A rare case where I disagree with Navalny’s initiative on the Russian Public Initiative platform to install doors in apartments. For all my sympathy, here Alexei is acting entirely in Putin’s style. Or Sobyanin’s. One, as we remember, abolished gubernatorial elections after the Beslan terrorist attack. The other went after Vietnamese migrants because a Dagestani man cracked a cop’s skull. Navalny used the Biryulyovo events as an occasion to remind people of one of his campaign promises — to install entrance doors in apartments. Even now, we still do not understand exactly where Yegor Shcherbakov was killed — in an apartment or not. It may very well be that Shcherbakov himself let the killer into the apartment, or that the killer was his relative living in the next room. Or maybe not. But Navalny’s fans have already joined in — from the comments and replies in various discussions, it is clear that they have found a simple solution to all problems: doors. The “hamsters” (a slang term for blindly loyal supporters) did not disappear after the election. There is little you can explain to them: people who are “churchified” are deaf to arguments, believe in the easy formulas of their adored leader, and if you are one of them, there is no point reading further.
(the first image result on Google for “hamsters”) First, it is completely unclear how apartment doors would help in today’s thoroughly rotten and corrupt system. Why would a system that works only for itself suddenly start working for you? Obviously, installing doors would lead to a trade in door permits, further improving the already comfortable well-being of a certain layer of officials. And how exactly would this stop murderers, rapists, hooligans, and frenzied lezginka dancers lying in wait for us in entryways without doors? The very same people would still be sitting there on the stairs, only now on fully legal grounds. And it is precisely the decent neighbors — who are obviously the majority — who would get a new set of inconveniences. That is very much in Putin’s style. Let us remember Nadezhda Georgievna, whose apartment we ourselves used to go to for salt. Or Vityushka, who came over at our own request to help move a wardrobe! I wonder how Navalny proposes Vityushka move the wardrobe if he wants to separate himself from him with a DOOR! Maybe Navalny should first sort out the location of the wardrobe, and only then make populist statements that Vityushka often gets drunk and starts causing trouble? Or let him just move the wardrobe by himself! Second, let us honestly admit that if you asked, say, the respectable residents of our building whom they dislike more — outsiders from other buildings or certain neighbors in the communal apartment — I am afraid the latter would win that unhappy contest by a landslide. Take Marinka alone, whom Nadezhda Georgievna calls nothing but a “harlot” and a “slut.” And as for what Viktor Sergeyevich calls her, I will not repeat it. You will not cure Marinka’s morals, Mr. Navalny, nor her venereal diseases, with an entrance door. Not in any way.
(the first image result on Google for “Marinka”) Take Viktor Sergeyevich, for example! He calls Marinka every name under the sun, yet he is always trying to slip into her room. And recently he stole a coil of wire from his factory. And no entrance doors would help here in the slightest. In that light, what would Alexei Navalny propose as the next step — residence permits or separating Marinka from Viktor Sergeyevich? Third, I hope you are not so naive as to seriously believe that our neighbors from the big luxury building across the street would, the day after entrance doors are installed, suddenly allow us to stroll through their courtyard or hallways. See the previous point about whom people are mainly afraid of. The luxury building also knows perfectly well that we have plenty of our own dubious “export material.” The funniest part is that their gate and fence do little to help them either, and we regularly see a homeless man sleeping in their sandbox. Fourth, for five years now some people here have already installed doors. Has your life become noticeably easier? Mine has not, because I have Grandma Glafira, who installed an entrance door for herself. Now when I come to visit her, I have to wait three minutes while she undoes all her bolts, even though I can hardly wait to hug her right away and say, “Well hello there, Grandma Glafira.”
(the first image result on Google for “Grandma Glafira”) Fifth, there are countries and there are countries. If almost everyone would support an entrance door against a known criminal like Senka, then with Uncle Georgy and Vladislav Andreyevich from the third floor, the situation is a bit different, right? I would note, Mr. Navalny, that with or without a door, Vladislav Andreyevich is not going to enter your apartment on his own. Not even step over the threshold. He used to be a diplomat in some socialist countries, and he even has a Finnish kitchen sink. And what do you have, Navalny? As for Uncle Georgy, he is about to get an apartment in another building and move away from us anyway. Sixth, I have heard that in Vienna and in the finest homes of Philadelphia, doors exist, but they are not locked. I have never heard of them having such a huge problem with the sort of people sitting in our entryway. So maybe the issue is not actually the doors? Obviously, the issue of disorder in the entryway is extremely important and painful for the whole building — perhaps the most important and painful issue right now — and it needs to be addressed. And it seems to me that any reasonably intelligent person, including Navalny of course, should understand that precisely because it is so important and painful, there are no simple solutions here. It is entirely possible that installing doors is a perfectly normal part of a thoughtful, comprehensive solution. But comprehensive is the key word, if we care about results rather than simply venting emotions behind which, let us be honest, really lies the sentiment: “Throw out every last Marinka and criminal Senka to hell.” In other words, essentially, “A home for those who belong in the home.” To be fair, modern history is not exactly rich in comprehensive solutions, so expecting one from the current authorities is, to put it mildly, naive. But playing on xenophobic sentiments is no better. Those who are now passionately arguing for doors, seeing them as a cure-all for the chaos in the entryway (that is what worries you most, right?), answer this: how are you different from Putin’s supporters who 10 years ago saw the cure for their economic problems in jailing Khodorkovsky, who had supposedly stolen all the oil? We all remember that in childhood nobody locked doors at all. You could walk into any apartment and ask some stranger lady for a glass of water. That is what Navalny ought to be working on: strengthening childhood memories, improving drinking water quality, and increasing the trustfulness of strange ladies. Those are real problems that no doors can solve.
