The Secrets Of Vancouver BC, Canada

Siberia Isn’t So Bad

From The Atlantic:

This past summer, when the New York Rangers declined to renew his contract, Jagr could have found another NHL team—though perhaps not one willing to pay him $11 million, roughly his first-year salary with Omsk.

Jagr, 36, is now playing for Avangard Omsk, of the new Continental Hockey League, in Omsk, Siberia.

Jagr’s presence in former gulag country seems a bit surreal. He is, after all, a committed anticommunist who wears the number 68 in memory of the Soviet suppression of the Prague Spring, in 1968, the same year his grandfather, who had been dispossessed and imprisoned by the Communists, died.

“Czech Communists, not Soviets, imprisoned [my grandfather]. And to say I won’t come to Russia would be like saying I wouldn’t go to Germany because they started World War II. You have to let it go.”

“I had hoped to sign with New York, and that didn’t happen. But I came to Omsk because I wanted to. Here in Russia, you have the real freedom, which is not like U.S. freedom. Back there you have so many rules.” He smiled.

“If the police stop you [in the U.S.] because you’re going too fast, they can put you in jail. But sometimes you just need to go fast. Here, you always have choices”—including, he seemed to imply, bribing one’s way out of trouble.

The only downside to all this freedom is that you have to enjoy it at minus 40.