"Like a Soviet officer, dammit!" Vladimir slapped at my elbow to make sure my arm was in the commissar-approved position for drinking — elbow out shoulder-high, like that of a soldier marching in front of Lenin's tomb, except with a shot glass at the lips. "To America!" he bellowed, and the three of us drank another round of Johnnie Walker Red at the FEP restaurant in Ostashkov, a drowsy lakeside town in Russia's Tver province north of Moscow.