Reflections on a snowdrift

The city was covered with snow, today I traditionally went out into the yard to wave a shovel and join the eternal: manual labor. Nothing relieves muscles more than working with your hands, and even with tension. I already said once that in our country we must not lose the skills of working with a two-handed saw, shovel and pick, as well as the ability to “endurely and courageously endure the hardships and deprivations of military service.” Hello to the army political officer, I will remember it for the rest of my life.

For some reason, all this time, while I was clearing the snowdrifts, I was thinking about Khodorkovsky. Here is a man who had everything and a little more, wanted something, dreamed about something, and then suddenly all this was gone, zone, transfers, sewing mittens, a new circle of friends, new worries, a change in life paradigm, so to speak. And he didn’t break down, didn’t wrap his snot around his fist, and yet he lost just an unimaginable amount, but at the same time he didn’t lose the main thing - himself.

Sometimes, when acquaintances ask whether it’s scary to fall under the rink of government attention and snatch it for illegal speech, for some reason it becomes funny to me, I just have to imagine a short-haired man in glasses, sewing in the mitten zone with a smile. NOT scary, absolutely.