Television terror

Of course, it’s disgusting to start the week with all sorts of rubbish. But there’s nothing you can do about it - the trumpet, you know, is calling, the drums are beating, and the ashes of Klaas, as you know... Previously, the overwhelming majority of Soviet newspapers had such a column “I Can’t Be Silent.” Well, it’s kind of like a cry from the heart - the wipers are not removing the snow well, a pipe burst in the next entrance and flooded six apartments... So, last Sunday our TV channels burst. And offhand, ten million apartments were flooded. Moreover, I note, it was flooded exclusively with, excuse me, crap. There are two sources: NTV and RTR.

First, the “Frank Confession” program, which airs on NTV on Sundays after the seven o’clock news, showed a crime film about the YUKOS organized crime group. Then approximately the same story was duplicated in the weekly review of “News of the Week” by Sergei Brilev on RTR. Why play the same movie on all the buttons is more or less clear - so that no one avoids watching it. In principle, it’s convenient: I started watching one program, got distracted by drinking tea, no problem - an hour later they will show the same thing on another.

Everything is clear with Sergei Brilev’s program. It’s high time to hang a sign on it “Caution, propaganda!” and try not to allow old people and children to watch. Of course, it’s also better not to watch it yourself. But man, as you know, is not perfect. Sometimes we are drawn to all sorts of nasty things. So I want to say right away: look at Brilev - don’t look, you still won’t be able to experience any satisfaction - only annoyance and irritation. But the stories about YUKOS at the end of last week gave me more than just a gag reflex. They are truly dangerous to health. For the health of the entire nation.

The formal reason for inclusion in the weekly review is the verdict handed down to one of the heads of the YUKOS security service, Alexei Pichugin. For committing especially serious crimes, as the court ruled, Pichugin will spend the next twenty years in a maximum security colony. It’s a waste of time to once again recall all the circumstances of this Yezhov trial (both in spirit and in content). It’s clear why they took Pichugin. To start testifying against the main shareholders of the company. And above all - on Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Pichugin refused and paid for it. The investigation didn't even bother to maintain decorum - who's to be ashamed of? Just think, a serial killer, already serving a life sentence, admitted to carrying out Pichugin’s order, and it costs him nothing to take on another episode. And maybe they promised him an extra walk a day for this. Moreover, there was no murder. Former YUKOS employee Olga Kostina, allegedly ordered by Pichugin, is alive and well. And businessman Evgeny Rybin, whose assassination attempt also seemed to be conceived and planned by this gentleman, is alive and well. Who, apparently, is not alive is the Gorina couple, but their bodies were never found. However, for some reason the filmmakers did not pay attention to all these, to put it mildly, strange circumstances. They felt that their journalistic duty lay elsewhere. Namely, to convince Russian citizens: YUKOS is a gang that must be destroyed. For greater persuasiveness, various artistic means were used.

For example, if you show a boy whose parents were killed, and then show Alexei Pichugin end-to-end, then it is not at all necessary to provide the viewer with compelling arguments that one is guilty of the other’s tragedy. For what? So, everything is clear to everyone. But Mr. Rybin himself confidentially reports that the Yukosites made an attempt on his life. Well, since the man himself speaks, what other proof is needed? But a diagram appears on the TV screen. An arrow from the surname “Nevzlin” leads to the surname “Pichugin”, and from that to the surname “Gorin”. So much for the criminal chain. All the murders were, of course, ordered by one of the main shareholders of YUKOS, Leonid Nevzlin, and the rest, including Pichugin, were simply intermediaries and executors. Sergei Brilev's program directly states this, although there was no trial of Nevzlin.

What about Mikhail Khodorkovsky? Terrible things were happening behind his back, and he was neither sleepy nor in spirit? Well, you and I are not naive people, honestly. And our TV people are not naive people: they understand perfectly well that the movie they were supposed to make was not about Pichugin at all (who is Pichugin? He’s already got his way). They were supposed to make a movie about Khodorkovsky, who was yet to hear his verdict. And then you see footage of a corporate picnic appear on your screen. Jeeps rush along mountain roads, then Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin, Lebedev, Pichugin in camouflage play with weapons in the lap of nature. Nevzlin even shoots somewhere (perhaps at Kostina?), Khodorkovsky throws a hand grenade into the abyss. And they are always talking about something. True, no voices are heard. But that doesn't matter. It is still clear that they are planning bloody crimes.

Well, in order to tie Khodorkovsky even more reliably to this whole series of murders, in both stories - both on RTR and on NTV - they show an excerpt from a press conference of state prosecutor Kemil Keshaev, who last week told an amazing story about how the Tambov bandit Gorin came to Moscow to the father of Mikhail Khodorkovsky to complain about his son, that he, they say, orders murders, but does not pay money. Well, what is there to comment on?

Now the question is: why are television bosses trying to make idiots out of us? Very simple. So that at some important meeting in the Kremlin, Vladislav Surkov would stand up and, addressing the President of Russia, say: “You, Vladimir Vladimirovich, quite rightly highly appreciated the role of law enforcement agencies in destroying the gangster nest called YUKOS.” Undoubtedly, prosecutors, investigators and judges have done a tremendous job. But it was still necessary for the people to believe in all this nonsense. And here we must say our deepest thanks to both Oleg Dobrodeev and Vladimir Kulistikov. As loyal sons of the party..."

We've already been through all this. Or rather, not us. Our grandfathers. By the time the court decision is announced in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, meetings in labor collectives should be held across the country, at which weavers and metallurgists, scientists and teachers...

It really doesn't matter how many people believe this nonsense. It is important which number does not believe. And what lengths are people willing to go to when they realize that this is not about YUKOS, Khodorkovsky and Pichugin. The fact is that the country in which this happens does not have a normal future.