Evil service to the state

Sergey Ivanov. Tsar. XVI century. 1902

Near the remarkable act of the television journalist Anton Krasovsky, as it were, an additional topic. A lot of decent and thinking people without any irony put this act, not at the same time, reduced his assessment, because Anton Krasovsky did not work before and said not after. Namely: he worked on the wrong channel - the Kremlin, propaganda. And then he said that he respects Putin. And it would be better if he was not up and not after, but instead of announcing that gay, and to leave the post of chief editor, worked conscientiously somewhere on the Kasparov.ru website. That would be civilian.

It seems to me incredibly strange to evaluate the act depending on the place of work of the applicant. Saved the child from a burning house? Well done, only where were you at this time? On Echo of Moscow - good. And if at the “RTR-Plan”-first quit from there, and then save the children. Anyway, the baby could continue to burn - for the integrity of the picture of the world.

Although it is clear that from the point of view of this particular act, it is just good that the editor -in -chief and what is the state. It would be better to generally the Minister of Defense or the director of the FSB.

And as a result, those who consider it a brave business in a fountain on Pushkinskaya Square or a refusal to go on stage with a Bashmet, did not support one of the few truly wonderful socio-political acts of recent times.

Intellectual Luddism

Here we are faced with a common property of thinking Russian people: to believe that the state is evil, and the only way to communicate a decent person with him should be a solid “no”.

Since the state is evil, the confrontation to him is good in itself and in any business. And now, who were already completely educated in the West, wanting that we also write joyfully about the first streets in Moscow with a paid civilized parking lot - what is now in the center of Moscow, Hurray, will be Pikalevo and we will attract new people to the protest. Because, cheers, the people are rebelled, they will not pay and break all these parking machines.

Well, let's still attract those who like to drive around the city with a flashing light in their heads and are dissatisfied with the cameras that are fined for speed. Let their people also break and, indignant, come to the square with us. But what are we protesting for? I thought for our and your civilization. But it turns out, just like that, against the state, no matter what it comes up with.

It is clear that the state with the capital of the Moscow Cremle has made the last hundred years in its power in it in order to be treated without excessive gullibility. But even in this case, to assume that contact with him kills the value of any good business in the past, present and future, somehow too much. Especially when the connection with the state enhances the effect of good business. Nevertheless, they remember how much Parfenov it turned out to whip our TV before all his superiors at the premiuming ceremony. It turned out much stronger than if the full-time author of the New Gazeta repeated the same for the 125th time, precisely why Parfenov was this authorities, this award and this TV not quite alien. And still what he says about television weighs more than what we say.

In the service of evil

I myself worked for the state, however, the last time for a long time - ten years ago. But how. Not the editor of the soft-propaganda channel-the Kremlin experiment in the field of the information Soft Power, where the state was not going to crush much so as not to scare the smart audience. I was with a rank, a place in the diplomatic hierarchy and the assumption of secrecy (not very, fortunately, big), and in the old days I would have relied on the uniform. When I was something like an embassy press attache, the Second Chechen War began. And in position, but also, by conviction, I was an opponent of brave and decent people like Lyudmila Alekseeva or Sergey Kovalev, I don’t remember who still protested there. I did not argue directly with them, but I said the opposite of what they said. They attracted attention to the terrible behavior of the Russian army. And inside the country it was right. But in Greece, in Europe, where I lived, everyone already knew everything about the terrible Russian army in advance. Here, after the first shot, everyone has already seen that the genocide of a small freedom -loving people is happening, which is only exterminated that it is a different nationality and other religion to capture its oil.

We understood that things are somewhat more complicated, but we see how this genocide is now rolling around Moscow. In general, human rights activists corrected the local, internal bias, and we, diplomats, external. In the end, a distorted picture of anyone, even good Europe with America, has not yet helped make the right decisions.

For example, I am not just somewhere on the channel, I wrote a speech project for the most terrible Putin in 2001 ( here he pronounces it here ), accompanied all kinds of Russian guests in Athens-from Yu. Lyubimov and V. Spivakov to Mikhalkov, Patrushev and Rogozin-so that they would not be lost in a foreign country, they talked with whom and what they want, look at this very acropolis, where is it delicious, where is it delicious, where is it delicious, where is it delicious, where is it delicious, where is it delicious We saw what was needed.

