Ukraine War sends Moscow back to Cold War era of Fear

Julia Smirnova -Korrespondentin is born Russian

Oh, you my poor, absurd Russia! Most Moscow go to their everyday lives. But behind their public played patriotism and demonstrative indifference another feeling is getting stronger – disgust.

TRANSLATION – Die Weit

Patriotism and the elementary crisis are two issues of this piece. Still the people frightened look before repeating that winter day in 2014, the numbers of exchange offices. At that time you could see the local trains arrive with commuters in succession in the early morning on a railway.

In the greenish light the doors opened, and a dark Menschenlava spilled out into the subway. The faces were solemn and sleepy. People who stand up for years in the dark morning and drive to the capital to work for their families a piece of wealth, and who were now not become poorer for the first time in her life overnight.

About this gloomy mass floated a cheerful voice from the speakers like there to celebrate a great festival. She announced that on this day 226 years ago, Russian troops had occupied the fortress Otshakoff the Russian-Turkish War. Otshakoff today lies in the southeast of Ukraine, in those regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin so much as “Noworossija” – called – “New Russia”.

Moscow is like a room with a corpse

The books on the “History Neurusslands” are now available in major bookstores Moscow next to the “History of Crimea” in a prominent place. Just a few more shelves are stacked colorful books on design, fashion and self-optimization. They are popular with young audiences, strolling through the streets, art galleries and bars.

The result is this hip and pro-Western Moscow through the efforts of people who lived by the motto “act as if”. They suggested during the 90s to live not in Moscow but in Berlin or New York.

They tried to make themselves around a small world with culture and everyday hype, in the hope that this little world would finally really getting bigger and the dream.

This is reminiscent of the attitude of Soviet dissidents who often tried to protest against the system, to live as if this system would not exist. In order to preserve their dignity, they said the absurd reality in the face: “You do not exist.” And there was yet a Escapism same.

Most Moscow go to their everyday lives.But behind their public played patriotism and demonstrative indifference another feeling is getting stronger – disgust.Moscow is like a room in which a corpse.And all those present try not to notice.

The body is the war with Ukraine

This body is the war with Ukraine. She lies, and people do not look back and not talk about it. Take each other jokes, comfort each other and say that everything will be good. Someone philosophizes, another is reflected patriotic chest. And the corpse stinks and smells. But just look, maybe it disappears yes. Maybe all soon wake up in a different reality. People find no words. Fear and helplessness are too big to talk openly about this corpse.

Is silent not only in Moscow. In the northwestern city of Pskov on the Estonian border, there are real corpses. There are paratroopers who came secretly use in eastern Ukraine killed. At least twelve names are known to the prosecutor stated that the place of death was a state secret.

In the summer, they tried to keep strangers out of their funerals, graves of some nameplates are now gone. There are more bodies than those twelve. According to the deputy Lew Schlosberg  new slain soldiers came in January this year by dividing add number 76.

But in Pskov speaks not openly. “Most people want to know anything about it,” says Alexei Semenov, correspondent of the newspaper “Pskov and Velikie Luki Gubernija”, which has revealed the death of soldiers. A big surprise for him was to hear from his friends: “Why do you write about it at all?”

The lie is the norm

The lie has become in Russia to a traditional value without which the state can not exist. Television constructed a parallel world where in Ukraine Fascists came to power, was crucified, a Russian child of the Ukrainian army and Malaysia Airlines aircraft with flight number last year MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian pilots.

This parallel world is facing many fascinating than the real one. And they are not accustomed to deal with the reality that they can not find language to talk about things behind the propaganda, but represent reality. Putin, TV presenters and people on the street talk in the same phrases that have become building blocks of their worldview. “We shall overcome”, “Russians do not arise,” “fascism does not come through.”

Times appear in this collection of phrases “workers and peasants” from the Soviet Union times “the Holy Rus’. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia is looking for his own identity and puts them together eclectic of elements that contradict each other actually. So the future looks like a reincarnation of the mythical glorious past.

The falsified Soviet Union and the falsified Tsar Russia coexist in this absurd postmodern piece. But the results of this search for identity are real and horrible. For weapons exist not only in propaganda videos. For them to shoot not only in the popular “military-patriotic clubs” sharp. You really kill. The leader of the separatists in eastern Ukraine, Igor Strelkov, had a hobby – he likes reconstructed historical battles. Now his unit began a real war.

The fresh air to breathe is almost

Russia cuts herself off as in a vacuum package, and the country is less and less free air to breathe. But in this chaos and terror, there are still people who do not want to join the majority itself. The less remains fresh air, the more valuable it becomes. The need to think rationally and to talk openly about the reality is existential.

The need to act and not to accept such a sacrifice everything, man is a certain dignity. This is the motivation for those who still hold the few independent media alive or go with posters on the street. You do not want to play in this great passive absurd, patriotic piece. You want to make the grotesque as such.

They want to show that their existence is more real than all the falsehood and absurdity and that they see through everything – and survive. In contrast to the irrationality and lack of freedom, this minority is defined as a rational and free people.

Currently there is not enough for a Russian power exchange. Not even sure to change the direction, goes to Russia. It is just enough to keep the free spirit alive in the hope that a better time should come.

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