In Russia, a second term is given to presidents for nothing? Frankly, I recently caught myself on the fact that, as soon as I heard the president's speech, I switch the program. Somehow it became uninteresting. He still speaks confidently, accentuated, with ...

In Russia, a second term is given to presidents for nothing?

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I must admit, lately I caught myself switching the program as soon as I heard the president's speech. Somehow it became uninteresting. He still speaks confidently, accentuated, with force, clicks on key words, intonation emphasizing their significance. Only earlier this confidence came from the conscious meaning of what was said, from his own belief that as he said, so it will be. Now it’s not the same: he no longer has this faith.

And as my grandfather used to say in such cases: “What is not behind the skin, you cannot sew to the skin.”

Persuasiveness has become memorized, and behind it - boredom, melancholy and emptiness of the soul, which in an unknown way are immediately transmitted to the listeners, catching up on them with an irresistible slumber, remembered by the older generation from the party meetings of Soviet times.

And no matter how hard PR people try, working out the image of presidential speeches, there is an all too obvious desire of Putin to convince citizens to believe in what he himself, it seems, has long since ceased to believe: in the possibility of changes for the better in the life of the country as a whole and each of us, citizens. Who, believing him personally, once already made him their president.

Today, after a total of five years of “traveling with Putin,” all of us, “walking along” with him, are already ready to ask: “Where have you led us, Susanin the hero? “I don’t know guys, this is my first time here.” But we are not the “first time”, we have already been here and are still marking time in the same place.

For many years I have said to the people around me: look around you, don't delude yourself: nothing has changed in this country, except for prices, by raising which all great local undertakings end. What we have today is communism. Stalin in Solzhenitsyn's novel "In the First Circle" reflects that "communism in our country, in essence, has already been built, but it would be methodically incorrect to inform the people about this." Today, the "face" has appeared - the wolf has thrown off the sheep's skin of caring for the "old and small", "sick and infirm", about the needs of everyone ...

However, I watch on TV: the rulers have finally taken care of themselves, they have realized to support the family, to stimulate the increase in the birth rate. There is already a state program, the proposals in it are all kind of, however, vague, but again they gave money for it - immeasurably. We began to press on targeted assistance: they say, stop throwing money at random for children, let's give only to those in need. And so quickly, deftly, it turned out to arrange new “addressed” orders so much that you are amazed - after all, they can, when they want!

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I have a large family - six of my own and three adopted. We are entitled to benefits. It is impossible to retell how much we shamefully accepted these benefits back in Soviet times. Wherever you go, if not in the face, then someone will surely hiss behind your back: “Oh, I’ve cut ... dependents.” That's what we call it.

A company of us gathered here - the men are all already gray-haired, they have lived their lives, they have seen the views, and I asked my crown question: how much was the monthly allowance for a third child in Soviet times? The answers were very different in terms of generosity: from 10 to 100 Soviet rubles. So, I'll tell you: four rubles a month. Grow and multiply, "walk, flaw, from the ruble - and above," as the bard wrote. For comparison: in those days, the epic single ticket in Moscow for transport cost six rubles - which now costs 500.

Yeltsin did not become generous even for four re, under him 50 rubles were paid for a child - this is about a Soviet rupee. Not money, of course, something like a chocolate medal, a monthly postcard, a souvenir of gratitude from the state for the fact that in difficult times we have the courage and consciousness of our children to raise citizens of their fatherland for free, we educate future patriots of our country. Whoever raised at least three children, even if a millionaire, is still a hero - whoever tried, knows ...

Well, here happiness has come to us all over the country. As Putin, with the blessing of the patriarch, came to power - day by day - oil prices jumped and did not fall again, no matter how much their government conjured. In fact, it turns out to be embarrassing: how now to refer to poverty and lack of money! No one else believes either here or over the hill.

There were "extra" money, however, again, not everyone. They began to divide this extra money between “their own”, there were different proposals. I then wrote: “Give money to children so that they are born” - this is about the fact that mothers need to be paid at least the minimum wage, at least 500 rubles, and in 10 years the population will double without any bureaucratic efforts. That's the whole program, very understandable, and to everyone, except perhaps for an official, because his benefits are nowhere to be seen here, there is nothing to manage and dispose of, and nothing will stick.

