Gallop of history

This is the only way CIS summits should be held: at the races, while watching a great football match together, or, at worst, at some open-air jazz festival. Because the only point of these events is a meeting of men who are simply accustomed to meeting in such a group a couple of times a year. The change of the last Soviet leaders in a number of former republics of the Union, where the de facto institution of lifelong presidency operates, will soon automatically destroy this strange male company. Because there has long been no practical meaning left in the existence of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Collapsed empires never produce stable political blocs of the same composition. Former colonies are trying to diverge from their mother countries as quickly as possible and as far as possible. Between parts of the former empires, then, over time, not only selfish tactical political closeness is possible, but also strong, sincerely good neighborly relations. In this sense, the life of the CIS, in which increasingly rare participants in increasingly meaningless summits do not dare to put a legal end to it, has been quite successful. Despite all the costs, the Soviet Union collapsed relatively bloodlessly - if measured by the scale of the country and the number of internal contradictions that tore apart its parts, which, as the Soviet anthem naively sang, “were united forever by the great Rus'.” In addition, for quite a long time all the leaders of the post-Soviet states came to the CIS summits, with the exception of the Baltic countries, which were never part of this formation.

However, now, 15 years after the death of the Soviet empire, when the irreversibility of what happened has become completely obvious, and the newly independent states have gradually become accustomed to their status, the heads of the former Soviet republics may still have common topics for conversation, but there cannot be a common policy. The gallop of history forced the former parts of one state to “jump” in different directions. And even openly quarrel with each other.

Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova are trying to become part of European civilization. The leadership of these countries believes that being on the outskirts of Europe is still historically more profitable than on the outskirts of Russia. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are having difficulty maintaining formal statehood within their current borders, with great doubts about the real control of the “center” over the entire country. Turkmenistan (which received a neutral status and is no longer part of the CIS) and Uzbekistan have turned into standard eastern despotisms. It’s just that Turkmenistan is more like a classic eastern khanate, where the ruler actually privatized the country, becoming a king, god and chairman of the board of directors, and Uzbekistan is more like a Latin American-style dictatorship, where the head of state covers up corrupt clans. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are trying to balance between East and West, combining moderately despotic regimes and the formal attributes of democracy in the form of multi-party parliaments. Armenia, with all its friendship with Russia, also sleeps and sees itself as close to the European community as possible.

Russia and Belarus, which created a union state on paper ten years ago, have over the years become sharply closer in the characters of their political regimes. But the “Lukashenization” of Russia led to a deterioration in relations with Dad - Russia’s painfully unyielding ally.

There is nothing and no reason for Russia to unite all these heterogeneous and multidirectional, but at the same time very poor countries with some grandiose political or economic project. We will be able to reach an agreement with one of the CIS presidents on access for our business to raw materials in exchange for political and military support from the Kremlin - and thank you for that.

The Eurasian empire turned out to be a utopia. Russia, as the largest fragment of this empire, is itself torn between Asian political habits, expressed in the desire of government officials to control all business, attempts to create a one-party system and drag through Putin’s lifelong presidency and the desire of the same political and business elite to live like a European, at the same time owning European assets.

The CIS is long gone. And for non-poor men, who are at the head of not too rich and happy states, it is always pleasant to spend time at the races...

Semyon Novoprudsky