Comforting conclusions, or the Tenth point against despondency

The usual Moscow winter gloom does not add joy. You wake up in the dreary darkness of winter time stolen by Medvedev and not yet returned and begin to count the days until spring. So today I switched to winter uniform, put on my favorite “Alaska”, tied a white ribbon, and remembered that today is exactly one year since the awakening of civil society.

Still, friendship with Mityaev has good consequences for me. Memories flowed naturally. How is Oleg doing? “Our memory is torn by film, like in a movie.” Here is my chronology of the past year.

On December 5, in the freezing rain, my friend Zhenya and I tried to get closer to the stage on Chistye Prudy, but we couldn’t. For the first time in a long time, I was shocked by the number of people who came to this sodden patch that had turned into a mess.

Then there was “Bolotnaya”. I warmed up in Udarnik at the “Rice and Fish” cafe, met Sasha Yelin, although their then hit “Our Madhouse Votes for Putin” was almost inaudible from the stage.

December 24 "Sakharova" is a different matter - acoustics, design, and light. I stood on stage, warming up coffee for Ksenia Sobchak, wearing a white jacket, in keeping with the political spirit of the times, although now I think that she was shivering not from the cold, but from excitement and nervous tension. Alexey Kudrin, heading to the microphone, asked to hold his hat and gloves, I remember asking: “Isn’t it cold?”, and he smiled and very seriously said: “I’ll go out to the people with my head uncovered.” In general, then everyone seemed to be on stage: from Kasyanov with Yavlinsky, to Thor with Krylov. Although the atmosphere was less good-natured than at Bolotnaya. The nationalists tried to make a fuss. The bees of the Delo party, flying over the square on huge white balls, protested against joining the WTO; they de facto joined a little later, on August 23. This is all from the chronicles of the past year.

On February 4, I walked a fiery march along frosty Yakimanka next to Prokhorov.

Then the “White Ring” motor rally with a white condom instead of a ball, cheerful Volodya Ryzhkov, joyfully waving his hand from Sergei Aleksashenko’s humming jeep.

Human chain "White Ribbon" my 8-year-old son Ivanovich gave the first interview in his life to Nikolai Nikolaev, Sergei Parkhomenko was smiling next to him, it was snowing in large flakes on Kolkhoznaya that day.

The fountain story on Pushkinskaya, the broken arm of Alena Popova.

An iPad broken by a police baton on May 6 from the same Drummer.

A walk with writers along the boulevards. Then along the same route on June 12, on Russia Day, in the company of the great Makar and the “criminal” Bozhena Rynski, she was at that time under recognizance not to leave, she was very worried, the time for vacation was approaching. Spent the night at Abai’s, told students what the oil curse was, then hot evenings and the people’s microphone on Kudrinskaya.

Finally, on September 15, with my wife, son, and daughter around my neck, I walked with white ribbons through autumn Moscow, taking photographs for a long time on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard. An elderly woman, wearing a mask of the famous Siberian Crater, was the main attraction of that March of Millions. Although it was felt that many came no longer at the call of the leaders, but based on a sense of dignity and duty. The protest was clearly losing energy.

Reading Rubinstein in today's New Times, I remembered my lines:

“The epigraph of the Chapter contains the thought of one of the great sons of the United States of America - John Kennedy: “Those who make a peaceful revolution impossible make a violent revolution inevitable.” No one in the history of mankind managed to stop history. It was possible to delay it for a while. It was possible to stop it. Russia has again been delayed in its historical development. Another scar on its body, another ugly sprout. It will have the name “Tactics of sovereign democracy.” Like the “sturgeon of the second freshness,” “sovereign democracy” claims a categorical niche.

There is no such niche." (from the book "A Primer of My Life")

Yes, there really is no longer a niche for sovereign democracy.

But history really needs to be helped in any way possible. On December 15, we will go to the “Freedom March” with the slogan “2013 is the year of constitutional reform!” I consider this the main task and substantive agenda of the opposition for the near future.

How is Oleg Grigorievich doing?

"Disappointing conclusions

Come to mind in the fall,

Disappointing conclusions

Come to mind for winter"

No, I don’t agree! Quite comforting.

Lev Semenovich, this is me to Rubinstein, adding my 10th to your “9 points against despondency”: STILL AHEAD!