Vera Stavrogina. February. Retribution

February. Retribution
Vera Stavrogina

Publication date: March 5, 2004

And she lowered her head, did not bow, no, but lowered it, momentarily stunned by another blow to the face, she looks from under her brows at the offender, and her eyes burn with a hidden fire from under her half-lowered eyelashes... “It will come!.. Retribution... “- the whitened lips barely whisper. Bowed down, but not killed, stunned, but ready to gather its forces and deal a crushing blow to the enemy, the country seemed to be hiding before the battle. She is waiting...

February of this year became for the country not just another black month of disasters, death and tears, but a month of Retribution , already accomplished or still expected.

On February 6, at about half past eight in the morning, a metro car was blown up on the stretch between Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya, killing 39, according to official data. "Terrorist attack. Again . " Everyone was “awaiting” this event, everyone understood that sooner or later, terror would descend into the underground. The metro is the city's circulatory system, but the terrorist attack, contrary to the terrorists' calculations, did not cause either panic or mass hysteria among the townspeople - in the evening, at rush hour, the cars were overcrowded. Everyone thought that death might be somewhere nearby, that “this” could happen to anyone, but everyone was silent, only their faces changed, becoming earthy gray. And this lack of panic suggested that people simply did not have the strength to be hysterical. It seemed that everyone was so tired of this endless mockery, of the continuous expectation of death, lurking even in the basement of their high-rise building, that only one thing remained - Retribution . It seemed that even the frosty February air was charged with this strange expectation of something still incomprehensible in essence, but something “like that” that would certainly happen, and happen soon.

February 14 - another disaster. imported to us As a mockery of the Valentine's Day , the roof of the water park collapsed ( one of the first versions immediately put forward was that the roof could not withstand the snow accumulated on it, a kind of gloomy death of “eternal summer and beautiful life, like theirs” under the weight of the “Russian winter "). The event is not just tragic, but even overloaded with gloomy symbolism... This is besides the search for those who are right and wrong, besides the next heckling to Yu.M. Luzhkov, besides calculations of when the other “scarlet sails” will collapse under the weight of the money and ambitions invested in them " . Just as the roof of a “Turkish building” collapses like a house of cards, so does Retribution ...

And it finally came. Slowly, inexorably. No, not for these crimes, not for these tears and blood... But somehow strangely coincided at the end of the month - the liquidation (whether by our special services or the “cunning” world mind) of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev and the death of the Swiss dispatcher , who killed 50 of our fellow citizens, mostly schoolchildren, at the hands of our compatriot who lost his wife and two children.

There is no doubt that the murder of a dispatcher who doomed 45 Russian children to death by a certain “person of Caucasian nationality” seems wild . "...we are not in the Stone Age... civilized people... civil society... according to the law..." Of course, according to the law, I don’t argue, let the law do justice , regardless of the fact that - European, citizen of a free country, inhabitant of the canton of Zurich. Well-known attempts by the Swiss side to first of all blame the accident on “wild” Russian pilots who do not speak foreign languages ​​did not leave any doubt about, let’s say, cultural bias . children died Our , the European was not even kicked out of work. “We are allowed, but they are not allowed?..”

at least Vitaly Kaloev’s act (if it was he who did it) is not only the revenge of a desperate person, revenge for his family (many in such a situation would want to do the same), not only revenge for “other people’s” children, it is Retribution... For us - people of the second (well, if second) class in the eyes of enlightened Europeans. You will say again: revenge is wild, it is cavernous, it is unworthy... But if they have justice for themselves, and for us - crooked justice, left justice, then, excuse me, there is nothing left... Civilization is designed to limit this primary, "natural" justice is a knife , but if civilization comes into conflict with justice, the knife regains its legal rights .

The humiliation cannot continue indefinitely. Here - either complete, final breakdown, humiliation = destruction, or - complete strain of strength with the sole purpose of doing justice ... The time to break has not yet come. Our Tsar Cannon has not yet fired, our Tsar Bell has not yet struck .

Retribution is never bloodless. It can be fair or unfair.