Cultivation

Last time - in 2005 - the Ivanovo regional newspaper Kursiv suffered for the article "Putin as a phallic symbol of Russia". A case was initiated under the article “Insulting a representative of the authorities”, and the editor-in-chief was sentenced to a fine of 20,000 rubles. In September, for a much less serious offense, a much more severe fate may befall the Saratov Reporter. In the collage published in the newspaper, Vladimir Putin is depicted by Stirlitz in the form of an SS Standartenführer, and Muller, a deputy of the Saratov City Duma Mikhail Isaev, asks Putin to stay for a third term: “And you, Stirlitz, I will ask you to stay. More…” Now Rosokhrankultura is seriously demanding that the newspaper be closed in court for propaganda of Nazism and “identification of the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin with an officer of the SS troops of Nazi Germany”.

The Saratov newspaper may pay for the fact that with its innocent joke - only the lazy did not compare Putin with Stirlitz, who, as you know, was not an officer of the Nazi German SS troops at his main place of work - violated one of the fundamental rules of public life: Putin must not be touched . Sociologists continue to assert that as such there was not and is no cult of Putin - are there such cults in Soviet history! - but the further, the more clearly the Russian president appears as a leader, the Leader of the nation with a capital letter. Now he alone, personally, is the author of all the achievements of recent years. Nothing without him. Since October, this thesis has already been heard from television screens, in United Russia advertising materials and at the party congress, where delegates one after another from the podium persuaded Putin to stay.

For ordinary people, Putin is both the supreme power on which they depend and a superstar. To look at it, they are ready to go to great lengths. On Thursday, on the 450th anniversary of the annexation of Bashkiria to Russia, Putin went out to Ufa residents at the Friendship Monument. Citizens came here in advance with balloons, as well as flags of Russia, Bashkiria and United Russia in their hands. Only according to the lists were allowed to the foot. The lists were compiled at the enterprises.

Citizens were allowed to enter by three o'clock in the afternoon, they were waiting for Putin at four, and he arrived at five. A fragment from the Bashkir opera was played on the stairs. “Great Tsar, here is a bearskin with the signatures of a thousand Bashkirs. I ask you to accept me as part of Russia, ”the phonogram sang to Putin and those around him.

They looked at Putin like he was a rock star. Clicked "soap boxes". The President laid a basket of scarlet roses at the monument, listened to a piece of the opera, looked at the dance of young men with spears and how a Bashkir beekeeper climbs a pine tree for wild honey with the help of special devices. As soon as the presidential cortege drove off, a crowd of thousands of people rushed to the foot of the monument from two sides. "I'm ready to kiss the sand you walked on," the two teenagers scoffed as they watched people jostling for a photo next to a basket of presidential roses. But this was an exception. No one else said a bad word about Putin.

“But Tatyana caught him by the hand,” one state employee told her friend when Putin left, about the case of a miraculous touch on power. "What? Where?" - did not believe a friend. “And here she was standing, he was passing by,” the state employee insisted. “Won’t wash,” the friend decided. "Let's go home already," another woman moaned. “Yes, you stand. Feel the responsibility of the moment, ”they joked about her and were in no hurry to leave. Young worker Ruslan from the Ufa Aggregate Association, meanwhile, explained to Newsweek that the head of the republic, Murtaza Rakhimov, is, of course, “cooler than Putin,” and this, in particular, was manifested in the fact that Putin appointed Rakhimov president.

“I didn’t observe the cult of personality for him,” Rita Mozganova, a doctor from the Ufa hospital No. 5, later assured. - Very intelligent, modest. He has two girls - men who have girls, they are always kind. It's already proven." This, of course, is far from being a cult of personality. “For a cult, there must be an atmosphere of fear and adoration,” says Levada Center director Lev Gudkov. - And we are admired by 4-5% of respondents, 28-30% sympathize, and the rest simply do not mind. Not enough energy for a cult."

So the cult of Putin, if there is one, is formed not from below, but from above. The star of the congress of United Russia, the weaver Elena Lapshina, who has become a symbol of people's love for Putin, was also introduced to the Supreme Council of the party on the day of the congress. Power in Russia outwardly more and more resembles the Soviet model: the people and the party are united. Only instead of the party now there is one person - Putin. He himself is the author of this concept, according to sources close to the Kremlin. According to Newsweek, to single-handedly lead the party list is his idea. And the presidential administration, TV channels or “pro bono supporters” bring this concept to life.

One of the responsibilities of the elite is to help shape the image of Putin. At his birthday, which Putin celebrated for the first time in the Kremlin with members of the Security Council and military leadership, Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov raised a toast "to Putin, the leader of the nation," a source close to the Kremlin said. And he adds: quite recently, under the premier Fradkov, such toasts could not be made. It was Putin’s “outstanding personal qualities”, thanks to which Russia supposedly overcame the difficulties of the 1990s and embarked on the path of development, that became the running theme of Nikita Mikhalkov’s TV movie “55”, shown on RTR on Putin’s birthday.

The same thought runs through the film "Group Portrait of the President" by journalist Leonid Mlechin, shown on the same day on the TVC channel. “Half of the film is about the personal qualities of the president, half is about the quality of the society that likes him so much,” Mlechin retells the concept of the film. He particularly emphasizes Putin's physicality and compares him to Daniel Craig's latest James Bond.

