In the opposition

A train in the nursery

October 23, 2014 Viktor Shenderovich

The nervous controversy that broke out in our diverse liberal environment after the recent statements of Navalny and Khodorkovsky on the Crimean issue, once again revealed our unique ability to arrange large showdowns in the corner of the children's room due to a toy steam locomotive.

The situation, to say, is serious. About Lesha Navalny, we already suspected the bad and knew that he was a nationalist Byaka. But Misha Khodorkovsky, for whom we stood as a good democratic boy for many years, did not justify our liberal trust and ended up in a bad imperialist company.

I'm ashamed, Misha, ashamed, Lesha! - We tell them and declare their fundamental position: do not sit down to poke with these bad guys in the same clearing.

Meanwhile, a long -established adult life is going on outside our children's borders. There, the director of the boarding school, the old Chekist, who has long privatized all this to the horizon line, there for a long time, his experienced roots are walking along the buffet with fuel storages and service ...

The service staff includes the muzzle, making sure that we do not leave the nursery.

Of course, we do not love them all, but the real temperament is cut through in us only in the corner on the rug, in the struggle for our toy train. Here we are completely merciless.

My dear comrades in misfortune! The followers of Grisha, supporters of bones, lovers of Bori and Garik's friends, who were disappointed in Misha and dissatisfied with Lesha ... We are here, on a circle - tens of millions of people. Adults, according to passport data. In the most part, quite well -read and with higher education ... We have long been cut off from any participation in decision -making in our country, captured by an old Chekist and its muzzle, and you know: this common denominator seems to me much more significant than everything else.

Our discrepancies in the Crimean and many other issues are very serious-and would be extremely important if the participants in the discussion were in parliament and government (or could really claim it), and the discussion itself would have occurred in the prime time on television, as is the case in free countries.

But our ideological battles, if you noticed, occur on the edge of the local web - the battles between people expelled from their country, and people sitting under house arrest - with the participation of a group of quiet liberals, who are hammered uncles, deciding the fate of the Motherland, for the sake of allowed the five percent trigger in municipal elections and to close in the municipal elections corner among adults. (And they could have a razor in the eyes - which the quiet liberals remember very well.)

At the same time, all our discrepancies are not worth, in my opinion, an ore of a vacation egg. And the only thing that matters at the moment is our ability to get out of the nursery and insist that we are adult free people. Only that.

You can do this - only all together, not being distracted by such important differences between Misha, Grisha and Lesha.

To begin with, it seems to me, it is worth trying not to behave at the level of kindergarten.

And whether the boy Misha Crimea will give or not give it - this, of course, is terribly interesting (like the fate of the train), but I would not concentrate on this issue so much.


Photo Maxim Shipenkov / ERA / TASS