But we make rockets

On April 12 we received our usual ration of praises, raptures and boasts about Yuri Gagarin's flight into space The history of Soviet Potemkin-space villages is sad and instructive. The impoverished, half-starved country, pushing itself with its last strength, overtook the well-fed and powerful America at the finish line with its satellite, with Belka and Strelka and the first manned flight into space. Smiling, simple and nice guy Yuri Gagarin, who was not spoiled by world fame, and the great scientist Korolev voluntarily became hostages of this historical race for high-tech leadership. They, too, believed that it was normal to be malnourished, wear rags, live in communal apartments, and overtake everyone in space to be among the last on earth. Particularly frightening is the pathos of S. Korolev, who went to the Gulag for no reason, almost died and continued to make rockets for the totalitarian system, because he saw neither a global threat in his bosses and their ideology, nor a crime in spending money on window dressing in a country whose citizens did not eat their fill. But it was no longer possible to catch up with America in terms of the amount of meat, butter and milk per capita. And a year after Gagarin's flight shots from Novocherkassk were fired. The workers there just could not afford to buy these products. Their meat, butter, milk and eggs went to the space delights of the Soviet government. It remains only for bullets to shoot these workers who went out to a peaceful and hungry demonstration.

For 30 years in a row, right up to August 1991, the USSR was tearing itself up in the arms race, in the space flight race, in the tacit race for satellites from Africa, Asia and Latin America, buying up supposedly allies in the bud, but in fact - clackers. Having not solved a single problem on earth, the Soviet people consoled themselves with a short-lived space superiority over the United States. As Naum Korzhavin wrote in samizdat: “Thunder with might and main, guns! This joy is great: the people who have conquered Chaos are carrying them into space.”

And the products of "class A" from the textbook of political economy, that is, steel, cast iron, "military" and "defense", for 70 years overshadowed the unfortunate products of "class B", that is, consumer goods, called by A. Zinoviev "Shirli-myrli". The people wanted to consume, they were indifferent and even hostile to the empty cosmic glory, uselessly rumbling over their heads. And Vasily Aksyonov took a big sin on his soul, who pathetically proves in his “Star Ticket” that you can do without a pair of shoes and without meat, paying for this “star ticket” in the era. Many years later, he will become smarter and kinder, and in his “Island of Crimea” he will show exhausted women who know that cheese is no closer than Orel, and sausage is no closer than Moscow.

Everyone knows that a Russian person can shoe a flea, but in what conditions does this person live and why does he need such a flea? Therefore, in the American film Armageddon, a Russian cosmonaut, a craftsman who saves the entire expedition, flies in some sooty ship and is dressed in earflaps and a quilted jacket. Such is the metaphor.

And there will be no end to these Potemkin agitation. We are again buying up satellites with the last of our money, giving out loans to Lukashenka, Chavez, Raul Castro, Abkhaz and South Ossetian clans and warlords, Kyrgyzstan - if only it evicted the American base. The security forces are promising us new submarines, aircraft carriers and missiles to fight the myth of the NATO threat. And instead of space, we have the Olympics - another black hole where budget money falls.

If we are destined to be Upper Volta, let's be Upper Volta without missiles. Perhaps then the voiceless people will get an extra piece.