Defeat from victory

On Sunday night I was lucky enough to see the Eurovision final. That is, not just the final, but the very end of the final, when some countries awarded points to others.

So I didn’t have a chance to hear Dima Bilan sing. I haven't heard it before. And I only found out about Eurovision the day before. I only saw some banner on the Internet that this same Bilan did not greet his opponents. I'm gray and uneducated. My years are not the same, so I can be forgiven for this ignorance and lack of curiosity.

And the eldest son told about cool Finns. Dress up, they say, as these... they live in the south, in New Zealand... orcs, that's it. And as the performance progressed, one hot Finnish orc’s leathery devilish wings opened behind his back. In a word, “hellish soton.”

But I didn’t hear the Finns themselves either. Actually, after the winners were announced, they went on stage and sort of started performing. Because it was this Finnish team that was able to “be famous in an ugly way” and won. And our Dima Bilan was second, with a margin of forty points. So they didn’t show me the winners’ performance. All I noticed behind the crawling credits was this “horror nah” - masks and legs with their knees back. As I understand it, if Dima had won, they would have let me listen to him...

But it turned out that there was no need to listen or watch anyone. Not necessarily. Then on the first channel a “debriefing” began, where there was no talk about music in particular or art in general. And there was a conversation about “why they don’t like us”...

Immediately, a common opinion emerged in the studio: “What kind of Finns are they? After all, our Dima “... well, really, not second place, but first...” It seems that “living without imposture” has not been possible since the time of False Dmitry (please consider this coincidence to be accidental!).

So the next day the news managed to talk about the night show in such a way that it was almost impossible to distinguish “defeat from victory.” They said that during the voting the favorites changed places several times, and they only briefly said about the results. There was no mention at all of the insurmountable gap between the first and second numbers.

And then, at night, they said that Eurovision is not a song contest, but a costume contest. That Finns are “freaks”. As far as I understand, these are those who dress contrary to their gender. It turns out that orcs are the opposite gender of “unisex”. What you don't learn in old age...

They also said that the Germans voted for Turkey because they go there to cheap resorts (they apparently didn’t hear about the Turkish diaspora in Germany in the studio). That Monaco didn’t give Russia a single point because “there aren’t enough people there.” That in some countries there are anti-Russian forces that vote not “for” but “against”. Here the politicians were wrong: the post-Soviet space, including the traitor Ukraine, gave Dima Bilan up to the maximum twelve points.

And in general, they said that the vote was a “protest”. And this, they say, is bad. Don't know. In my unenlightened opinion, gag as a protest against glamor is normal. It looks like I'm not alone in this opinion. After all, rock at Eurovision is an atypical phenomenon. So, most likely, there were few rock fans in the voting audience.

But the studio had a different opinion.

And great experts gathered there. "Mr. Parker" - Maxim Kononenko. The constant star of the screen Vladimir Zhirinovsky and this fat... what's his name... films political porn... - Mitrofanov. Those who understood the line “being famous is ugly” in completely Finnish terms - not as a warning, but as an instruction, and succeeded in implementing it. Who has turned domestic politics into a show, and is trying to disgracely “meaning nothing, to be a byword on everyone’s lips.”

But the rapprochement is coming from both sides - politicians have reached out to pop music, and pop music has taken itself very, very seriously... And then I finally realized that it was not in vain that late at night, while tossing between the computer and the washing machine, I turned on the TV. After all, we were not talking about singing competitions at all!

The question is completely different: “By what measure do you measure?”

After all, it is known that “you can’t measure a common yardstick,” and if they try, they always try to offend. At the Olympics we are still being misjudged, and dopings are found in a villainous way. And at the World Cup too. And so it is with us in everything, including “issues of domestic and foreign policy.”

And now, elevated to the level of national significance, as they used to say, the “variety stage”, together with the statesmen who have descended to the stage, argues that “this vote is the end of Eurovision.” I don’t know what they had in the beginning, but I suspect that the competition will survive this apocalyptic prophecy. Because I have already heard about the “end of the UN” and about the “end of the Council of Europe”, where we chaired just the day before. “The end” was predicted for everyone who dared not love us enough...

And at that moment, some figure from the studio started talking about the Council of Europe. I still didn’t understand how much of a joke there was in his joke, but he said with a serious look: “We are now in charge in the Council of Europe, so we must make a decision - consider second place first!”

This is their kind of humor. And this is the measure.

As in the old and not very decent joke: “When I was young, I was forty centimeters!” - “And now?” - “And now I’ve lost this ruler...”

And our Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke about the same thing the day before, listing Russia’s priorities for the six-month presidency of the Council of Europe: ensuring human rights, developing civil society, ensuring freedom of movement...

Everyone knows how things stand with this freedom, society and rights. And everyone knows that Mr. Lavrov’s words do not mean measuring our reality with a common yardstick and bringing it to a pan-European standard, but “a goat’s face” to Europe. As always: “You say blacks are lynched.” That is, the fascists are in the Baltic states, although shaven-headed guys with swastikas are slaughtering people right here. And freedom of movement means easing the visa regime for Russians, and not lifting insane police restrictions on one eighth of the land. I’m afraid to even imagine what Lavrov means by “civil society,” but I’m sure that according to his “ruler,” taken from the closet of my youth, various “ours” are quite “zachot.”

The main thing is to walk around the world with your own standard!

And then there is no need to try to understand the reasons for the unfortunate differences between our reality and the declared ideal. Moreover, in the Fatherland it is not worthwhile to bring existing things to their proper place. You just need to find the right words and the right scale to “confuse your own and confuse others”...

So in the ORT studio they feverishly tried to convince themselves and the audience that “in reality, everything is completely different from what it really is.”

This is how I understood them: Finnish lumberjacks put on suits, put on hooves, put on masks, but did not take a chainsaw with them. That’s why we give them “Hard Rock Hallelujah” “nezachot” – “the topic is not covered”

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In such matters, the most interesting thing is to “observe the observer.” And the further, the more doubt crept in - where is life here, and where is it to make money. The speakers in the studio, whether it was pop music obsessed with patriotism or a politician hungry for popularity, stubbornly refused to “be alive, and that’s all.” Other human faces looked like masks stretched over orcish images.

But if you want the “bright side”... In the Moscow studio one name was spoken that could not be ignored. Karen Kavaleryan remembered the late Yuri Aizenshpis, the producer who created Dima Bilan.

This is also “about all of us.” In fact, it’s so simple - try “...without imposture.” This is the only way to “attract the love of space to yourself...” Well, you understand...