In society

The magic of numbers

March 7, 2008 Alexander Podrabinek

March 2, 2008 was a significant day for Russia. Of course, some skeptics and whiners, which are always in our Fatherland, did not notice either a joyful mood among the people or the holiday itself. Of course, a personal matter: consider this a holiday or not to count whether to celebrate it or not. But it is still stupid to pretend that most of the Russians reacted indifferently to this day and did not celebrate it in any way. Still, the eve of Shrovetide!

The good old pagan holiday stretched for a whole week. Alas, the previous day was overshadowed by a strange political event, which was called the "Elections of the President of Russia." The event against the background of Shrovetide, although notorious, but leading to some thoughts.

The point is not that, contrary to centuries of traditions, this time in Moscow decided not to burn the scarecrow of winter - the ruler of the last cold months. Why are unnecessary allusions - the change of presidents, burning an old stuffed animal? And it is not the fact that the official celebration of the beginning of Shrovetide was transferred to one day - it is not worth it, of course, simultaneously with the departure of the old president and the arrival of the new to celebrate the end of winter and the beginning of the thaw. And then people will understand backwardly, draw parallels, light up in vain liberal hopes.

No, the fact is that the magic of a pagan holiday is strangely intertwined with political magic. If in the first case the event is based on a naive faith in personified heroes of the change of seasons, then in the second case - on the same naive faith in the calculations and spells of political charlatans.

“How do you assess the fact that Dmitry Medvedev gathered almost 70 percent of votes?” A familiar foreign journalist asked me late in the evening of March 2. I almost started to discuss the television washing of the brains, mysterious Russian soul and slavery not squeezed out of the minds of the people, when I suddenly realized that it was easier for me to believe in the transformation of Hors into Yarila (the sun-divine into the sun-Yunosha) than that my familiar foreign journalist called a fact.

70% of voters voted for Medvedev - is this a fact? 64 % of voting came to the polls - is this a fact? Maybe the turnout in the past parliamentary elections in one of the areas of Mordovia 109% of voters is also a fact? No, it’s easier to believe in God Yaril than the numbers of the Central Election Commission.

The most amazing thing is that everyone understands - the numbers are fused, the election results are falsified. However, official figures have a magical influence on us. The will paralyzes, analytical abilities are fading away, and we are starting from fictional numbers in further reasoning about the imperfection of Russian democracy.

So Leonid Radzikhovsky writes in “Hedes” that “the conversation that these figures are falsified is falsification”, if only because “52 million votes can not be attributed to Medvedev.” Why can't you sign up? At least 1 million, at least 50. What is the difference? There are no independent observers, there is no public control. Courts, the police, the prosecutor's office - all their own, manual, easily controlled. And no “carousels”, stuffing ballots and other inventures of imperfect democracy. Does anyone in the CEC will be squeaking now, if the right candidate without any calculations, but just like that, from the lantern, will attribute a dozen or two millions of votes? Does anyone dig out traces of fraud?

For some reason, the opinion was rooted for us that the authorities can blame, but cannot lie in a large way. Meanwhile, Goebbels still said that a lie, in order to take it for the truth, should be grandiose. As in Ingushetia in December last year, where, according to official figures, 98% of voters took part in the parliamentary elections, and according to public activists who collected signatures of those who did not vote, only 6-8%.

The same people who collected signatures in December claim that 3.5 % of voters came to the presidential election in March, and not 92.3 %, as the CEC reports. (These guys put their people in all 160 polling stations of Ingushetia and calculated those who came to vote). These are the discrepancies - 30 times! Who will check, how much power lies-at 5-10 or 70-80 percent?

It is funny that even according to official figures, less than half of Russian voters voted for Medvedev - 52 million out of 107 million. How did it really happen, we are unlikely to find out soon.

Isn't the same thing the same with politicians? For a long time, almost every day we were so intensely convinced of Putin’s high ratings that we, having finally taken it for a pure coin, began to look for explanations of the inexplicable popular love for this nondescript personality. But it is possible that everything is not so from the very beginning. There is no popular love, and sociologists in the ratings they draw up in the most common way, and the Kremlin journalists in the press managed by the authorities are carried around the light. Banal, boring, uninteresting. Of course, such a view can be attributed to addiction to the theory of conspiracies, but wasn’t it that it was just so recently - about 30 years ago? And is it not in the same direction that Russia will drift for the past 8 years?

Now many are surprised how Medvedev overtook Putin in the popularity of Putin in such a short time. Explanations are sometimes put forward by the most incredible. In this regard, I recall the humorous story of Arkady Averchenko about Barin, who came to the restaurant and ordered the cabman - a young rosy guy - to wait for him at the entrance. After drinking pretty cognac, the master sat down in the span again and ordered to return home. On the way, he found with horror that the cabman during the time that the master drank in the restaurant was very old, fattened and did not remember his home address. Thousands of nightmare thoughts flashed into his brain - about the displacement of the time parallel to the Universe, the fleeting aging of the body and other mysterious mystery of nature.

So, maybe there is no riddle in Medvedev’s popularity, but just we got into the wrong span, believing the data of custom ratings?

Still, it is good that the vote passed in one day. Now we can safely say that you can’t spoil Shrovetide with the election. Because Shrovetide is a much more real event than presidential elections in Russia.