Mayor's Day

When Gabriel Popov left the post of mayor of Moscow, the public worried about habit: what will happen now? Such a titanium leaves! And who instead of him-some kind of foreman, or someone else there, no one knows him what kind of Luzhkov?

Today it seems that Luzhkov has always been, and it is impossible to remember how it was under Popov, and how it was even earlier - and even more so. And to imagine that Luzhkov is 70 is completely impossible. Many heard about the anniversary, but for some reason everyone believed that he was only 60. An interesting paradox: the eternal Luzhkov seems equally always young.

There’s nowhere to talk about him. Cap, apiary, ceremonies, running around on the football field, and this is his eternal “Hurray!” At the end of any important speech. The speaker he, by the way, is unimportant. Moreover, the obvious "charismatic leader". I am sure that in a narrow circle, Yuri Mikhalych says so that you hear, and commands you that you don’t disobey, and these teams do not imply any double interpretations, or, as they said at school, “special invitations”. But as it goes to the rostrum or to journalists, it certainly wants to speak beautifully as in the written one with compound and complex sentences. And nothing comes out for him. He says as if reading the text backwards. Worse than him, only the Chief Olympic Tyakachev speaks in Russian. This is what a tongue -tied charismatic is obtained.

For the liberal, praise Luzhkov - a bad tone. For the intellectual to scold Luzhkov, and even better to laugh at him is almost an obligation. And here, too, everything looks clear. But I, sitting down for these anniversary notes, could not decide for myself: Luzhkov is good or bad? Folding all the good and subtracting everything bad, will we get a positive or negative amount? I folded it and to my surprise found a positive “total”.

What I can’t forgive Luzhkov is his construction and art itch. Luzhkova will not be, we will not, all the words will be forgotten, the details will be erased, Luzhkov himself will sink into the small font of the notes to the textbooks, but the disgrace he had incorporated. Having lived all my life in Moscow, I honestly admit, I do not like it. And I do not think so beautiful. What beauty did not burn out in the fire of 1812, that Bolsheviks were chosen. Moscow is a stupid, chaotic, eclectic city without a specific person. Luzhkov was even more disfigured by his tower and turrets, nozzles in the historical center, or just with vulgar buildings like the one that the Arbat now opens, blocking the best street of the city. And this is a miracle on Manezhnaya! And these Asian skyscrapers! And Columbus, hastily converted to Peter! What can I say if the most important of the arts is the art of Tsereteli, in extreme cases, Glazunov and Shilov. And this is what really remains for centuries and what our era will be remembered for the descendants, that they can not only read about, but also see with their own eyes.

I also do not like it when Yuri Mikhalych appears with political recipes. What is in Russia, what in Crimea, in Abkhazia. It is as absurd as its architecture. He does not have not only aesthetic, but also political taste. This is how the “strong business executive” said about him from the very beginning - it is. Of course, I understand what is behind this economy. When the wife of the mayor is a billionaire, is it necessary to go into details? But for some reason this does not annoy me. Probably because in our country there is simply no other way. This can even be considered as a fee for work, provided that the work is carried out conscientiously and sincerely.

Most likely, I am naive and stupid, but Luzhkov seems to me really a sincere person, in the sense that he really loves Moscow, wants his city to become better and that the inhabitants of his city live better. Maybe this is not so, however, with respect to all our other leaders what you want a rank, I do not even have suspicions. I think about them that they first of all take care of themselves, and in the second and at the same time the very least - so to be - about us. And Luzhkov is still about us first. But he, and his family, and loved ones, and friends, of course, do not forget.

The simplest and most importantly the most important sensation: here, God forbid, the trouble will happen, something will burn out, collapse, explode-Luzhkov will probably help. I am sure that he will interrupt his vacation, rush, and not as some report that “she drowned,” will go out to the press and in her Luzhkovsky dialect will say, by the way, things are concrete: what is done and what will be done, what is the plan, to whom and what will help. And the mayor’s arrival at the next place of the accident does not paralyze the work, but will really accelerate and improve it. Perhaps this help is not enough, but you look at the victims of all other floods, landslides, accidents, collapse, crashes - they do not even receive this, or rather,, as a rule, almost nothing. And then at least something, in the end.

No matter how I relate to Moscow, it, of course, becomes more elegant and more and more adapted for a convenient life. Some will say that in the capital all the country's money is spinning and with this money it is easy to make the city look rich and beautiful. But this reminds me of the everlasting reasoning of our directors: give me the same budget as that of Spielberg, and I will shoot you no worse. But with big money, you need to be able to contact, and not just spend. The same directors, having received not Spielberg, but some millions, immediately proved that if they had previously removed cheap bullshit, now they take off her dear bullshit-that’s the whole difference. Moscow is a rich city, but the country is not poor. But we, nevertheless, only do that we are yearning for the impossibility on an all -Russian scale to master this wealth and dispose of it wisely.

In general, I would rather like to congratulate Yuri Mikhalych on the anniversary than to use him as an occasion to mock him. For him, 70 years is not a reason to think about the eternal. Putin's election reform gives him the opportunity to manage Moscow for several more years. With the previous orders, a pension would shine for him. It is difficult to imagine Luzhkov in retirement. And as it was difficult to introduce him to the mayor 14 years ago, just now it’s hard to introduce anyone else to the mayor.