Not Iran, but the “Red Bast Shoe” state farm

It’s unbelievably simple. Laibach’s concert in St. Petersburg was canceled because that’s what was “recommended” from above.

I’m probably the only person among my acquaintances who even knows this band exists. Let’s be honest, they’re known only in very narrow circles. And yet some fools in the administration still managed to draw up instructions about them.

Because of the regular concert bans, people often say, “Russia is turning into Iran.” But no, it’s not turning into Iran — it’s turning into a collective farm called “Red Bast Shoe” (a deliberately rustic, absurd Soviet-style name), where some idiot of a director, a petty tyrant, bans things for no reason other than that he enjoys banning things and not letting people in. And then he likes to send his superiors a report on the work done: there, we banned something seven times last month. The rate of banning increased by 16%. Target exceeded.

It’s perfectly normal for there to be parent committees and conservative civic groups that dislike Marilyn Manson, Madonna, or Boris Moiseev. It’s normal for them to write angry letters and demand bans. But any actual ban should be based on law — never mind the fact that no organized “conservative groups” really exist in Russia. What exists instead, once again, is some boorish, stupid collective-farm director who hires loafers and gopniks (working-class thugs) to pick fights with people while pretending to be “Orthodox activists.”

On the biggest Orthodox holidays in Moscow, only 1.5% of the population goes to church, unfortunately. And yet the ban machine is calibrated as if 80% of the country were active churchgoers. At the same time, I’m 146% sure that the Russian Orthodox Church has absolutely no interest in Laibach.

And in fact, the greatest harm from all this is done precisely to Orthodoxy. What new parishioners are you going to attract with such grotesque displays of obscurantism and stupidity?

In short, all of this is depressing. Laibach shouldn’t be banned — they should be given a St. Sergius of Radonezh award for their brilliant cover of the greatest song inspiring Christians around the world: