Thinking to write something similar Julius Fucik's Notes from the Gallowss, but problem is I am free and not imprisoned. It would be the same, if I wanted to write Main Campf while being anti-fascist, sort of oxymoron. But I read before in short the biography of Hans Fallada, who was somehow free and tried to write, while living in the Nazi Germany, so that was some point for me to try also to write a sort of little drafts.
Part 1. Feeling boring
It feels like when you cannot see your shadow while going in the evening sun when you live in the country, where military and secret police had invented a stupid, but at the same time serious, sort of an ideology, of a 'greatness of Russia', and you completely decided that it was a servile and unhuman rules about singing hymns with huge important look in your face. Before was Marxism, and it was sometimes silly, but mostly serious with thousands executed in Lubyanka basement, but now I have to try to create serious face during singing of the new hymns, while Russian jets bombing Syria to help Assad just because they were patriotic and want to build 'great Russia', in all, it's a sort of ideological garbage that difficult to understand what is it. But step by step, governmnet were pushing the ideology of 'greatness' in our everyday life, and some my neighbours tried to erect a Russian tricolor flags instead resigned Red Marxist flags, that was looking boring and disgusting for me, because there were homes with the patriotic flags down the Lenin street, and just near were undertakers offices on the same Lenin street, because the business of selling memorials and digging the holes in the town cemetery were booming during the Covid-19. And in the town centre, there was a sculpture of Vladimir Lenin. In all, the town looked as if here were living thousands of crazy Judas Iscariots, who decided to crucify Jesus Christ if the Lord appears second time on the planet. Becuase Vladimir Lenin killed tzar Nikolay the Second with all his family, millions peasants in Siberia camps and poet Nikolay Gumilyov, and Putin killed thousands of children during the Chechen and Syria wars, and all the people here were ready to erect the new Russian tricolor patriotic flag and wave that high in the sky.
That poetic words about shadow under the sun above I have stolen from the well-known Osip Mandelstam poem-satire, which in Russian literally says: We don't feel soil under feet, -- the Mandelstam's line that says about a feeling that better understand what you feel when cannot see your shadow, I thought (see the 1989 Mandelstam poem translation by W.S. Merwin and Clarence Brown on the website 'Academy of American Poets' https://poets.org/poem/stalin-epigram).
When happened Gorbachev's reform 'perestroika' (literally, reconstruction), Soviet government had started to free religious rights from restrictions. Then the more or less free times were beginning, when in Moscow people received ability to buy somehow the Holy Bible, if you had a friends or relatives in Moscow book stores. And when Soviet Union was gone and the Democratic Russian Republic proclaimed, governments started to release chrictians baptists from labour camps. In Soviet society, baptists were traditionally called sectants (until present-time) in contrast with the Russian Orthodox Church, whose Orthodox members were rarely to be arrested in the last period of the USSR, like the periods of Leonind Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev. But the baptists were arrested very frequent, the places of water baptism on reivers were raided by KGB USSR units. The Soviet criminal code had article about anti-Soviet propaganda and actions, that meant that if you handed the New Testament over to your friend, it was that case, because Communism was based on the meaning, that there was no god, but the New testament said the that god existed.
Why KGB USSR didn't persecute Orthodox members, it was because they were mostly illiterate grandmothers and grandfathers, members of 'kolkhoz' (abbr. from 'kollective khozyaistvo', that is collektive rural communist farm), but if the Ortodox members were from intelligentsia, they were under more cautious surveilance by KGB and sometimes arrested too.
In all, there were the free times of Russian democracy, governments started to free baptists (sectants) and I saw first time the New Testament by accidentally somehow, when was once in Moscow. A bit later, the freed sectants were seen also in my small town of Sukhinichi, they were euphoric when started their preach in the local commuter train, in all, it was like the breath of freedom, but we were young and stupid, we usually laugh on the sectants, saying jokes that we were muslims. And the Orthodox Church received huge money from Russian bankers to restore their temples, so the town Bell tower was restored in the times of 1990s, but the Lenin statue remained safe too, because governmnet said we must not persecute the communists, because they were innocent, it was only Joseph Stalin had mistakes, we should not start 'witch hunt'. While a few of dissidents, who were persecuted during communism, said that Joseph Stalin had no mistakes, but only did murder thousands of innocent people. And communists chiefs were guilty because they persecuted people even in the times of last soviet days. But the voice of dissidents were rejected in favour version about 'Witch Hunt'. It looks Mikhail Gorbachev was the author of the thought: we should not persecute communists, because it would be a witch-hunt.