Putin's image just lacks the humanity to make him an unconditionally beloved leader, culturologist Daniil Dondurei believes, but Putin keeps his personal life a secret. When in September - also for the first time - a photo of Putin with a naked torso appeared, everyone was surprised and began to wait for a go-ahead for positioning Putin as a sex symbol, says an employee of one of the state television channels. The go-ahead never came.

The anniversary of the Leader walked across the country. St. Petersburg landscape architect Vladimir Verkhovykh celebrated the presidential holiday with a shovel and a sapling of Karelian birch in his hands in the park between houses 151 and 155 along Primorsky Prospekt. “We decided to congratulate the hero of the day and laid the Vladimir Putin Garden in his honor,” the architect explains. An application with a request to secure the official status of the presidential garden of the Verkhovykhs has already been sent to the legislature of the city. The statement, in part, reads: “At the Sunday, an appeal was unanimously adopted by the residents ... with a request to create a sculpture of the President’s dog, Cony Polgrave: “To the President’s best friend, the dog Cony.”

Verkhovykh swears that he is not joking. But in fact, the manifestations of ardent love for Putin and his dog on the part of the residents of Primorsky Prospekt have a specific mercantile reason: according to the decision of the local authorities, a 7-story business center is to appear in the near future between buildings 151 and 155. When the first workers appeared on the site, the locals twisted them up and handed them over to the police. And when the confrontation reached its climax, Putin's Labrador was involved. “Horses, installed in our yard as a representative of the president, will protect the playground from those who want to snatch a piece of land and build another skyscraper,” Vladimir Verkhovykh writes to deputies of the Legislative Assembly.

Following the St. Petersburg gardeners, the image of Putin was adopted by the residents of Samara. Last week, a group of citizens from Osipenko Street turned to the governor with a similar proposal to lay out a public garden named after V. V. Putin on the site of the proposed construction of two elite skyscrapers in the Volzhsky Prospekt area. And in the center of the square - to perpetuate the head of state. “During the eight years of his rule, Putin deserved to have a monument erected during his lifetime,” Elena Kolganova, one of the authors of the idea, explains to Newsweek. So the hero of the day Putin, in his symbolic incarnation, has already turned into a public defender.

In "United Russia" they also strive to overdo it with feelings. “There is nothing wrong with people saying so many kind words in support of the president. Why should people be restrained? - says the deputy head of the faction "United Russia" Valery Ryazansky. “And the Constitution and the president are the best guarantees that there will be no personality cult.” But party activists also have a practical interest in glorifying Putin personally: he leads them to the elections, and the more the people love the president, the more deputy mandates the party will have.

But in the capital of Mari El, Yoshkar-Ola, the attitude towards Putin is more disinterested: there, his name - already exclusively as a sign of gratitude - can be assigned to a new street in a new cottage village, where two three-story houses will be allocated to state employees. The chief architect of Yoshkar-Ola came up with the idea, but the press service of the regional administration says that the issue has not yet been considered at the official level.

It is unlikely that the initiatives of Petersburgers, Samarans and Yoshkarolyns will be launched today. The Kremlin makes sure that love for Putin does not go beyond the boundaries of decency defined there. And television operates strictly according to the instructions. They come to TV from above: the heads of TV channels attend political meetings in the Kremlin without fail. “There are formal requirements [how and how much to show Putin], and they have not changed yet,” says a TV channel employee. He believes that those responsible for the image of Putin have not yet understood what his future political fate is, and are afraid to change the angle of coverage. “There are people involved in the formation of a positive image of Putin, such as Mikhalkov,” explains the TV presenter. “The rest, including us, form, rather, images of enemies.”

The Nashi youth movement has always been very active in the fight against enemies, and Nashi leader Vasily Yakimenko was one of the first to introduce the cult of Putin a few years ago - but then he only earned a reputation as a political marginal. And last week, Yakemenko joined the civil service and headed the State Committee for Youth Affairs.

For Putin himself, the creation of an atmosphere of his total support in society is also necessary for solving specific political problems. In six months, he will be forced to give up the presidency, at least temporarily, and in modern Russia, sociologist Lev Gudkov emphasizes, "there is no cult of man, but there is a cult of place." In order not to lose control and power levers, Putin will strive to change this situation - he will have to move from one place to another. “[The formation of] a cult helps to maintain power and authority,” political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin deciphers. At the same time, studies of the attitude of the elites towards Putin show a rather sober attitude, Gudkov emphasizes: “The closer [a representative of the elite] is to power, the better his attitude towards the president is like a gentleman. Further from power is criticism of his incompetent team: they say that people hold on to power and solve their problems.

Petersburg guide Andrey Frolov has been leading tourists to "Putin's places" for the third year already. “Here is the Sever store, where, returning from Komi, from the construction team, Volodya bought a cake for his mother and a coat for himself,” says the guide. - Putin is generally handsome. When he studied at the institute, he alone had a personal car - an eared “Zaporozhets”, won by his parents in the lottery. Idols need relics: Putin's Zaporozhets is now on public display on the territory of the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna as a private initiative.

It is not surprising that at the price of an excursion of 11,000 rubles. they are held only for foreigners - compatriots do not show interest. Putin is treated without fanaticism in St. Petersburg, on the contrary, Frolov explains. And sincerely, from the bottom of his heart, he adds: “Personally, I will not take schoolchildren to “Putin's places”. I don’t want to slide down to excursions like “Lenin in October”.