Cemetery of heroes and hopes

Behind the television screen, behind the road ring, behind the Christmas ball, there is a wall. Behind the wall the palace, in the palace, the door. Behind the door is a mustachioed colonel, a man in a woolen sweater of a bearded, Novorossiya, Russian world, Khodorkovsky Mikhail, our Crimea, European Dream. In 2014, so many new heroes-saving heroes appeared in Russia-they are also future presidents, and hopes, how many were not five years old. Suddenly appeared, said - “the future will be something like that,” and crumbled just as suddenly happening promising characters and circumstances. By the end of the year, a whole landfill of such wreckage formed - a cemetery of heroes and hopes.

European Dream

Opening of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. Photo: Alexey Kudenko/RIA Novosti

It all started brightly and beautifully - from the Olympics to Sochi. The grand opening with historical scenes and stylization under the miriskniks and the avant -garde liked everyone. We were waiting for a weighty cranberry - bears, nesting dolls, balalaks, walking samovars and bagels, and they saw constructivism, a waltz Natasha Rostova, a girl’s dream (who is closer and clearer) - a picture that is not a shame for. Investigations on sawings and kickbacks, scandals with the development of the Imeret Valley were immediately forgotten or seemed small. “The holiday of the discovery of ourselves,” wrote Grigory Revzin. “Remove phofuduy,” Oleg Kashin called. The interpretation of the show was approximately the same - the Russian man showed (himself first of all) that he was a European, he went out "in a tuxedo", and most importantly in the history of our country, in fact, not strength and army, but culture. Russia has something to be proud of, we opened up the West (we somehow forgot about the east in the new history) from a new side for him. There was a hope that this is how we will live on - the thaw begins: here is the Olympics, recently released Khodorkovsky and Pussy Riot. Old claims can, of course, be kept in the mind, but it would be better to discard: everything came true that you don’t dream about more.

The future seemed quite clear - orientation to Europe, a partial return of freedoms, the possibility of changing power - softly, based on parliamentary, and then in the presidential election. We can, when we want, and the power in Russia is not completely hopeless, since such a wonderful show turns out. What shelf in the subconscious is now lying this girl's dream, waltz Rostova, Lentulov and Rodchenko? From Europe you have to stay away-there is not a culture, but gay parades, fascism and pedophilia-it is ashamed and scary to open to this. Even based on the results of the VTsIOM survey, among the events of the year the Olympics is only in third place.

Simple sweater

The head of Sevastopol Alexei Chaly during the signing of the cooperation agreement between Moscow and Sevastopol. Photo by ITAR-TASS/ Sergey Bobylev

Crimea turned out to be more important. A new myth of the Russian world and the collection of lands, which was built just a month after the European-Olympic. The Crimean history lasted a moment - for several weeks a referendum was prepared, and although at first few believed that the republic would be part of Russia, this happened. Mysterious polite people appeared on the peninsula, about whom everyone knew, but they took off-some volunteers, and getting weapons and uniforms is not a problem. In the Crimea itself, alive, unlike our continents, politicians - for example, Sevastopol entrepreneur Alexei Chaly. An intelligent and simple man in a constant gray sweater, a folk hero organized folk self -defense and declared that the right sector would not tolerate in his city. “Our Crimea” became a phrase or word of the year. Let people go out to joyful rallies about his accession not quite voluntarily, but rejoiced honestly and sincerely. The same chala, in the same sweater, was called from the stage, he was called the "People’s mayor." Yes, he, probably, was so unlike the numerous “folk governors and mayors” of the late Novoros republics. When Chaly signed an agreement with Vladimir Putin on the accession of the city, the enthusiastic journalists of Izvestia in Facebook in the air left and even saw in a man in a gray sweater in the future president of Russia (this is in the strategic perspective), and soon the successor. Residents of the republic hoped that they would receive protection from Bender, large in Russia compared to Ukrainian salaries and pensions, as well as a flow of tourists from their homeland. It was a holiday - if you figure it out, no worse than the Olympic, only completely crossed it. Russia was able to grow its territory without a war, and even with something - almost a promised land. A touching slogan - “Crimea returns home”, glee on the streets of cities and the land of the peninsula.

The ideology, however, became different-the main character has changed-it was not the creator-artist, but a “polite person” with an automaton. True, he did not use power, but he photographed with girls and kittens: he was almost peaceful and friendly. Russia also looked now - a country on his mind, grinning into a fist at the beginning of a conversation about “polite people”, which does not hide territorial claims and declare his own path. Many liked this species: “intellectual nationalists”, left, doubt, middle and working class.

A little less than a year has passed. Alexei Chaly fell out of a number of heroes: he is now not shown on TV, from the People’s mayor he did not turn into the mayor of the present - now the Governor Sergei Chanipolo, who was appointed, and not elected, controls Sevastopol. Chaly, like a real politician, tried to play in the elections of local deputies in his game, openly opposed Chanelilo, but, in the end, the Kremlin held a “consultation” and a fragile world reigned in urban politics.

