"The main thing is that there is no war"

And tomorrow the sport will begin. It will begin in Russian-sweeping, with fireworks, special effects, drums and verbal tinsel.

Today, Ernst still has time to apologize to Western journalists, freezing on cement esclanads under the cardboard roof of the Fisht two -time stadium. For 10 thousand rubles equivalent to one ticket to the opening ceremony, you can tolerate trifling inconvenience in the form of a lack of heat under the arches of the stadium, hot coffee in plastic cups, woolen plaids, usually issued on a ticket. In the end, even in subtropical Sochi, no one canceled the winter.

All the same, it will be a holiday - if not a spirit, then sports. And we will admire the new Olympic records, which will be the highest justice: four years of exhausting labor of athletes, coaches, doctors, techies are simply obliged to be compensated, if not Olympic gold, then at least participation. And I, unlike many, wish the Russian team dignity even when Russian television channels will choke with delight on the occasion of “ours on the pedestal”: Sochi taught me to distinguish the joy and pride of the anticipating service of the Gubernievs.

Sochi taught me to distinguish the joy and pride of the angry service of the Gubernyevs

By a strange coincidence of the circumstances, on February 7, it became a date when I published my first “pre -Olympic” text about abuses in the local traffic police. Then I still sat down with the odorous ozone of Matsesta and walked around the city with eternally laid ears from the discharged mountain air.

Later, the lenses of the camera or video cameras no longer lost sight of people, events, dates. I-the pamper of megacities-refused to think that I would defend the patriarchal town, before my eyes turning into the faceless kingdom of high-tech. Or that in the future capital of the World Sports Forum I will face medieval barbarism, when people were subjected to inhuman torture only because they demanded a legal salary. When the ancients, like this land itself, the old people were thrown out of the Samanic huts only because, according to the intake of the Olympic builders, a highway was supposed to run on the site of the village. When the centennial boxwoods were cut down only because they prevented the road to the residence of the head of state.

Of these “when” you can compile their own “hundred years of loneliness”, whose heroes will be driven from their lands Circassians, who lost their homeland Tajiks, Uzbeks, Armenians, Abkhazians, whom the Olympics made her slaves.

But they are unlikely to come from the pages of the "Olympic" novel, because the Russian state wiped them out of memory, like a worked out file, freeing a place for the victorious Philippics. At the same time, it was not bewitched not only by people, but even by dogs, who are destroyed by hundreds with a touching name "Basia".

Today in Sochi, everything is like this: any lead is happening with the sweetest expression on the face. Smiling policemen wring their hands to ecologists, friendly special services arrange obstruction of human rights activists, the rosy mayor calls the "enemy of the people" of anyone who has their own view of reality. They smile at you in the offices of officials, at the reception, in service services, at the framework of metal detectors. And everywhere they see in you, if not a bombist, then at least Navalny.

And yet the sport will take place. For some, he will become a holiday, for some-chagrin, which, however, does not cancel the celebrations in fact

You are fun refused the right to Sochi registration, to emergency medical care. You are not even allowed to be a fan with a courteous grin of geisha. Human smiles seemed to be sketched from the lips of the Olympic talismans - they are so comprehensive stupid that they borders on a neurosis.

And yet the sport will take place. For some, he will become a holiday, for some-chagrin, which, however, does not cancel the celebrations in essence. For a couple of weeks, two -thirds of the planet will turn into a totalizer, and one third will look at the rest as crazy, internally regretting, which is not poisoned by the fan virus. For this couple of weeks, the country will forget about the Putins, Rotenbergs, Grefach, Potanins, Yakunins, and every day hit the trouble -free binge of the excitement.

What a hangover will be - so far no one thinks. Whether it will turn into new repressions, or will the Kremlin weaken the reins intoxicated by the sought success; Whether the cosmic costs of taxpayers will pay off, or the debts of corporations will be written off under the surge of cartel conspiracies. It is unlikely that today these issues are concerned about ordinary Sochi, for whom the Olympiad has become infinitely alien. In the end, all this can also be experienced. "The main thing is that there is no war."