And do read this very interesting and important article by Pastukhov in Novaya Gazeta: If a people who 20 years ago dreamed of freedom now choose slavery, if the words “equality” and “brotherhood” make them sick, if they grow bored when democracy is discussed and fall asleep when the Constitution comes up, that does not mean you were unlucky with your people. It only means that someone deceived those people very thoroughly, and now they trust no one. ... Privatization is the original sin of Russia’s anti-communist (liberal) revolution. Unless it repents of it, Russia will never be able to return to the path of constitutional and democratic development. It was precisely this barbaric privatization—equally socially immoral and economically senseless—that undermined the Russian people’s faith in liberal values for many decades. Paradoxically, the regime’s most rabid supporters and its most reckless opponents form a united front on the issue of privatization. Privatization is one of the most taboo subjects in contemporary Russian society. Its critics are invariably pushed to the margins of any discussion about Russia’s future. Calling for a review of the results of privatization is considered even more improper than declaring revolution and dictatorship inevitable. Privatization has quietly become the “sacred cow” of Russian post-communism. Both the Kremlin and many of the leaders of Bolotnaya Square (the 2011–2012 Moscow protest movement) worship it. The time has come to slaughter it. http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/56123.html By an amusing irony, the article came out at the same time as the publication of photos from the Caribbean vacation of the true political fathers of the current regime—the very one that supposedly pursues a “brave” policy “independent” of the “West,” sure—who made Putin president and traded the hopes of millions for a better future for the country in exchange for guarantees of their own safety and the protection of their corrupt fortunes.
Dyachenko, Yumashev, Abramovich, Shvidler. And they invited Pozner too, so that someone would use the word “by no means” and thereby guarantee an acceptably elevated spiritual tone to the vacation. One can also be happy for the Dyachenko-Yumashev couple. The difficult period in their lives, when the children had to “learn new songs” in Krasnodar Krai, has passed. Now, one assumes, the children are learning new songs far from the “resorts of the North Caucasus,” which President Putin—the man they installed—is building with our money. That is exactly what Pastukhov is writing about in his article.