The first bear of Russia

The pensioner asked, you know, a riddle - how to celebrate the anniversary? Will the successor risk giving Yeltsin the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called? You can’t give anything less - “For services to the Fatherland”, First degree from B.N. already there. So: or “Andrey P.” - or just with a bouquet of roses for the holiday table!

In the first case, it is to “spit into the pure souls” of millions (tens of millions) of “dear Russians” who are eager to scalp their former chosen one. Moreover, these are the people who willingly vote for Putin. In the second case, to offend the one who elected you president. Who is more valuable to Putin: millions of his voters today – or his yesterday’s Voter (and there is also corporate solidarity with the figure of one’s rank!)? We'll see.

How to really celebrate the merits/“merits” of B.N. before History and the Fatherland? In response to this question, “squiggles” often arise spontaneously. I remember one very well. It's worth talking about.

I don’t remember in what year (but, in my opinion, back during Yeltsin’s reign) NTV showed such a story.

Journalists come to the village of Butka and find Yeltsin’s cousin there (I forgot his name, unfortunately). Well, naturally - Chinese jeans, a wrinkled jacket, a chopped and beet-colored face... In a word, it is clear that this relative was not part of the Family. And a dialogue occurs. Journalist (J.): “You know, there is an idea here, in the homeland of Boris Nikolaevich, to erect a monument to him. How do you feel about this? Relative (R.): “Who is the monument to?” J: “Didn’t you hear? Yeltsin. Boris Nikolaevich." R.: “A monument to BORKA? Is he Lenin?”

Agree - this thing is stronger than the Constitution, Anthem, Flag and Coat of Arms of Russia. Why? Yes, because it’s not just R. who thinks so – but the people. People living on chains throughout our Butka. A healthy bottle is almost a sixth of the sushi. So the chain is not weak, although it is rusty: for more than a thousand years, power and people, people and power, were forged - together, together, each from its own end!

The people (R.) are absolutely right: man-made and miraculous monuments in Russia have been erected to Lenin from centuries to this day. More precisely, Lenin.

The people (R.) are absolutely right: he compares the historical roles of Vladimir Ilyich and Boris Nikolaevich. Yes, in terms of the scale of their contribution to history, their actions are comparable - the leader of the communist and anti-communist revolution.

The people (R.) are absolutely right: B.N. – not V.I. Not V.I. at all!

And the people (R.) ask a completely reasonable question: will they now also erect monuments to NON-LENINS in Russia? The answer to this question does not depend on the people, and the people know this well. And the question, you see, is not without interest.

Has Yeltsin achieved that in Russia they will erect monuments not to Lenin - not to dictators, not to those who firmly stepped on the necks of the men and women from the village of Butka, not to those who wrap a chain sticking out of a booth around their fist? If he achieved it, then at least in honor of this we should erect a monument to him. By the way, if he achieved it, it was only in defiance of DEMOCRACY, in defiance of the majority. The inhabitants of the booth - judging by the results of voting, public opinion polls, etc. - for the most part, they tolerate/love both this boot (although they still prefer a softer one) and this chain, but most importantly, they sincerely despise those who have neither a boot nor a chain. However, Yeltsin’s attitude towards democracy was, as we know, not simple. As they say, “he didn’t make a fetish out of her.” And he did it very correctly.

“I am a poet. That’s what makes it interesting.” When they talk about B.N., naturally, they mean his political activities. Hence the furious debate. Yeltsin's rating has not increased much during the 6 years that he has been out of power. As before, a good 90-95% of the population is shaking with the desire to roll out “impeachment after” Yeltsin. And 5-7% remember Yeltsin’s lost “democratic paradise” (mainly, naturally, in contrast to Putin).

But for a poet, like a politician, the work is inseparable from the person. Especially when it comes to Yeltsin.

The nomenklatura bear - the free-ranging Russian bear - the sick bear - the silent bear... The entire public life of Boris Nikolaevich passed before our eyes. And we either ran after the Bear-Tsarevich (rallies 1989-91), then covered our ears from the roar of the Bear-Governor, or sadly watched how the Grandfather-Bear absurdly waddled and looked around helplessly. In any case, his bearish strength, bearish rage, bearish good nature, bearish grace, bearish drowsiness and insomnia of the connecting rod bear to a great extent determined the history of our entire thicket...

Yeltsin cannot be fit into one definition.

A drunkard who beat out fractions on Akaev’s bald head with spoons, who tripled the “bathing of red Kostikov”, who imagined that in Berlin he was possessed by the spirit of Herbert von Karoyan... An expert on Chekhov, who said “You” to all his subordinates and never swore, although he worked for decades in construction, and then in the regional committee!

An aggressive, evil nomenklatura tyrant who led more than one of his subordinates to heart attacks (or even suicide!), particularly in Moscow. The man who forgave Khasbulatov, Rutskoi, and dozens of other people who directly and publicly called for his murder, did NOT take ANY revenge on any of them! (“Seize the usurper, put him in chains, throw him into a dungeon” - this nonsense was uttered from the podium by corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences Khasbulatov. “Young people, combat-ready men! Distribute weapons, take Ostankino by storm!” - yelled Vice Bonaparte Rutskoy.)

