ChGK in the Prairie

Chapter 15: Kansas Clashes Against the Red Army

After months of holding out for better prices, and saving up for additional contingencies, Patricia finally moves to buy a house not too far from her workplace in early November. Once the move is completed, and the starting supplies purchased, she begins the process of changing addresses for bureaucracy.

One week before the Worlds, she invites her teammates over, alongside Lanisha, because of the online tournament she invited them over for. Stage 5 of the Slavyanka Grand Prix.

"Privet; look at who we are playing against..." the 6th player tells them.

"Teams that are among the favorites to win at Worlds next week?" Yakiv asks the sixth player.

"We finished in the top fifty at the Top Thousand, as well as the International League, where they played, too. Several of them are playing at the Slavyanka Grand Prix as well. So playing against them is not special for us anymore. Who could be special enough then?" Vira asks the sixth player, with apprehension.

"First, Patricia is the most money-pinching among us, second... the Central Team of the Army" the sixth player then comments on the rustic look of the home.

"Central Team of the Army? These orcs had no success in competitive ChGK, so why are they entering tournaments alongside teams in Worlds contention?" Bohdan questions why would the Russian military even play internationally.

Ukrainian diasporas referred to Russian soldiers as orcs as far back as the war in the Donbass, based upon the brutality of the Russians on the civilians. To some, however, it may also evoke the conscripts' dumbness.

"Vira's ex talked about the Red Army's lack of ChGK success, and, if Stephanie's right, there isn't a whole lot of erudition to go around. They were implying that they were talking about active duty military personnel. So what makes the Red Army garner that level of fame in ChGK?" Patricia asks them.

"The Central Team of the Army, or the Red Army, if you will, comprises the best two players each from the Army, the Navy and the VVS (the air force) not attached to civilian teams. They are essentially riding on the coattails of the choir, and not the least because one of the players is also a Red Army chorister" the sixth player explains to them.

"Let's stop for a moment to consider who could even play competitive ChGK in the military. Enlisted are intellectually all over the place, and I believe this holds true in Russia and in Ukraine. Officer cadets have a higher intellectual floor, but not all of them are that much smarter either. By now, you know that to realistically play at Worlds, it takes a couple of very smart people, ideally two or three, and everyone else should still have some erudition" Bohdan harangues the team.

And, while all 3 branches do have some smart servicemembers on hand, not many even have the inclination to play intellectual games at that level, but I feel there is something both Stephanie and Vira's ex haven't said about why the military in general, and the Red Army in particular, never performed at the same level as civilian teams. The military pays peanuts compared to other jobs requiring college degrees, especially in the long run, Patricia muses, before issuing one more warning to her team prior to the tournament:

"Just because they are active-duty military personnel doesn't mean we should take them for granted! Down with the Krasnaya Armiya! Down with the Red Army orcs!" the sixth player shouts, fist in the air.

"As far as I could make out, active-duty military personnel tend to be intellectually rigid, almost one-dimensional" Vira adds a comment.

The Red Army, in quiz bowl, is a military entity essentially in funding only. I faced it myself in Moscow, and more specifically in Ostankino Palace. But the Red Army's quiz bowl team doesn't play ChGK under that name, Patricia's flashbacks about the World Cup start to flare up, and leaves her wondering about how Moscow State performs in ChGK. Which then turns to past columns of FTPFTC. So it was actually rather straightforward for the military to convince Moscow State to tack on another intellectual game. They already had their own club for intellectual games. But Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok basically hosted a SCT mirror just so that Russia could play at the ICT; its captain scored nothing.