So, I wrote that the money - to the children.

AND

power, we must pay tribute to her, listened. Now, in order to get 50 rubles of these shameful “childish” ones, it is necessary to collect a pile of certificates every three months and take a bow to the mayor, breaking a hat a mile away ...

As for the amount of "targeted assistance to families with many children and needy", then - you will laugh - the help has really increased: by twenty rubles! Well, these ridiculous seventy "children's" rubles of "targeted assistance" at the present time do not look like a mockery, despite the fact that the official threshold of poverty is now about three thousand.

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I have an elderly man working in the temple. He has six children who live in the village. That winter, he knocked on our door, came with a sack of potatoes behind his back: put, he says, something in the sack - at least bread, at least crackers, we are sitting hungry. He worked while there was work, but when, having completed the “joint-stock company” and finished cutting the last cattle, the director moved to a new place in the neighboring district, where not everything was stolen yet, he had to go begging. We gave him money, as much as there was in the house, all sorts of food, a sheepskin coat, still old-fashioned, hung unworn for a long time. Then I hired him, came up with an unnecessary position - "created a job" - and began to pay him a thousand.

For four days he seems to be guarding me in the gatehouse at the temple, and for three days he goes to the village with his family. And I’m ashamed that such a sum is small for the whole crowd, but I can’t take it anymore - I have ten such people; I already pushed my pensioners for him to give him a place. So it lives, at least somehow interrupted. For him, these 70 "children's" will not be superfluous, even though they are shameful crumbs.

And now there is no time to work, everyone goes around the circle to collect information and bow to the city bureaucrats: sometimes the hours are unacceptable, sometimes the mood is bad; go and please them, who are always dissatisfied with the very fact of the existence of an annoying petitioner, i.e. us with you. The already that we have with our children.

I myself visited the social security (what a symbolic name - “so-Bes”). I come and see: mothers are relatives, two aunts have been sitting for years the same, and now their four rooms are sitting - and everyone is providing targeted assistance! Created jobs. That's how they divided the saved money. But where the “software” huge money allocated from the budget to support motherhood and childhood has gone, to be honest, I don’t know. But I know for sure that none of those many ordinary people whom I know got a penny for children, no matter what they told us on TV.

I'll tell you another story. A gypsy woman is begging near the temple - Lena, also has six children. It stands all winter on the street with the elders - 9 and 8 years old. We serve her as best we can. We went home to them: there her gypsy lies on the bed, the younger kids are busy nearby, the house is small, cold, mud. They have good six bags of potatoes that they dug up with the children in the summer. While she was with us, her seventh was born. I look - she's gone after the service. I ask, they say they took me to the hospital right from here. A week later it's up again. And where will she go? At home, gypsies with babies are waiting, they want to eat.

So, her "children's" money was also "addressed" taken away, but where will she go for information - to me, or what?

I look at this circus - and all this reminds me of something from literature. Believe me, I stopped sleeping, tossing and turning, I think: what does it all look like? And suddenly I remembered - for sure, the circus! Chekhov's story, "Kashtanka". There the boy is such a joker: he will tie a piece of meat on a string - and feed it to a stupid, gullible dog. And when she swallows, she begins to slowly pull the rope from her stomach and pulls the meat back, and at the same time it was very fun for everyone to watch how she, that is, a bitch, is writhing, trying to defend the meat in herself. And then again he feeds her the meat pulled out of the womb, and such fun goes on until they get tired and drive the bitch away.

And the bitch is stupid, she swallows meat without counting again and again - well, she can’t resist, she’s a beast, she has an instinct. So she (as she saw her tormentor in the circus), when she immediately found her new owner, who fed her, caressed her, talked to her like a human being and taught all sorts of things, made an artist out of her, she left him without hesitation and to the old tormentor rushed to lick.

And no matter what anyone says, but Christ before all of them said to us: "By their deeds you will know them." Learned. Do you recognize, Kashtanka, the old master?

Today, we all have to make our choice again: to give or not to give our current government a “second term”. Or maybe they already deserve to let them all go - "free with a clear conscience"?