The pathologically power-hungry “homo nomenklaturis”, about whom many of his closest collaborators personally told me: “B.N. will die, but only on the throne”, “His air, love, life is POWER!” A man who not only voluntarily gave up power, but lived a long, happy, peaceful life without it! Vereshchagin, who suddenly heeded Abdullah’s advice: “A good house, a good wife - what else is needed to meet old age!”

Started a war in Chechnya; was not offended by criticism addressed to him; hated parliament; tolerated opposition; wanted to liquidate the KGB; made a security officer his heir; a democratic leader who liked to be called “Tsar Boris”...

“No, the man is wide, too wide, I would narrow it down. The devil knows what it even is, that’s what!”

And all this is not just personal, “accidental” traits of the Tsar of Russian democracy. “Eruslan Lazarich” Yeltsin is the real chosen one of Russia, the chosen one of Russian destiny. Only he could become the first elected Tsar of Russia. His business became his self-realization. And it is no coincidence that our democracy had the face of Yeltsin.

“Yegor Bulychov from the Central Committee of the CPSU,” “the fallen angel of the nomenklatura,” Yeltsin raised his rebellion against his native System in a very Russian way - risky, ill-considered, violently, to the death and by accident.

It’s still not really clear what kind of fly bit him in 1987 - he wrote a strange resignation letter, gave a completely incoherent speech at the “historic” Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, then tried to cut his wrists... Career move? No one has ever done this in the Career System. Political opposition? There was no trace of it - he couldn’t formulate it for another 4 years, he simply repeated fashionable slogans from Ogonyok and MN and scolded Gorbachev and the nomenclature for everything in the world. What did he want? “Oh... nothing - that’s it!” So, what?

Time. He felt it - and it carried him. It’s like in a dream, when you’re flying – and you just have to push off from the air and swim further and further. B.N. I WAS NOT AFRAID to swim in 1989-91 in the general flow of hot time. I remember in “Leninka” (1989, elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR) old cleaning ladies read “charming and thieves’ letters” signed by “Yeltsin’s headquarters.” What was not there! And the non-existent speech at that very Plenum: “Let Comrade Ligachev explain to me how to tell the workers that they don’t have sausage, but in our buffet we have both caviar and servilat” (Soviet ideas about happiness and justice!). And promises to the people of “caviar and will”...

“And while we live so poorly and wretchedly, I cannot eat sturgeon and eat it with black caviar, I cannot race in a car, passing traffic lights and scurrying cars, I cannot swallow imported super-medicines, knowing that my neighbor does not have aspirin for the child.

Because it's embarrassing." (Yeltsin. Confession on a given topic).

Did they believe him? This was the time of Gdlyan-Kashpirovsky-MMM (a little later). They probably believed... They believed that he himself believed in it. I still believe that at THAT MOMENT he himself believed his words. He believed that by “taking away and dividing” the nomenklatura caviar, one caviar-voucher for his brother, he would create a “market and capitalism-in-fairness”...

It was clear even then - nonsense, nonsense. But something completely different was clear: the Revolution was inevitable. She's already coming. Without rebellion, “Russia, poor Russia,” will no longer be able to... The horses rushed towards the cliff - and it’s good that both the reins and the whip are in his mighty, mutilated hand!

“Which sorcerer you want/Give the robber beauty!/Let him lure and deceive, -/You won’t be lost, you won’t perish,/And only care will cloud/Your beautiful features.../Well? One more care - / One tear makes the river noisier, / And you are still the same - a forest, a field, / Yes, a patterned cloth up to the eyebrows...”

Yes, for Russia, this two-meter gray-haired Stenka Razin was not a groom of convenience - out of crazy love. A worthy chosen one of the people's element - well, not Sakharov, really! But this “visiting fellow” turned out to be not the worst husband. Drinkers. Hitting. Heavy. But - broad, with a dazzling smile sometimes flashing, and at the bottom of the revelry - kind and... weak! A real Russian Man, whom his wife drags home, but believes that she is behind him - like behind a stone wall.

Yeltsin is a thin-skinned, sensitive bear. Monomakh's hundred-foot cap bent him to the ground. Proof? Elementary: having thrown off the magic hat, he was physically resurrected.

“You can’t live in the Kremlin,” Preobrazhenets is right, / There, the atrocities of the ancients are still teeming with microbes: / Boris’s wild fear, all John’s malice, / And the Pretender’s arrogance - in exchange for people’s rights.”

Akhmatova described Stalin this way. But she also described the power in Russia in general. Having driven a tank into the Kremlin, Yeltsin felt this too.

