Mitya Aleshkovsky has decided to stage a really great campaign as part of the Good Machine of Truth, and it definitely deserves support. What are we criticized for? We’re criticized for supposedly being out of touch with ordinary people, sitting around on the internet, and for all our anti-crooks explanatory work being little more than preaching to the choir. Like, we’re just explaining things to ourselves. Seventy percent of that criticism is complete nonsense. I, for one, feel perfectly close to ordinary people, and I don’t see how my life in Maryino differs from “the people’s life.” The neighbors are like everyone else’s, the routine is like everyone else’s, the store downstairs is like everyone else’s, the traffic jams are like everyone else’s, the school is like everyone else’s, the kindergarten is like everyone else’s, and the Tajiks and Uzbeks filling Maryinsky Park are like everyone else’s too. Okay, I live in Moscow, and “real ordinary life” is supposedly out there, beyond the MKAD (the Moscow Ring Road)—even though 15% of Russia’s population lives in Moscow. Well, there’s also someone like Lyonya Volkov, who lives in Yekaterinburg. Does he know what “ordinary life beyond the MKAD” is like? Or do you have to drink “Yaga” (a popular canned alcoholic energy drink) to get in touch with “ordinary life”? And yet, there is a grain of truth in this criticism. For obvious reasons, campaigning and political activity in general are clearly skewed toward the online world. We need to come up with and test ways of working in places where internet penetration is veeeery low. Mitya Aleshkovsky and Co. have decided to correct that imbalance and organize a genuinely offline campaigning action. It doesn’t get more offline than this.
That is, simply gather about 100 people, go to a small town, and campaign there from top to bottom. Obviously, for a small quiet town, the arrival of a canvassing team like this will be quite an event. This is a cheerful, friendly, polite initiative aimed at telling the truth about what’s happening in the country. No one is planning to campaign for any specific political party or force; the important thing is to try to break through the information blockade and encourage people to make up their own minds, rather than doing so under pressure from Channel One’s damned Evil Machine of Propaganda. This is an experimental action, and Gagarin was chosen at random. Here’s what Mitya the campaigner himself writes: Now I’ll explain why it’s important to go to Gagarin, and why it’s important to tell your friends about this event. It is perfectly obvious to me that radical changes in our country can happen only if the masses are fully engaged. The authorities will listen to us only if we are the majority. Yes, central Moscow is already plastered with leaflets and covered in slogans, and yes, tens of thousands of people are already coming out to rallies. But as we can see, that isn’t enough. The authorities are only increasing the pressure. The opposition has no way to get its ideas across to the bulk of Russia’s population living beyond the MKAD (the Moscow Ring Road). We have no TV broadcasts, we’re not allowed on the radio (except for three stations), and the print media—with rare exceptions—write nasty lies about us. Almost the entire population of the country is convinced that everyone who comes to a rally is paid by the U.S. State Department, that “if not Putin, then who?” and that there is an “orange threat” (a reference to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine). A taxi driver in Rostov Region listened with interest for two hours while I explained who Navalny was, and at the end of the ride he said he knew nothing about any of it and had never even imagined that “this kind of thing was going on in Moscow.” We have to tell them. About Gunvor, about the Ozero cooperative, about Gundyayev (Patriarch Kirill) with his watches and Chaplin, about the rallies attended by peaceful people, about detentions, jailings, searches, and of course about Putin. About everything. For that, we have one simple method left: go and tell them. Thanks to Putin, we can no longer campaign or hold rallies. But we can simply go to people’s homes and talk to them. Not even to persuade them of anything, but simply to give them a chance to read OUR, TRUTHFUL point of view on the current situation. Entirely reasonable and convincing. A ticket to Gagarin costs 309 rubles. You can also go by car. If you want to take part in this Good Machine of Truth experiment, visit the hometown of the first cosmonaut, have a good time, and do something useful, then please register for this event here (42 people are already going). Registration is mandatory so the organizers know how much printed material to prepare. On June 30 at 8:00 a.m., those traveling by commuter train will meet by the suburban ticket offices at Belorussky Station. There you’ll be met by maestro Aleshkovsky himself, Alexei Shichkov, and Georgy Alburov (here is his post on the subject). Here are more details on how the action will take place. VERY IMPORTANT: during the gathering stage and throughout the action, please refrain from chants, slogans, and placards so there are no problems with the “authorities,” otherwise the mission will be failed. There will be no marches, rallies, etc., so there shouldn’t be any complications. But just in case, a lawyer will be traveling with the group.
If the action goes well, the experience will be expanded further. The next trip is planned not to a random town, but with a clear purpose. There’s a town called Kasimov, and they actually dissolved the entire town council there specifically for the sake of a crook from the presidential administration named Chesnakov, who needs to be shoved into the Federation Council. They’ll hold new elections in which this United Russia man, Chesnakov, is supposed to triumphantly become a local deputy and then immediately move up to the Federation Council. How much contempt must you have for the whole country and its people to humiliate an entire town and dismiss all its deputies just for the convenience of some nobody who wants a cushy seat and immunity from prosecution. So the residents of Kasimov need some explanatory outreach, so the local bosses don’t fill their heads with nonsense. So join in—it should be interesting. P.S. While we’re at it. Some kind monsters of computer graphics have decided to help the Good Machine of Truth. Take a look at the excellent video they made for us about oil dependence:
http://youtu.be/EcyRpVbezWo A big thank-you to the kind monsters, and to everyone else we say: please help spread it around.