maxim Igorevich gave us the instructions and the money was collected — about $100 in total, more money than I’d ever held — it amounted to not more than a bottle of Coke’s worth per person.

Watching the crumpled rouble notes passed down from hand to hand, yours truly had an idea.

“Guys,” I said, motioning for the other boys to gather in a circle during a break like a pack of adolescent wolves. “Why don’t we, you know, make the most of this money?”

“Like what?” my classmate Makar — whose father was a gangster — asked. Much like his father, Makar was known for playing all sorts of financial schemes, from betting on sports to selling fake IDs. This is to say, he seemed eager to hear what I was proposing.

“I don’t know, think outside the box!” I snapped, punching Makar on the shoulder. “We could bet this money on something and double or even triple it. Nobody would have…