In all, there was nice everything, there was the new Bell Tower in the Orthodox Smolensk Church (dedicated to the Smolensk icon of Holy Mother), and near was the Lenin statue, and the Lenin street remained to be central town street, and the sectants were preaching in commuter train and bus. And then started the Russian patriotism, Boris Eltsin created new Russian patriotic hymn and Chechen bombardments, when were killed about 100.000 or more. There you go! Just only Vladimir Putin changed Boris Eltsin in the office of president, all the rest is the same now. The sectants only vanished into thin air somehow, probably they disappeared, because they were restricted in their water baptism and street preaching, the activities that were called 'public activities', that should be first registered and agreed with administration, but as far as administrations didn't care about the sectants, so they vanished into thin air. I see somehow little amount of them, they gather calmly in a small building, they are not preaching on street, and in this case they were not exactly the baptits, but a sort of pentecostal christians, who preach in unknown languages; they were a sort of or the same as pentecostal church in the United States. The Russian pentecostal christians were restricted to gather near rivers to baptise, so they baptise present-day inside their buildings, in small plastic pool, and it's rarely, because the plastic pool was only in the nearby big city. But local pentecostals have not baptised even in the plastic pool. They only speak the unknown languages, sing hymns (of course, not that hymn that Boris Eltsin invented). By the way, the new Russian hymn, triumphant music without words by the 19 century's composer Mikhail Glinka, that Boris Eltsin invented, later dumped by Vladimir Putin, because Putin said there was only music, so for sportsmen it was difficult to sing a song together when there was no words, so they invented the new hymn with words: they just took old Soviet hymn, put into the old communist hymn new words about democracy and dumped all words about communism down. There you go! In all, the new hymn is the same with the music as of Joseph Stalin's, but all communist words now have been changed in favor of democracy. So, I explained how this patriotism was born. So they are praying in the morning in the Smolensk church, then Mikhail Gorbachev's Lenin statue in the town center saying hello to passers-by, and then they waving their tricolor, bombing Chechen Republic and Syria. Then, local people go to hair dress on the Lenin street with mask, the town World War Two memorial on the Lenin street to wave the Russian tricolor, and undertaker's offices on the Lenin street to buy new grave monument for late relatives, because of new coronavirus conditions with increased death rate. There you go! They wave the tricolor also on the town crossroad, and on the governmnent Hall, and somehow everywhere where some people gather to sing new Putin's hymn. (I call the Gorbachev's Lenin statue, because Mikhail Gorbachev had said that we could not allow to have the witch-hunt of communists. So, Gorbachev saved all the communists, KGB officers and secret agents, and the Lenin statues, all over Russia from persecution. But I think, that our Lenin statue will be soon dumped anyway, because there is a new trend, when Vladimir Putin is interchanging the Lenin statue with Tsar Ivan the Third statue, a tsar who united Moscow Kingdom in 15 century.)
You may say: well, the same in the US, they also were bombing Vietnam, and singing the Star-Spangled Banner. And, recently, the Afghan young footballer fell to death from the US Army aircraft on the Karzai airport tarmac, because american forces weren't able to do evacuation properly. So, I have to calm myself. There you go! It's how all the events happening on the planet and dog-eat-dog.
May be yes, I would answer, or not, because there are some dissidents in the US, who were against Vietnam bombardments, they are present there. But I guess, we have nearly zero dissidents in Russia. You have Joan Baez and Bob Dylan who were against Vietnam bombardment. But I cannont find present-day who is against Syria bombardment in Russia. I can only call Polina Zherebsova, who bacame well-known for her child diary of Chechen war. All the rest, who said against the Chechen war, were or dead or forced in silence by Vladimir Putin. Polina Zherebtsova fleed from Russia to Finland.
All our rock bands sometimes criticize Vladimir Putin, maybe not all, but many, and somehow. Probably, I can call the Dolphin (Russian musician), but he just sang in his song that there were bad times when you were bomber jet pilot, so he was not sure it was good to bomb unknown cities in the fog below, so I culdn't say surely the song was about against Syrian bombardment. Maybe Dolphin had criticized Israeli pilots, who bombarded Hezbolla camps near the Golan Heights, I am not sure. If you have spare time, you can try to see, if he is singing about Vietnam or Chechnya here on YouTube (Dolphin's song [Дельфин 713 (Исповедь Пилота) Альбом 442 (2018)] is not under the essay's Creative Commons License).
