Oleg Kashin: "About Ples"

"...I suddenly realized that Ples, like any other place, can seem quite charming if you were brought to it - well, okay, not by helicopter, but by a car with a flashing light or even on a bus escorted by the traffic police, you took a photo on the banks of the Volga, you were given smoked bream wrapped in paper and some kind of malachite double-headed eagle, and you go to sleep in a fenced-in “guest house” - yes, of course, Plyos in this format is charming... By the way, I often remember this Morozov’s interview about the “second middle class”, this is a very important idea in general: “After all, in Russia,” this must be remembered, “during the time of Putinism, that is, during the “years of blessed stability,” two “middle classes” were formed. One is Tinkov, the IT people, Chichvarkin, etc. And it is quite numerous. But there is a second “middle class” - these are the “new prosecutors”, “tax officers” - from the very inspection that successfully made a mistake with VAT in favor of the “new security officers.” They also live on a grand scale - they fly to hunt argali, support the media, encourage literature and art of a certain kind. And this “second middle class” does not need any talk about the development of “political competition”; it does not need Belykh or Chirkunov. And even more so Navalny and Chirikova. For them, this “inclusivist policy”, these “flirtings” of Medvedev with Novaya Gazeta are very dangerous...” And yesterday I remembered him again and realized that in Russia, in general, everything is in order with domestic tourism, but there is a nuance - all this tourism is aimed at those people about whom Morozov spoke. Ples is an important point on the map of such Russia for such tourists, but the Black Sea resorts are arranged in the same way, Altai, Baikal, the Kaliningrad region - for a tourist with a flashing light there. really much better than in any Europe. Try to hunt argali from a helicopter in Europe, yeah. And a tourist walks around Plyos without a flashing light - well, yes, if you look from afar, without peering into the huts of the aborigines, it’s very beautiful, Levitan was right about that. everyone... In the Levitan Museum, by the way (excursion - 800 rubles!) there is a toilet in the toilet, but you have to flush it from a bucket, because of this there are several buckets of river water, there is no running water."