After Hours

Zhanna Friske. Portofino

Who wants to see Zhanna in motorcyle leathers? I guess the better question is: who doesn't? Look out, Italy, she's singing a song about you! I can only imagine what Portofino would be like playing host to a large contingent of vacationing Russians. My experience with that was in Turkey. There is a small town called Kemer on the Lycian Peninsula about half an hour outside of Antalya. All the signs are in Russian, the local populace only learns Russian and if you go there, everybody just assumes you're Russian. It's a total nightmare. The food is terrible, because the Russians like it that way. Everybody's powerfully rude, because, well, Russians can be like that and often are. And most upsetting of all, burly, flabby 70-year-old men wear Speedos. Their battle axe wives - while they don't wear thongs - show way, way too much puckered flesh. And those are always the only Russians you see on the beach. Their lovely granddaughters are generally out sightseeing during the day and getting drunk/fighting off the Turkish boys at night. The Russian girls are always easy to spot; they're the ones climbing over the picturesque ruins in short skirts and heels. So if this song helps transform Portofino into a Russian vacation destination, you can expect all these people and many more to show up and drive the poor Italians crazy. And even though Zhanna Friske might also be there, her presence will be diluted by a whole bunch of tremendously rude and breathtakingly ugly people.