Thank you for being healthy

Photo: ITAR-TASS

Vladimir Putin's arrival in Turkey in itself dispelled some of the concern that had recently swirled around the topic of the president's health. Now we at least know that Putin exists and is still capable of actively and not without courage making Russian foreign policy - including sitting at the table with very uncomfortable partners, which, following the events in Syria, began to include Recep Erdogan.

The topic of presidential health in general, I must say honestly, lives and attracts our attention not on its own, but solely due to specific factors of our recent past. Firstly, we know that if our people don’t tell us about something, but the Japanese or Belarusians do hint, then there is a problem. Secondly, until relatively recently we were dealing with a head of state whose presence in the life of the country, for various reasons, sometimes seemed, so to speak, flickering. When 13 years ago that head offered us a young and vigorous successor in his place, many of us gladly supported his choice - also because we were tired of this “flicker”, of messages about a strong presidential handshake and successful work with documents. They say that in ideal political regimes the president should be invisible. But we understand that our political regime is not ideal. And we - even those of us who have become implacable opponents of President Putin - would not want him to become invisible, since we live in such a far from ideal state. So thanks to Erdogan: he has reassured us to some extent.

Nevertheless, it is, of course, very unpleasant to realize that over 20 years of post-Soviet development in Russia nothing has been done to create an institutional mechanism for changing power as simple as a revolver. That in the event of force majeure - any force majeure, including medical, from which no political scheme of checks and balances can provide protection - the system can become completely unbalanced if only one, even the most important, screw is removed from it for a few hours. Anyone who takes the trouble to think about it understands this - and this understanding does not give us anything in terms of overcoming this strategic uncertainty. Understanding, but not being able to change anything, we will continue to be forced to place all our bets on one single, completely ordinary, not two-stranded, mortal and subject to weaknesses person. And he himself will also bet on himself. This, in essence, is all that is known about the guarantees of stability of the Russian political system in case of unforeseen circumstances.

If you like, we can talk about the absurdity of a situation in which the real private plans of tens, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of people regarding careers, children, education, real estate, investments, business strategies, medical care for their families - and, in the end, opportunities in the evening after work, drink a cup of coffee in a cafe around the corner - they turn out to depend on the state of health of one single person. There is something to worry about here.

But for now it’s still kind of an abstract anxiety. But our daily experience shows that problems with the stability of the power system may (or may not) become a multiplier for an increasingly threatening lump of problems accumulating, as they say, on the ground. Political scientists, economists, rescuers and other experts in their fields of knowledge have long been talking a lot about the technological collapse that threatens our country. And we admit, we mostly ignore their words. Because our metro still takes us to work, our coffee is still smoking in a cup on a table in a cafe around the corner, and we have a lot of more important interests than some outdated turbines at power plants and airplanes that have long since expired.

But one fine day at the beginning of winter, public transport stops functioning in Moscow. Tightly - so that people from the end stations of the crowded metro walk on foot to their areas beyond the Moscow Ring Road, knee-deep in snow, along the radial routes of this future international financial center, this consolidating and modernizing Greater Moscow, standing in an endless traffic jam. Don’t tell me that the mayor’s office of New York or Paris would be just as helpless as the mayor’s office of Moscow. It’s not necessary, because in Moscow snowfall at the beginning of winter is the climatic norm. It’s not necessary, because I myself walk and drive along the streets of this city and I know that they were not cleaned for hours and they blatantly lied on the radio, that 12 thousand units of equipment were deployed to fight the elements, which removed three hundred thousand tons of snow. Yes, at least three hundred million: if the mayor’s office says that the city is ready for snowfall, and the city rises, this means only one thing - technological collapse. Moreover, in the city where most of the country’s technological, human and financial resources are concentrated, that is, in a place that is theoretically maximally protected from collapse.

A three-day traffic jam of heavy trucks, which slowly and slowly migrated along the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway, is also a collapse. The phenomenon of social collapse is the truck driver who refuses to put chains on his wheels and becomes the root cause of a gigantic traffic problem. The phenomenon of technological collapse is the state of the road located in the European part of the country, connecting its two capitals. The phenomenon of technological collapse is the complete degeneration of road services, which in fact should have started cleaning the highway before the federal government intervened. It’s not because they didn’t clean it up because they didn’t want to do it without the government’s instructions. They didn't clean it because they weren't physically there. Or they are in such a state that it’s the same as if they don’t exist. European part of the country. Highway between two capitals. Twenty-first century. 12 thousand people in the Pskov region remain without electricity for three days - their light ran out for three days, without any participation of the ancient Mayans.

Institutional provision of security and stability of the constitutional system in a situation of force majeure is in the same state as road services near Vyshny Volochok and distribution networks in the Pskov region. But there are more serious problems than snowfall at the end of November. They can appear at any moment without any participation of our gifted authorities. We live in a dynamic and very disturbing world, full of dangers. And we seem to have wasted the time that was given to us to build systems that can protect us from threats of any level. From the threat of ice to the threat of international terrorism. This, perhaps, is not a panic - what we did not manage to do yesterday, it is not too late to start doing today, Russians are generally famous for their ability to concentrate in an emergency situation and only then amaze the whole world with their virtues. So no, don't panic. But anxiety. Not educational.