(the first image result on Google for “strange lady”) I completely understand Navalny’s interest. If Alexei manages to push through one of his campaign promises against the backdrop of a broken garbage chute, he will further strengthen his position as a building-wide politician — as it has become fashionable to call him since his “superintendent” phase. And I very much welcome that process in itself, but not every means seems acceptable to me. After all, we still have to live here. I am absolutely convinced that the problem lies not outside our entryway, but inside it. And there is no point in shutting ourselves off from it. Especially not with the help of that same thoroughly corrupt government, which is one hundred percent to blame for the fact that this problem arose in the first place. And which profits from this problem. In essence, all that is being proposed is to let it profit from doors as well. Without changing the government itself, the people in it, and the relationships within it, with doors or without them, we will be left with exactly the same problems. http://plushev.com/2013/10/15/12242/ That is the kind of post written by the wonderful journalist I am very fond of, Sasha Plushev.
(the first image result on Google for “Plushev”) Well, almost. I simply took Sasha’s text and replaced “visas” with “doors.” And added Grandma Glafira. As you can see, that simple trick is quite enough to show that all these enormous walls of text arguing that a visa regime is useless are nothing but sheer demagoguery. Plushev simply wrote it best and gathered all the arguments into one text, so I used him as an example. Dear critics of the bill, why are you trying to force open an open door (sorry for bringing up doors again)? It has been said a million times that of course the migration problem requires a comprehensive approach. I refer you to my own text about Biryulyovo. Russia should have a clear and coherent policy in this area: 1) we aim to reduce the number of migrants, 2) we introduce visa regimes, 3) we implement a strategy to increase labor productivity, 4) only highly qualified specialists are allowed to come freely, 5) we do everything possible to prevent the emergence of ethnic ghettos (like at that vegetable warehouse) In that same post, I write that none of this is possible without judicial reform and reform of law enforcement agencies. More than that, nothing at all can be improved without changing the political system. So what now — should I shut down RosPil (Navalny’s anti-corruption project focused on public procurement)? After all, the public procurement system will not improve under this government; everyone understands that. Putin is not going to fight corruption; he has no interest in it. So should I now shut down the Anti-Corruption Foundation and stop doing investigations? Traffic police are corrupt, overweight, and cannot run a race. So let us abolish the Rules of the Road until there is a full and comprehensive reform of the traffic police. Let us simply and calmly approach this very proper thing called “the experience of the civilized world.” Human development has reached a stage where visas and visa regimes were invented to prevent uncontrolled migration from countries with a very low standard of living to countries with a higher one.
(Photo: Lesnoy) This approach is actively used by countries generally considered more successful than Russia in terms of political, economic, and social development. I propose a simple experiment for Alexander Plushev and everyone else who has written and spoken so much about the supposed uselessness of a visa regime: a) go to the U.S. embassy b) present the arguments from this post c) explain that you are Alexander Plushev — a respectable citizen with no criminal record who exercises regularly d) demand visa-free entry to the United States for yourself, citing the need for a comprehensive approach, Putin, Khodorkovsky, xenophobia, and Grandma Glafira Most likely, point “e)” in this experiment will be “trying to dodge the kick from the embassy guard as he throws you out the door.” And if Alexander is not blacklisted after that, he will still need, in order to enter the United States, to fill out the idiotic form with questions like “Have you participated in genocide?” and “Are you an al-Qaeda terrorist?”, give fingerprints at the embassy and then, once again, at the border, and so on and so forth. And he will have to do all this quickly, silently, and without rambling about the uselessness of a visa regime. So let us follow the path of developed countries as well, taking into account their mistakes and both their positive and negative experience. A visa regime with the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus is a basic measure that can and should be implemented even under the current political system. There is no way around it; let us not indulge in illusions. Those who do not want to apply lawful and civilized measures to combat uncontrolled migration are forcing the population — especially its less educated part — toward radical and spontaneous actions, often involving violence. Many people probably will not like hearing this, but it is precisely the authors of irresponsible and demagogic arguments about the “uselessness of a visa regime” who bear a large share of responsibility for what happened in Biryulyovo and for similar situations in the future. If there is no civilized solution, people will look for another one. The problem is neither being solved nor even discussed. Still, I am glad that most people around me understand all this and are taking a responsible position by proposing and promoting one of the necessary solutions right now.
Our initiative gathered 22,000 votes in less than a day. As we can see, there were only 255 votes against it. It would be interesting, by the way, if opponents of this initiative asked those who share their view to vote against it. Because everyone keeps speaking on behalf of “progressive humanity,” yet where exactly this humanity is remains unclear. Thank you to everyone who has already voted. Let us keep our campaign going. Share the voting link wherever you can. Share the link to the campaign’s main page: http://visa.navalny.ru/ If you have not yet registered on Gosuslugi (Russia’s government services portal), do it right now. Remember that on the issue of visas, we are directly representing the political interests of the majority. We are opposed by a corrupt and useless government and, to a much lesser extent, good but mistaken people (like Plushev). We will change the government and persuade the mistaken. Vote and spread the word. PS I am carefully following all the critical responses and will answer every point. So far these are the usual ones: Russians in Kazakhstan; Kazakhstan in general; the Customs Union; there are already visas for Turkmenistan; everyone will just enter through Belarus; why treat Armenia this way; If there are any other questions/suggestions/complaints, write to me.