Part 2. The poor
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So, I live in the country of rising patriotism. The patriotism is not only thing that rising in Russia, food prices and housing utilities bills also on the rise, only the demography going down. But demography looks to be a common problem for the World, the demography was falling also in Europe. Probably, Russia is too near to Europe, so we have similar demographies on the drop. The food prices are also growing everywhere during pandemic. So, I can say, if compare, then Russia with huge patriotism goes ahead Europe. And the poors are dying in Russian hallways the same as in United States. It's common tragedy, when people dying from the COVID-19. So, I decided just to mention the tragedy, that people were dying in Russia. Social pensions for disabled people are very low in Russia, eg, my is 9,950 rubs (about $124) a month. While Russia is struggling to be member of WTO, so we have more or less common food and drug prices with all the World. All the drug prices from import are rising during last decade, because of the Russian currency falling.
So, I thought somehow to write some short excerpt similar Jack London about homeless, drug and alcoholic addicts, also about disabled with wheelchair, sight loss and diabetic. I see very rarely people with wheelchairs in the town. To say exactly, it was three times during last decade, when I saw wheelchair here. It's very rare, because in the Cities like London or Berlin, they are everywhere.
Wheelchair users are feeling very fearful, I think, even to go out from house, because they are so rare on the streets, a sort of exotic. Children may start putting finger at them and teasing, because the Russian children have no experience to meet disabled people. Russian school is struggling to start inclusion program, but so far it's only in big cities, I suppose. So, the children just don't see their disabled peers. They have no experience of being polite with the peole with disabilities.
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Part 3. The rich
The rich are also suffering so much during the pandemia of COVID-19. But among the poor, when they may hear that a new rich died in Kommunarka, high level hospital for COVID-19 treatment, built on outskirts of Moscow in record time, they feel sheer joy, sometimes the rich have to suffer too. When the newly hospital had opened, Vladimir Putin visited the Kommunarka, dressed in a sort of astronaut suit. To say true, I thought Vladimir Putin has to die either. But, you know, Putin was all the time a good sportsman, He used to plunge in icy water, When Russian Orthodox church celebrates John Baptist day. Also he loves skying on the montains near Black sea, in the City of Sochi. In all, Vladimer Putin is hard built politician. But many Russian rich men died in the Kommunarka. Personally, I try to love all the rich and poor, But, you know, I am the same person as all the people, I love sometimes coffee, sometimes Indian black tea, sometimes Chinese green, sometimes I thoght, how all the hardships and burden of the deseases hard to bear! ...But then, I forget about all the problems, and love to watch a new sci-fi movie on YouTube. This happenning to me, because Lord Jesus put little amount of His majestic Spirit in mine poor soul, that is who in guilt that I love people not so much. The more recent death, that we can mention, it was Vasiliy Lanovoy, a very talented artist, who spent his last days mostly entertaining the new Russian rich, reciting Russian endless triumphant poetry written by royal court poets about patriotism and brass glory, demanding from youth to sacrifice their lives for the sake of a great new massacre. But Vasiliy Lanovoy was so talented, when had started his career; He didn't fight in the WW2, because was still young for the draft. Then the Khrushchev warmth happened, it was great times when Soviet artists started to breath somehow. And so was Vasiliy Lanovoy, who had played the astronaut, similar recent George Clooney, in the Soviet TV staged, black and white, two-part 'Solaris' (1968). It's even difficult to imagine, that such a twisted morality play, sci-fi phantasmagoria, was staged just only after 15 years after Joseph Stalin's reign of terror. And then, he just sold all his talents for the sake of the State glossy awards, and became the royal court clown on the the endless televised glossy celebrations of the endless great Russian victories by the generations of the rich Moscovites and mafia-like Peterburgers, who never felt gunpowder, never felt blood, whose power was bought by stealing of budget oily money, and ordering contract killings of their rivals, -- so, maybe, they saw yet blood, the blood of their enemies-businesmen, in the Alexander Nevzorov's evening news-wrap '600 secunds'.