And when I helped Lyubimov at the theater Olympics - did I help the regime or the country? And when did the FSB Director Patrushev in a tavern for a fried octopus discussed with Greek colleagues financial flows from Islamists to Chechnya? And when we walked in the Athens of Rogozin, who came to discuss the Kaliningrad transit, according to which he was then a negotiator with the EU, was this a regime or country? Transit Kaliningrad, so that people without visas through Lithuania to Russia go back-a useful thing, even though Rogozin we don’t love at all.

Or is it necessary that nothing improves in the country, on the contrary, gets worse and worse? Then why do many decent people of critical views open restaurants with design in Moscow, make the local life more justice? Let it be gloomy, nothing but chains and stalls with beer. Perhaps it will end faster.

Even the emergence of a mild-propaganda, civilized state of state, with all the caverity of the venture, is not such a bad thing. Let, in the end, the state would have learned to speak in a normal language with people, and not as if we had dropped us all at once after the birth of a midwife. Judging by the rapid dismissal without explanation, it, however, has not yet matured.

Explaining in Europe that, despite the war in Chechnya, we can deal with us, invest and trade, we contributed to this very consumer revolution, as a result of which angry demanding citizens were born. I thought and still think that local Obama will come to power if life is better, and not worse. This is the only way they come.
That who sees evil in the state, they usually grew up in good capital's families, in writing houses, in a world where people from childhood - poets, journalists, directors, go in air routes and hardly take an understanding of how a decent person may turn out to be an official in the public service. The director, critic or wise intelligent priest is much better and more interesting.

And outside this world, you just look around and choose the best of the available opportunities, often the only one at the moment. Sometimes accidentally turned up.

And not at all necessarily the tailed forces of evil are recruited and certainly to Seliger. I was sent to the Foreign Ministry, Vladimir Lukin, then the head of the Duma committee on international affairs. He said: let the embassy be someone who knows Plato’s language and may about the acropolis. And I met him by chance: they called from the Duma to the faculty and asked if anyone would go with a delegation to Athens, and I was at the department when they took a pipe.

Not where, but what

Sometimes you do nothing in the civil service (a certain number of people do nothing there never), sometimes you write any certificates. And sometimes you do quite a lot of specific useful things. You help to better settle some singing Kuban Cossacks, whom the Greeks were lured to their festival and put the night at school desks: what they, from hungry cold Russia-let them rejoice at warmth and free pasta three times a day. You bring a dozen fresh Russian films, and at the same time Valery Todorovsky, and the locals are imbued with them. You go to record negotiations on the sale of the LUKOIL local plant (then everything was still refueling on it) or Yukos (then he was still): after all, it was good that their plant gets to our company, and not Arabic. Either you just communicate with the locals, and the locals - the Greeks and Europeans - see that they are what Russians are, have not smashed with valezhnik, but an intelligent young man with the ancient Greek. Maybe there is its own truth in the fact that they are talking about Chechnya there in Moscow?

But from the point of view of the air routes, if the state is an enemy, it was necessary to hide the ancient Greek language. Come to meetings Buhim in a quilted jacket. To contribute to the worldwide dislike for Moscow, maybe it will fall apart faster, and a new stone flower will grow in its place.

The diplomatic service was a wildly interesting experience that still helps me understand, even with the edge, how power is arranged, it was better than if I had just started to fill my hand on the columns about Putin ten years ago. At the same time, as a former civil servant, I confirm that Putin can be scolded there - at least 10 years ago. For rumors coming from there, it is possible now, and Medvedev, deputies and United Russia are not a question at all. It is impossible to argue with them. But revealing homosexuality is incredibly difficult, for nothing that it is also represented there.

Evil is not a connection with the state, not a position and not a place. This is like a person behaves at the place where he was. Sergei Udaltsov, for example, who, in position, is a pure, unknown good, persecuted opposition in a single jacket when he sat on the asphalt and substituted people, was a rather obvious evil. And Anton Krasovsky, the editor -in -chief of the State Propaganda Canal, sort of like - evil in position, behaved like a pure and unknown good. For which thanks to him, regardless of the place of work, past and future.