The Governor hit the stands

A new political media has appeared in St. Petersburg - the Petrovsky Stadium

The main hit of the football season in St. Petersburg and the most popular video on the Web on YouTube is an episode of the Saturday Zenit-Kuban football match, when the fan turn began to chant “Governor - zhlo-oh-oh!” and she was picked up by a crowded stadium

The main hit of the football season in St. Petersburg and the most popular video on the Web on YouTube is an episode of the Saturday Zenit-Kuban football match, when the fan turn began to chant “Governor - zhlo-oh-oh!” and she was picked up by a crowded stadium. And he not only picked it up, but also continued: “Sell the dacha - build a stadium!”

This is called - "how our word will respond."

A few days earlier, Georgy Poltavchenko, who in St. Petersburg is generally treated calmly (without enthusiasm, but without irritation, unlike Valentina Matvienko), inadvertently allowed himself to call the behavior of the townspeople “redneck”. They, having seen the procession of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (for the passage of which, together with the governor, as usual, they blocked the traffic for a long time), they allowed themselves not only to buzz with horns, but also to see off Dmitry Anatolyevich with indecent gestures. What the governor immediately and outraged.

The ungrateful subjects reacted immediately. The softest response on the Internet was an indication to the mayor that it was redneck to block the streets for the sake of the passage of the authorities, and not outrage at the inconvenience that citizens must endure for the sake of this passage. But instead of apologizing to the residents, the governor invited them (as Novaya Gazeta recently reported) to take part in the construction of a new stadium for Zenit. And then the action at Petrovsky followed ...

The united website of Zenit fans Landskrona has already issued a statement explaining this action. Where it says in simple terms:

"The Governor is a goon!" and "Sell the dacha - complete the stadium!" - two charges that sounded at the very beginning of the match from a fan turn. Accusations of city dwellers of greed and statements by Governor Poltavchenko to the fans with a proposal to chip in at the stadium and help to complete it themselves caused deep indignation. We regard these words as amazing impudence on the part of those who, on duty, should be responsible for the city, its projects and their implementation. Such people disgrace St. Petersburg and its inhabitants in front of the whole country. The charges received the absolute support of the entire stadium and set the right tone for the whole game of the match.”

The story continued - on Monday evening, the news quickly spread on the Internet that the St. Petersburg police were looking for "guilty" fans. This was believed at once, which is no wonder: such have been St. Petersburg news in recent months. The news about the search for fans for "anti-governor" speeches is much less surprising than real events: searches for homosexuality on milk cartons, proposals to grant civil rights to embryos, or accusations by the author of "Lolita" of promoting pedophilia ...

The leadership of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, including its chief, Sergei Umnov, had to refute the punitive plans, who said that no one was going to look for fans, and the news about this was “complete nonsense.” And the press service of Smolny at the same time declared unreliable and media reports that the governor "allegedly offered Zenit fans to take a financial part in the completion of the stadium." Like, on October 15, speaking on television, Georgy Poltavchenko only "expressed the opinion that it is quite possible to invite the inhabitants of our city, especially football fans, to participate in some kind of work on the stadium."

I remember that then all the city and many federal media wrote that the St. Petersburg governor offered to build the stadium with the whole world. And no denials or clarifications from Smolny followed. The governor's press service became alarmed only after Poltavchenko turned out to be the hero of cheerleaders' chants. Quantity turned into quality?

The relationship between St. Petersburg fans and St. Petersburg authorities is a very delicate matter. At one time, Anatoly Sobchak, being the mayor of the city, sometimes came to Zenit matches to show that the city was not indifferent to football. Governor Vladimir Yakovlev at one time went to Petrovsky, but then he stopped: he had, to put it mildly, cool relations with club president Vitaly Mutko. Valentina Matvienko was not favored at Zenit matches: when her presence was announced at the stadium, it was considered a bad omen. Georgy Poltavchenko goes to football quite often - and he was always met calmly. By the way, he did not come to the match with Kuban ...

Generally speaking, Zenit fans are apolitical and invariably emphasize that football is out of politics. But this time they decided on something that has never happened before in Russian stadiums.

Almost never before has the top management become the subject of outright ridicule: neither the fans of CSKA, Spartak, Dynamo or Loko, nor the fans of Rubin or Kuban, and even more so the fans of Terek have never allowed themselves this. By and large, the fans were limited to claims against club presidents, players, coaches, banners with openly nationalist slogans often appeared. Unless Putin was booed after the Emelianenko fight, but this was not a planned action.

Now a precedent has been created, but, by and large, there are no methods of struggle: you can’t send any riot police to a stadium with thousands of people. The stadium is like the Colosseum in ancient Rome: no one is safe from ridicule.

There is only one thing left: not to give rise to such a reaction. Respect citizens. Remember that the governor is not the "owner of the city", but a hired manager who is obliged to work for the residents.

By the way, this applies not only to communication with fans.

And it concerns not only the St. Petersburg governor.

Vladimir MAKSIMOV