Petr Mamonov was a sort of famous exotic gothic hippy and punk, another ugly son of Gorbachev's perestroika, (by the way, another well-known son of Gorbachev's perestroika, was Vladimir Putin, because it's difficult to imagine, that Putin, who was an KGB officer in East Germany, had a smallest opportunity to become a leader of Russia if had not happened the perestroika and Union collapsed), but I am not sure that we can mention Petr Mamonov here, because He didn't succed to join the party of the Russian rich, while living on the outskirts of the Empire in a small forest village, accidently making money by playing great sweety-sadistic Mosfilm tsars, that the new Russian rich love to watch with vodka. Another reason, why Petr Mamonov was not a part of the new Moscow establishment, because he was too clever, I think, and dangerous, because knew lots of secret things, eg, about Victor Tsoi, etc. When I say the secret about Victor Tsoi, I mean that many people believe, that Victor Tsoi was assasinated by Boris Eltsin... In all, there were less famous, but rich people, who died, but to say true, when I read news, I had forgotten at once all the names, because You know, there are so lots of such rich people in Russia, their name is legion, Ivanovs, Petrovs, Sidorovs (it's Russian a sort of idiom for the endless list of people), who all were, I hope, good bankers, family men, drug dealers, successful illegal gun sellers, and other pimps, may god save their poor souls from hades.
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Part 4. Poetry of the corrupt period
I tried to write poetry long ago in Russian, and noticed that had terrible sense of rhyme, so I didn't write so far and try to learn English grammar to fill my spare time... Actually, there were lots of good poets in the time being -- all good poets as a rule were not affiliated with Russian State mainstream. The poets like Viktor Tsoy and many others, while they were composing their songs, the State tried to restrict their concerts, records and make their life uneasy. You know, Viktor Tsoy was not just a poet, he was writing songs and composed for them the poetry. Probably, to write good poetry you have to have the sense of song. There were also good poets, who had written lyrics for the Nautilus Pompilius, in that time their solist Vyacheslav Butusov and Ilya Kormiltsev. I would mention also the band Agatha Christie, and their members who created lyrics of good quality, although Agatha Christie and later projects of Gleb Samoilov were very persistently a sort of decadent poetry, sometimes it was too artificial, a bit silly, when all angels must die after narchotic overdose and young boys and girls must be killed by an accidental police raid, in all, it's all the way, but sometimes there was just good poetry.
Another well-known poet and rock-musical artist is Boris Grebenshchikov, but looks, he is not precisely a poet of corrupt period of Russia, but he was a poet of corrupt period of Soviet Union. His poetry is an intellectual product, very political, oriental, there you would find yin and yang, Buddism, Taoism, mathematical and phisical formulas, decadent and dissident researches into future society, sci-fi and non-fiction...
I would stop here counting all the good poets of Russian corrupt period, because you may find them yourself if want. Also, I don't want to proceed the list, because I have suspected there was some contract between the State and poets, because I felt that there was a game when all the rock-artists at once started to tour Belgrade with anti-NATO concerts, while nobody of them trying to find 10,000 killed Albanian Kosovans. They at once started to search for killed Serbs and Gypsy, that was a good deed. But why they have forgotten 744 Albanian Kosovan civilians, buried just on the outskirts of Belgrade in 1999 in the place of Batajnica police training camp, located just near the Batajnica airport, where Russian rock-artists were probably landing? Why Slobodan Milosevic, who killed the Albanian Kosovans, was innocent? So, had I suspected, there was a sort of soul selling event between Kremlin and Russian poets. Because, all the normal humans have to defend all the victims of Yugoslav war, no matter what was their ethnicity, Serb, Gypsy, Yiddish, Croat or Albanian.
That is why I have liked Goran Bregovic's way of playing folklore, when he tried to mix together Albanian and Serb motifs. But then He toured Crimea, and was declared persona non grata in Ukraine. So, probably, Goran Bregovic has to consider to add an Ukrainian motif next time... Probably, every artist may play what a god, muse, or angel says to them, but, I am sure, I have to consider that all Albanian civilians killed, children, elderly and women in the spring of 1999, cannot be declared as non-existed, forgotten, or guilty, because guilty in a mistical sacred crime. Because they were guilty and killed by Slobodan Milosevic because of revenge for the Kosovan Serbs, Gypsy killed by Albanians during 1998-99, and for the retaliation for the Nato, that had bombed the Danube bridge and Belgrade Radiotelevion center. So, I think, all the children were innocent, Serb, Gypsy, Croat as well as Albanian, no matter what was their ethnicity. That is why I hate the current Russian patriotism, that has grown on the Chechen bloody soil of 1994, bloody pogroms on Odessa soil of 1905, and killing of uncomfortable journlists in 2000 and until present-day, because the journalists had courage to say towards Russian government that a murderer was murderer, a thief was thief, a liar was liar.
