Near my home there’s Maryinsky Park. It has lots and lots of tulips growing in it. In the flowerbeds. I don’t know who planted them—maybe the local housing maintenance office (DEZ), or maybe the park administration. But nobody picks the tulips. And they’re very beautiful. And there are so many of them. Every time I walk past, I’m amazed: how is it that they still haven’t all been stripped away? A few years ago, even the flowers in front of the building—some scraggly chrysanthemums planted by an energetic woman from the seventh floor—would be torn off within a day. I say to my wife: well, this too is a consequence of the bloody regime’s work. See, nobody’s picking the little flowers. “They’ve established order” (quote). And she says to me: that’s why Putin goes after you dissenters. Because the more of you there are, the more jerks there’ll be going around stripping flowers in the park.
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