It seemed that this “rebel worse than Pugachev” had become “the people’s Tsar Boris.” And we know who the “people’s king” in Rus' is – the Pretender! Hence the nickname - False Boris. (By the way, as historians are now proving, False Dmitry was one of the best, most intelligent kings in the history of Russia.)

Yes, a native of the village of Butka loved the “game of the Tsar.” “They sat down wrong” (the famous “royal remark” about Stepashin).

But he understood the limits of the game, he knew that he was not the Tsar at all. Because they “sat down at the wrong time” - the 21st century is just around the corner. Time cannot be broken - the monarchy in Russia is over forever.

This, perhaps, was one of Yeltsin’s main merits - he IMITATED AN AUTHORITARIAN SYSTEM. He imitated exactly to the extent that - as it seemed to him with his bearish intuition - it was NECESSARY for Butka. To calm the agitated Butka, it is necessary for Butka to feel a hand on her shoulder, so that she knows - THERE IS POWER, Tsarist power (well, not parliamentary!), albeit “eccentric,” but what God gave, and Boris took.

He didn’t give “democracy”—go figure, what you neither have nor others will accept! But he IMITATED DEMOCRACY - and gave real feudal liberties. Local feudal lords (governors), central feudal lords (oligarchs), media feudal lords, party feudal lords... Reforms - through feudal fragmentation, reforms - with the reins released. Take away - taken away. Divide - divided... between those same feudal lords. There was no other way of dividing, and there could not be. And the people were left with consolation... in the form of curses addressed to “False Boris.”

Yeltsin gave Russia an absolutely unique experience (and long ago learned by the whole world) - the experience of a BLOODLESS-DECEPTIVE REVOLUTION, a BLOODLESS-DECEITIVE REFORM. The experience of a shaky democracy that did not overturn - under Yeltsin - into dictatorship.

Result: through feudal fragmentation - to raw material capitalism. No, he did not go against fate, he did not rear up Russia. He himself went and led Russia along the line of least historical resistance.

He could not have done otherwise - with his sweeping weakness, pressure and contempt for details, the common sense of a kulak grandson and the romanticism of a populist. Such is his choleric temperament. And this is exactly the temperament of Russia. Russia, which for the most part hates him, hates him because he did to her the only thing that could be done to her.

“The calm of Russia is the main goal of this restless president.” This is how Yeltsin ends his “Notes of the President” (1994).

The irony of fate... Did the “guarantor of instability” himself believe in these words of his?

It seemed that anything could happen. Yeltsin can drown, burn, crash, die from a heart attack, become a victim of a rebellion/coup, commit suicide... Any dramatic end to his role in life, according to the scenario of fate, is within his reach.

“Along the cliff, / Over the abyss, / Along the very edge, / I whip my horses with a whip, I urge them on! / Somehow I don’t have enough air, / I drink the wind, I swallow the fog, / I feel with disastrous delight - I’m lost, I’m lost! »

Yeltsin - with his reckless courage, craving for self-destruction and suicide, knowing either a mad race in the top three of Russian History - or a heavy bear's dream (binge)... “Where are you rushing to? give me the answer."

To Barvikha. Into the royal luxury of the “dacha Mausoleum”. To the grandchildren. To the most nomenklatura and one of the richest families in Russia.

Is this Yeltsin?!

As you know, yes, and what a Yeltsin! Because not a single Dostoevsky, no matter how much you describe Dmitry Karamazov, will ever drain the soul of his hero - to the bottom. Life is still more complicated.

But, by the way, what is the “complexity” here? The well-fed bourgeois peace of a rebel is a typical ending...

"The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State." When the Family acquired private property (yes, WHAT!), when hundreds more families acquired it, that’s when it became necessary to strengthen that same “feudal-fragmented State.” This was Grandfather's last decision. The decision is not at all stupid, absolutely logical and quite effective.

And peace came...

What does he himself think about this calm? Silence. Did he want THAT peace of mind? Silence. Did he want such silence? Silence. Dramatic silence? Happy silence? Peaceful silence? We don't know. Silence…

Yeltsin is the only leader of Russia freely, “with an open soul,” elected by the people. There was a moment when, it seemed, He could change the fate of the country, from imperial Russia to democratic Russia. To do this, he had to change his Fate.

But he became the leader of the country because he is part of this country, flesh of flesh and bone of its bone. Therefore, he could not change the “line of the country” - just as he could not change the lines on his huge palm. He could and did do something else - he read the pattern of these lines and followed them. And he “led the country” - along the edge. And he didn’t collapse himself (although there were several suicide attempts), and he didn’t collapse the country (although also several times...).

He went to his Promised Land - in the Odintsovo region. The country did not reach the promised land, but our country could not reach the promised land.

And one more thing. He did not give the country freedom - but he gave it freedom. A freedom that remained until the very end of his power. The freedom that the one he chose as his successor began to take away. This is why you chose it?..

Almost a king. Almost a rebel. Almost a great man. And, of course, the most Russian of all Russian leaders, in the past, present and, probably, in the future.