Part 5. Russian fashion
The chapter 5 is a something about that I still cannot invent to call... Maybe I can call this a Great Russian Pretending to be ignorant about crime and punishment. I remember that during first decade of post-Soviet Russia, many televised programs were dedicated to crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, his relisious views about universal mersy and christianity, also speculation about his anti-Semitism, great Russian Christian soul. The same time, the topic about Dostoevsky was mainly ignored amid televised show hosted by intelligentsia (The fact, that the Moscow and Saint Peterburg have intelligentsia, is not disputed by me, but Soviet Union governments, of course, tried to eliminate that with interchanging the usual intelligentsia with communist class of Soviet intelligentsia, so the classical education (that was also monarchist yet, not secular) was destroyed, and, you know, even the Bible was banned to circulate as an anti-Soviet text. But Soviet lecturers had a prerogative, I guess, to read the Bible by special permission in the Lenin Library, because it is imopossible to understand modern prose and poetry, like Shakespear, if you doesn't know who is Jesus and Virgin Mary. So, the published translated dramas of Shakespear had comments where was said that Jesus was a character of bourgeois religion and the like. But the usual intelligentsia continued to exist, although persecuted by communist party, for example, Joseph Brodsky, who wanted tp read the Bible, Talmud, Qoran, Buddist books, and think what he wants to think about everyday life, god, atheism, etc.
So, some intelligentsia of a patriotic club wanted to speak and discuss about Dostoevsky, other intelligentsia, maybe a more secular, wanted to speak about Kafka. It was around about 1991. Then the Chechen war happened, and both clubs, patriotic and secular were silenced on the Russian TV. They were allowed to speak about the Dostoevsky only on pre-recorded talk-shows, obviously censored before broadcasting to audience. Then the secular (it is also a term, because they were also religious) intelligentsia tried to speak about crime in Chechen Republic, but was silenced very hard, for example, Anna Politkovskaya was just murdered to stop the topic about the crime and punishment. And other intelligentsia, patriotic, began to shift from Dostoevsky to Sergei Mikhalkov, demanding Russia would get the former Soviet Hymn, that had the text written by Sergei Mikhalkov. But what is strange fashion? Sergei Mikhalkov was a weak children poet, neither a writer, nor a philosopher, but it was new fashion. The patriotic intelligentsia didn't wish strangely to speak about Dostoevsky, they wished to speak about Sergei Mikhalkov, who was a simple, easy to understand, person, who wrote the Hymn, so he was a patriot of the land, because Soviet Union was a land the same time, where they were born. I think it is a fashion. It's time for Dostoevsky to be fashionable, then there is a new fashion. But many artists and workers of Kremlin TV now say they need some more. They understand that the fashion to sing simple talentless poetry is not enough, they need again Great Ideology, monarchy or communist, or maybe a sort of a mix of monarchy and socialist. So, Russian fashion needs to be transformed into an ideology, where people will sing the simple Hymn instead talking about crime and punishment. But Fyodor Dostevsky yet was a very taleted writer and philosopher, who said that Great Empire wouldn't have a right to be built, if only a single child was forced to shed a tear in the process of the building of the Great Empire or Great Republic. Dostoevsky meant a Great Republic that time, because there was a discussion about revolution to build new Great Republic. But anyway, was it a Great Republic, or a Great Empire, it's not point, but the point is that it was a Russian fashion during 1991-1995, that was gone nowadays. And my point is that that we have not to use the great writers for the fashion, because it's a crime, and sooner or later, there will be a punishment and nemesis.
Other intelligentsia, secular, still speak sometimes about Kafka, but it takes place mostly on margins of YouTube, on Jewish museum channel, or the like. The non-patriotic intelligentsia was severly cut from the Russian mass media like the TV since 1994 or maybe even all the time. But I think, they also lost something, sense of a talent to wish to speak about something important, they became tired, weary. They wish often to promote only another published book, that was not to say a great talent, but a genius yet translation from Spanish or Italian Don Quixote or Umberto Eco, to gather money to buy a new shirt instead worn-out one.
Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer as Romeo and Juliet, in the 1936 MGM film directed by George Cukor. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
The Holocaust museum in Washington, DC. The picture shows the images of the Holocaust victims before the Holocaust. Photographed in 2016. Source: Wikimedia Commons.