Inspired by automotive

I missed the first rally on the garden ring and regretted it when I looked at the reports. Therefore, on February 19 he bought a white braid, tied her on the neck of his hefty dog, took a friend with the third, and we moved to Moscow.

At first, everything went wrong: on the Yakimanka fell into an artificial cork for 40 minutes (a crazy traffic light). Having drove around the Kremlin, we found only a few dozen participants identified by white subjects. Departure from the embankment to Mokhovaya was blocked. It seemed that the action did not work out.

However, getting out of the garden, we soon found ourselves among our own. Two, and sometimes three rows of cars marked with white, moved slowly and solemnly. White options were the most diverse: balloons, ribbons, garlands, shirt on the shoulders, hanging outside, simple sheets of paper, soft toys and, of course, slogans. There are almost no tinted glasses, behind the glass - people with pleasant meaningful faces, welcoming each other. The impression is that, finally, he came to his real homeland - exactly what he always wanted to see her.

In our crew, the main character was Jack. He generally became the star of the parade, leaning out of the window and smiling at the full mouth. He was waved, rejoiced at him, he was filmed. He got to the main Internet page of the run and in a report on Ridus:

The main feeling from the rally and previous rallies: in Russia a new population of smiling adequate citizens arises, after the accumulation of which there are no hundreds of thousands on the asphalt, not a single package from under the chips or cigarette packs that are stubbornly inferior to you, among which you feel at ease, in the present homeland. Who are also not afraid of the authorities and generals in general.

Sadness is mixed with this joyful fact: in a break -in life, the jet made by our scientific workshop is not visible. Among the instigators there are many journalists and not a single scientist. But the scientific and technological intelligentsia was a motor of changes in 1989-91.

Well, there are tides and ebbs ... Squeezing and depression in the scientific environment are felt not so much in the dynamics of publications as in the sensations from the accumulations of colleagues - whether it is a scientific advice or holiday: it blows with a slight dullness. The exception is perhaps good conferences and commemoration of outstanding scientists (sorrow and dullness are completely different things).

Here is one examples of degradation. Earlier, I wrote in the TRV-Hello on the celebration of the New Year in one of the unnamed strong academic institutions. In contrast with the funny cabbages of the past decades, the feast passed under the stupid jokes of the hired mass-wrapper, dancing of the abdomen, dance of gypsies and sounds of terrible popes. The publication had an unexpected response. Soon I met an employee of another strong academic institute. He said that their director was inquisitive with his colleague: "Did you test Stern about our New Year?"

Will the scientific community come to life, breathing in the air of the latest rallies and stocks? There are light signs of life. For example, the Demarsh of Itfovites, supported by journalists, scientific diaspora, foreign scientists and (alas, to a lesser extent) Russian scientists of other institutions. But the phase transition that separates the living from barely alive has not yet occurred.

On Friday, February 24, a seminar was held in Jofan about the creation of a company of scientists. The previous attempt by scientists to unite on the bottom was in 2005. Now the characters are the same, but more determination. At the seminar, a crime flashed at times, but there was no usual dullness. Looking ahead a little, I must report that the company in the bud has already been created, more about this will be written in the next number of the TRV-hunger. So far, it’s too early to interpret this as a new living stream - do not say a gop! .. Let's try!

Everything that is capable of originating now in Russian science is highly dependent on what is born in society. Any breaking new life is faced with the resistance of the owners of the old life. Now the resistance is rather sluggish, but it may soon become tougher. So what? The main recipe for this case with rude straightforwardness was formulated by one of the participants in the same automotive race.

Indeed, fear is the main opponent of change. But, it seems, a much more serious ally has passed to our side - time.

Boris Stern

The author of the photos is Andrey Belitsky, the website of the Civil Journalism Agency "Ridus"