Putin has his own deer

President Putin has his own deer. Some time ago it was presented to the president by Khanty-Mansiysk reindeer herders, and today these donated cattle graze peacefully in the vast expanses of the Khanty-Mansiysk region, cared for by local reindeer herders.

Unlike labor gifts for state holidays or party congresses, which the Soviet people were so generous with, a deer is a real property gift, presented in accordance with all local rules. The decision to alienate it in favor of Putin was made by the reindeer herders at a special meeting, information about this was passed on to whoever it should be, including the vertical of power. The owner’s reaction to the property he suddenly received is still unknown, although enough time has passed.

Local celebrity reindeer herder Yuri Vella, who, by the way, graduated from the Literary Institute in Moscow, and is now going to the Faculty of Economics, is perplexed: they write from Europe and ask how Putin’s deer is? And the president himself never once took an interest in his animal. But Putin, Vella assures, can now do whatever he wants with the deer. He can give it to someone, he can graze it himself.

But the deer’s owner did not take advantage of any of the opportunities. Probably, the administration treated the message about the gift as a complaint from workers and reacted accordingly.

Reindeer herders consider their actions very seriously. They feed the deer, take care of it, but no one except the owner, that is, Putin, can dispose of it. It is possible that sooner or later the deer will simply die of old age, never having received instructions about itself and having avoided the usual fate of its relatives, whose antlers, meat and skin are still of interest to someone.

Putin’s complete indifference to the donated deer hurts the donors. They, of course, did not expect that Putin, having learned about his horned friend, would immediately drop everything and gallop after him. But to give some kind of order or at least somehow react to the very fact of donation - this is what they were definitely waiting for. In fact, they expected more. With their simple arctic cunning, they believed that the president, having received a deer as a gift, would ask whether we have a law on reindeer husbandry or would simply think about the problem of the northern peoples.

Local television crews from the Ugra television company filmed more than one story about the reindeer herder with a literary education, Yuri Valle, about his camp and his thoughts about camp civilization. His philosophical reflections on the similarities between driving a reindeer team and running a state are both primitively funny and deeply instructive. If such a team is not managed skillfully, then out of four to six deer, only one or two will pull the cart, the rest will be netted. So in Putin’s team, Valla thinks, there are only two reindeer working – oil and gas. Such a team will not go far.

But even the philosopher and poet-reindeer herder Vella, who was educated in Moscow, does not understand why the owner of the deer does not show himself in any way. Why does the president respond to a letter from a boy from a rural school by sending a video camera, and even with noisy television accompaniment, but does not respond at all to a message about a donated deer? Vella’s experience and education are not enough to understand: if a letter addressed to the president cannot be made into a noisy PR campaign, then this letter is doomed to oblivion. The Kremlin, apparently, has not yet figured out how the Khanty-Mansi deer could affect the president’s rating (if they thought at all). Until they come up with an idea, the gift deer is doomed to oblivion.