I don’t know what’s more monstrous—the story itself, or the fact that it’s being discussed as just a “slightly above-average” news item. A little more important than the arrest of “God Kuzya” (a notorious Russian cult leader), but less important than the state of the mortgage market. It’s unthinkable: one of the most high-profile crimes of recent years, under the personal supervision of the country’s top officials, with their public promises to see it through.
From the very first minutes, people connected to the authorities were under suspicion—either Nashi (a pro-Kremlin youth movement), or Young Guard (the youth wing of United Russia), along with the governor of one of the regions.
And then the perpetrators are found; they confess and identify the organizer. The organizer, who worked for the family of the governor tied to Young Guard, is arrested in a separate case—he was found to have a weapons cache containing grenades and explosives.
At last, we’re going to see the first fully solved political case, with the perpetrators, the organizers, and the person who ordered it all sitting in the dock.
But then, suddenly, the head of a state corporation asks for leniency for the organizer (and, as far as I know, so does Matviyenko from the Federation Council), and he is released under a travel restriction order.
Today an interview is being published with the wife of one of the attackers, and it ought to shake the whole of society:
And yet society remains unmoved, and even among journalists there is no particular solidarity. I’m not even talking about especially aggressive actions, but even something like a one-day strike by all the remaining honest journalists would help shift public attention to the “Kashin-Turchak case,” at least for a while.
The fact is, no one in the country even knows about the case—I say that with confidence as someone who has recently been speaking at meetings in villages.
But if a dozen newspapers came out with blank spaces, and a couple of TV channels—even small ones—showed on-air “snow” with a scrolling message, several million people would be startled and pay attention.
Many will say: it won’t do any good. And what will? Drinking three more cups of tea?
I don’t understand how, against this backdrop, anyone can even debate whether or not to go to the protest on the 20th.
Well, I personally stood there even alone:
and I want to—and am ready to—stand with you. Everything written on that placard matters to me.
I don’t even care that Kashin himself, in a fit of melancholy or a search for originality, is calling on everyone to give up the struggle and any display of political solidarity and go for a swim instead.
The “Kashin case” stopped being about Kashin himself a long time ago. It is about the foundations of the state and the safety of society. A state that does not want to punish identified criminals is incapable of performing any function at all. That is out of the question.
In my moral universe, there is no situation in which a political attempted-murder case is allowed to fall apart before everyone’s eyes and I stay silent.
Come if you, too, are not very comfortable staying silent.
People