The end of the project

On August 19, 1991, an independent newspaper correspondent Tatyana Malkina asked members of the State Emergency Committee: “Do you understand that you made a coup d'etat tonight?” And now 24 years have passed ...
The tradition to summarize the results of the country's political life at the end of August is relatively young. Where did she come from, it is clear: twenty -four years ago, on August 21, an attempt by the coup on the coup was defeated in Russia. So far, the victory over the putty, who strove for the Soviet-Kochkist revenge, is not an official, but noticeable holiday. Whether we will celebrate the defeat of the GKChP for the anniversary for the twenty -fifth time - not a fact. Moscow today is decorated with tower with import-substituting jam, as well as the catchy posters of the “Bike show” Sevastopol. Forge of Victory. "

This is definitely not our victory with you. Signs of foreignness and fundamental hostility to us the current holiday of life, already striking, I will not list, because there is no strength. Rather, those that are, I would like to save. This train seems to be on fire, but we are still going to them.

Strictly speaking, it’s a sin to complain. About two decades, the most important, in order not to say - the best, over the past few centuries in the history of our poor Motherland, have been on our main years. We consciously and joyfully lived in our country, not ashamed that it is ours, but, on the contrary, taking a feasible part in its construction. We were occasionally proud of her, we were sick for her, we cursed about her to the fight, although these were fights by the type of “Weismanists against the Morganists”. We cursed with political opponents (today it seems that we read only books with them, perhaps this is the romanticization of the past). Our life plans have always been associated with Russia. Because in it the future squeamed, where there is a place for dignity.

Today we are in the deepest decline, there is nothing to hide here. The experiencing loss - namely, we are collectively experiencing it today - sooner or later we will go through all the proper stages of feelings: denial, anger, wine, depression, acceptance. Yes, we have lost hope. To some time, partly contrary to what was happening, we preserved the feeling that the country was developing - slowly and contradictory, but still progressively, in the direction of the meaning that was common for all of us, and in accordance with the values ​​that were the road for us. There is no more such sensation. Rather, there is a feeling of abyss underfoot. When I say “we”, of course, I mean the extremely small layer of fellow citizens, my like -minded people, mainly representatives of my small tribe, journalistic, politically active and involved in daily policy for a quarter century. Everyone experiences the set stages in different ways and not synchronously. Some accuse others of amazing and calling an ax. Others reproach both themselves and others in blindness and in the idealization of those years that they themselves mourn. There is also a school of thought that does not tell you glorious years, when shock therapy, the execution of parliament, war, accidents, terrorist attacks, the painful decay of many Soviet systems, the collapse of industry, the germination of agriculture, medicine and a lot of this. And there are also young people who think that the Soviet Union is such a milaga in one sixth sushi, where the washers and missiles always hit the target, the girls wore sexual shape, and soda with a syrup cost only three kopecks.

So on these holidays, I, perhaps, will be very briefly listed, what exactly we found for the reporting period, it is these acquisitions that constitute its essence: freedom of movement; freedom of speech; freedom of information; freedom of conscience; private property; Constitution without an article on the leading role of the CPSU; non -establishment institutions, financial, economic, political; flat income tax scale; A lot of sausages. And this is only the main one. Not all of the above works, much - it is bad from hand. And we can lose all this. My workshop, I think, was generally lucky. What happened to us (and what we have already lost) - it is best to see from the work of Natalia Rostova - see here . It is no wonder that my tribe is in a state of aggressive resentment today.

Our parents and their parents lived in hell, in the real hell of hunger, deprivation, war, isolation, terror. In their lives were horror, everyday death, gulag, poverty, humiliation, iron curtain. The fact that some of them survived is already a miracle. We were born almost contrary to circumstances, born so successfully that we know everything about ADA, but also about the alternative to him. Without changing apartments, we lived, studied and worked in three at least different countries. During the global technological revolution, at the junction of centuries. We are advanced users of the queue for toilet paper, a disk phone and a mechanical writing machine, but also capricious owners of the latest gadgets. We are spoiled and ungrateful. This is fine. The bar of requirements, obviously, should always increase, expectations to grow naturally.

From the beginning of the nineties, I sometimes heard from my older friends a quote “there were worse times, but there were no vagarias”, now I hear it more and more often. She always hurt me. In my youth, I tried to prove that there were times to pour, there were a lot of flies. Then I realized that the harmony of meanness algebra could not believe. Then she noticed that if every day to quote this line, then sooner or later she begins to sound about as “the sun rises in the east”. That a conscientious person lives every day in mean times. For this is his purpose. Or his disease. Fate, in general.

The other day, clarifying the origin of the quote, for the first time since school times, I listed the poem by N.A. Nekrasova "Contemporaries", how everyone knows about vile times. I laughed very much. Firstly, these are terribly bad poems, but it is impossible to break away, and now I want to quote stanzas all the time. Secondly, this acute satire on the Russian ruling class and society, as they were 140 years ago (by the way, there are all our today's defendants, you yourself will look ), based on a sharp criticism of the capitalist image of thought and life, and at the same time America and the meritocrates who joined it. There are no positive heroes in the poem, the main negative is the destructive spirit of profit and clean, unscrupulous greed and shameless corruption, corroding the crossbreeds of Russia. I am afraid to assume where the fate could bring today the poet, who gave us the winged phrase "Worse Times."

What are the reasons for the failure of our "project" of the Motherland? Much has been written about this by different sages. There is no explanation, in my opinion. No matter what version of the answer to look at, from everywhere, the snout of the rejected “special path” consistently protruded by us from everywhere (negative selection began long before Nekrasov, clear). It remains to be consoled only (unprintable, alas) an apocryph about the philosopher of Pyatigorsky. For a quarter of a century, we did what we could and as we could. Obviously not enough and wrong. But now you can’t redo it. We were interested, gambling, happily. We were terribly lucky. There are no and there can be no guarantees that we are lucky again. The recipe for further life has been known for a long time and simple: do what you can, and whatever happens. For each of us, “what can you” turn out to be different - from a fierce political struggle to uncompromising cooking of jam. In the intervals, however, there are still a lot of worthy classes, the possibility of (so far) of emigration and the inevitable living life, which strongly demands from us not to lose the ability to rejoice. Even when the air is drunk.

Here, at home, something will certainly be certain. It will be much worse and pouring the present (possibly soon), there will be less vile (with difficulty suppressed the urge: “Only now you will not have to live at this time ...”). To equip what will remain here after vile times, there will already be completely different people, a different formation, unlike us, Nekrasov, which was fried on civilian lyrics. Let's see (how much we have time) what they succeed.

PS from the topical poem "Contemporaries" I will finally take out several lines:

"A self -flageling protest -

Russian citizens are the property!

Its like ryz iron.

Spiritual weakness of consciousness;

The truth is forgotten.

That knightly honor in Russia is impossible ...

We are crippled godlessly

And is it our fault? "