I don’t know—maybe I’m already the only one left here? I’m a total slowpoke, and I only found out yesterday about Instagram being blocked, from some triumphant pig-faced “expert” on state TV. As I write this, I imagine my post as a sign somewhere out in the desert. No one reading it, just tumbleweed and, every now and then, some quick little jerboas (well, the ones with a VPN). Still, that pig-faced guy on TV made me so angry that I’m writing this anyway. He was gleefully saying—and the host was nodding along—that only “glamorous stars” would suffer from Instagram being blocked, not ordinary people. Here’s what I want to say: the people sitting in the Kremlin are bastards. They don’t know people, they don’t understand them, and they despise them. Instagram means tens of thousands of small businesses across Russia and a million of their customers. This is where a single mother in Perm earns a living by advertising her manicure services. This is where someone in Yaroslavl shows how well he lays parquet flooring and finds clients. A young woman in St. Petersburg bakes and sells pastries. Instagram—its ads, its customers—is an ecosystem that feeds hundreds of thousands of families. These people get nothing from the state. They get no share of the oil and gas wealth. Through sheer hard work, they support their families (and pay taxes!), and Instagram is the environment their businesses depend on. Why do these pig-faced people think they have the right to take away these people’s livelihoods—and everyone else’s access to their services? And these “glamorous stars”—what’s so bad about them? Just look at the biographies of @_agentgirl_, @klavacoca, or @senoritasaeva. These are not stories of glamour, but of hard work followed by success. Success that, by the way, inspires many others who want to escape poverty and hopelessness. What’s so wrong with “glamour stars”? If you don’t like them, don’t follow them. But we want to decide that for ourselves. If glamour is a synonym for idleness, unearned money, and luxury—that’s the Kremlin. And on our Instagram, it’s honest working people 😉