Stop the Cossack in you

I first observed this phenomenon about ten years ago, when three unshaven men climbed onto trolleybus No. 8, supporting each other by their sleeves drawn at the elbows. Wearing sweatpants with stripes sewn on, spreading the aroma of cheap cigarettes and thick fumes, they presented the conductor with fiery red tickets with the inscription “Cossack”, added verbally “His Majesty” and demanded free travel. To the question: “Why on earth?” their drunken chieftain made the sign of the cross and made a loud, unintelligible speech, richly flavored with references to “Mother Russia” and “her mother.” Another fellow unfolded a map with the area of ​​the Vyatka Cossacks painted on it, where the artist’s unsteady hand added both the Kuban and the Don and the Urals to its borders. Having convinced the conductor of their immutable right, the cheerful army announced control over the availability of tickets for other passengers, and the chieftain, sitting heavily on the bottom step, shouted: “The back passage is closed!” The rebellious citizens then threw the self-proclaimed “Cossacks” into this passage at the first stop.

Since then, like a dangerous virus, earworms in stripes have spread widely throughout Rus'. So my friend, if he drinks heavily, will cry out: “I am a Cossack!” and he will begin to say: “It’s nice, brothers, it’s nice,” he’ll stop, because he doesn’t know any more words, and he’ll finish: “To avoid sadness, let’s chop all the enemies with the communists into cabbage.”

In 2005, the Cossacks accepted Putin himself into their ranks, giving him the rank of Cossack colonel, as they once did to the Tsar Father. In 2010, the deputy head of the presidential administration, chairman of the Council for Cossack Affairs, Beglov, cited expert estimates according to which in Russia “about 7 million people consider themselves Cossacks, and the total number of military Cossack societies, making up 10 troops, is more than 700 thousand people.” True, in the census that year there were a hundred times fewer Cossacks - 67 thousand. And it is not clear whether Beglov counted them with horses, or wrote them all down here, like my friend, or equated one Cossack hero with a hundred ordinary citizens.

However, having settled into the capitals, the Cossacks behave there not even as representatives of millions, but as full-fledged masters. Created on November 24, the KaPRF immediately received flattering words from government officials: “The Cossacks are our support for solving important problems.” And so they, dressed in colorful clothes, sporting crimson stripes, went to patrol the streets and squares. No, they didn’t go to deal with the Kushchevkas and “Dalnye”, they didn’t bang their fists on the tables of careless officials, they didn’t think that they could be useful through any kind of creative work. First of all, they lent their mighty shoulder to the state in the struggle “for morality and order.” What's on the list of their achievements in recent months? They disrupted the performance, tore down the exhibition, tore off the T-shirt from a passerby... Now they also drove out an old woman selling dried mushrooms from Belorusskaya Square.

In Russia there are already a huge number of structures that supervise something. Behind the gigantic mass of inspectors, it is sometimes impossible to discern those who produce. In our country, doing business that results in material and spiritual values ​​is often unprofitable and difficult. This circumstance was felt by crowds of incompetents and lazy people, some of whom, as established sons, work in various regulatory departments, others join the “Cossacks” in order to suck in and rob creators, imitating useful activities. Useless to anyone, limited, stupid, they climb everywhere like colorful roosters with their charter in order to comb everyone with the same brush, to adjust their own understanding of the world to themselves.

Assessing the decrees of President Medvedev on the establishment of coats of arms and banners of military Cossack societies, the ranks of their members, uniforms and insignia, Cossack identification, Rossiyskaya Gazeta wrote in the article “Cossack Power” in 2010 that they “...put an end to that page of recent history, when the Cossacks were considered impostors and “mummers.” ... State institutions will conclude agreements with them, for example, to protect public order or protect the environment, to promote various economic, cultural or educational projects.”

Almost three years have passed, only the “mummers” remain as such. The Russian government, which easily repels many sensible forces, suddenly merged in a languid kiss with the “Cossacks” who migrated to the capitals. Having again set priorities, again giving preference not to those who want to work for the benefit of a free and modern country, but to organize a camp clownery. As if we don’t have enough reasons for sad laughter even without them.