TO THE BRAINS OF THE GUESTS

SPECIAL REPORT

Nothing can explain this omission: for some reason, there is no Petrogradskaya street in Kazan. But there is Peterburgskaya Street and Leningradskaya Street - one in the center, the other closer to the outskirts. Peterburgskaya Street, landscaped for the 1000th anniversary of Kazan...

Nothing can explain this omission: for some reason, there is no Petrogradskaya street in Kazan. But there is Peterburgskaya Street and Leningradskaya Street - one in the center, the other closer to the outskirts. Peterburgskaya Street, landscaped for the 1000th anniversary of Kazan with the financial assistance of the 300-year-old city on the Neva (150 million rubles), delights with its facades, fountains and sculptures. And Leningradskaya Street, which can only wait for help from the Mausoleum, remains a dull territory with potholes, withered trampled lawns and uncleaned rubbish in place of the demolished barracks. Valentina Matvienko, who arrived at the celebration of the anniversary, visited only one of these related streets.

It would be nice, of course, to live in a city where there would be neither rubbish nor window dressing. So that guests can be invited to any street. To not necessarily a fountain, but always good asphalt with combed lawns.

“Guest street” is an official term of the jubilee period. When preparing Kazan for the holiday, it was said at press conferences: "Seventeen guest streets have been identified." It is clear that the eighteenth at the same time, few people worried. Those seventeen asphalted until the anniversary. There was a fear that they would not be in time, and the imagination painted a picture: a cortege was rushing along the guest street, and ahead of it, at the same speed, was an asphalt skating rink with a flashing light.

These days, policemen deployed from all over the country stood on the Kazan streets every five meters, water special forces plowed the Volga in forty high-speed boats, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs composed an instruction not recommending people to go out onto balconies and look out the windows while motorcades were passing. And, looking at all this, the resident of the city wanted to collect a bundle and come somewhere with a confession.

Ceremonial uniforms even made us forget about the everyday work of the police with the population, during which from time to time one of the parties beats the other. So, quite recently, in August, a policeman was sentenced to three years in prison for torturing detainees with electric current. The Human Rights Center of Kazan often and effectively protests against such methods, and this was taken into account when preparing for the celebrations. People in uniform three times visited the apartment of the project manager Pavel Chikov, and in order not to disturb his parents anymore, the lawyer eventually had to go to the police department and promise in writing that he would not only not organize pickets, but even leave during the holiday Kazan. In a word, the current in police wires is variable, and the disregard for human rights is permanent.

Precautionary work was also done with the Tatar national organization: one of the leaders of the national movement, 73-year-old retired colonel Zaki Zainullina, was invited to a conversation at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. From the building of the All-Tatar Public Center (VTOC), the security forces removed a poster in the Tatar language, calling somewhere in the wrong direction. It is clear that the WTOCA activists after that still call the wrong places and that national problems have not gone away from this prevention, but the absence of a disloyal poster allowed the guests from Moscow to focus on cheerful visual agitation.

Everyone would be happy to live in a city where everyone takes a bath in the morning and freshens up with cologne. But the reality is that some city dwellers drink bath cleaner in the morning and skip a bottle of cologne in the afternoon. As part of the fight against reality, hundreds of Kazan homeless people were put on buses and taken out of the city. In particular, to the pioneer camp "Bonfire". They were ordered to sit by the fire under the supervision of counselors with clubs and sing pioneer songs until the second of September. As they say, until the end of the shift. And then what? Then they will return to the city and will again rummage through the garbage cans. They should not sit at their desk and write essays on the topic “How I spent the summer”!

Anniversary Kazan appeared before the distinguished guests with a freshly painted front side, and they were quite satisfied. And this is understandable. They did not come here for the same reason, to drive along the potholes of random streets, delve into local problems and consider them in the light of fireworks. And in general, what kind of claims can there be if these are the conditions of the game? And such is the fate of any jubilee city: everyone dances here, except for those who sing.