What is happening on the peninsula and in the city you are roughly represented, prices have risen, electricity is disconnected, but, despite the difficulties, most Crimeans do not regret the Crimeans about joining Russia, however, like most Russians. But there is no trace of the hopes - Krymnash is now talking not about the future, but about the readiness to pay for the happy moments of the past.

Russian world

Igor Strelkov (Girkin) and a militia Motorola. Photo: ITAR-TASS/Ar

The game after the accession of Crimea went to increase. New Russia became a new hope - the Russian world to Kyiv, and maybe to Lviv. A polite man was replaced by an impolite militia who acted in a completely different way, shot, grabbed, however, with the same good goal-if only Bender and punishers did not pass. For the body's body, the status of the militia was not very clear - the hero, of course, is positive, but what is he fighting - either against fascism, or for the right to speak in Russian, or for the federalization of Ukraine, or for the independence of the "people's republics", or for their annexation to Russia? But one thing became clear-this is ours and in any way it is necessary to root.

There was ideology for the minority: the restoration of the “Russian world”, the collection of lands for the Eurasians and Imperials, the construction of a fair Soviet society for the left. There was also his hero - a mysterious shooter. A retired or even acting GRU colonel, working on special surveillance and under special cover. In Crimea, he could alone pacify the Ukrainian fleet (according to the “satellite and pogrom” and the chronicler of the victories of Colonel O. Kashin) - the power of conviction and the higher forces behind him. Instead of amorphous DPR and LPR, a proud Novorossiya appeared - to Zaporozhye and Kherson. The goal was also outlined quite clearly, albeit hints - the offensive of the militias, and then, possibly, the input of the Russian troops. They talked about this not on TV - the calculation was on the audience more: in the columns, in blogs, on the forums. Russia again changed his appearance and received new hope - turned into a state that does not need the Byzantine politeness to anything tricks and grin. Why, when there are heroes, power and traditions of victories, which almost forgotten, but we came to our senses in time? Even the sanctions were presented as a good - we must develop ourselves, we have all our own - “grandmother's compote”, as Bayanist Matrenchev sang , and then the West will crawl on his knees. Western leaders looked like weaklings and inexpressions, of which Vladimir Putin outplayed one left.

The shooter had a name - Igor Strelkov, he began to openly perform. The colonel saw a new leader - perhaps the president, "the best of what happened." The legend was even adapted for the masses: they printed T -shirts “Do not replace my Iskanders”, “The Topol of the Sanctions is not afraid”, the songs about sanctions were concocted. The people liked it.

Hope lasted a little more than the previous ones. For events in New Russia, people worried for several months. It was supported that the troops were about to introduce, the Donbass would be ours, like Crimea. Then the Boeing fell, then Strelkova was replaced by strange people, either from the environment of Rinat Akhmetov, or selected somewhere in Surov. At the end of the year, the Lugansk-people's authorities shot most of the detachment of the Field commander Batman, not so legendary as the Motorol militia, but the famous and spoke on federal channels. The commander himself was also "eliminated."

The builders of Novorossia did not have the legendary unity commander to death. The sad colonel already in the fall accused the leadership of the people's republics of betrayal, he was objected by supporters of the heads of the newbums of Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky. Now Igor Strelkov directly calls on the volunteers to leave the Donbass and condemns Batman’s execution - no justice was “committed”. The National Academy of Sciences of the Liquidation (as they say on the official TV) support the field commander - tortured civilians, squeezed apartments and cars, justice, on the contrary, was accomplished. Some (such as Ukrainian journalist Alexander Chalenko) in the reasoning came to the point that “lumpen with machine guns” dominated the people's republics, and “polite people” were needed. Who to believe? Who is right and how are things with the construction of the Russian world, where the left one will sit at the same table with the right? In the southeast of Ukraine (so, it seems, now they say in the news) hungry and coldly, Minsk negotiations are sluggish, the Foreign Ministry declares respect for the “territorial integrity of Ukraine”. The Russian world speaks noticeably less - after all, before it included Belarus, a new candidate for external enemies.

Moscow Maidan

A participant in an unauthorized action in support of the brothers Oleg and Alexei Navalny on Manezhnaya Square. Photo: Dmitry Golubovich/TASS

The year gave a lot of hopes and opposition. Activity was expected from the liberated Mikhail Khodorkovsky - which one, no one really knew. A lot was listed - a wide social movement, an educational center, several media - which was not counted on. Khodorkovsky is still thinking - will he come up with? Economic difficulties were perceived as a chance to change the system. In Kyiv, the Maidan just went out - the hated power fled: tires, tents, potato catapults tormented Moscow activists for a long time in dreams, but the Maidan did not happen in spring, or in summer, or autumn. The explanation was that the political requirements are incomprehensible to the masses, here 84% of the lack of material wealth would feel and go to the square. The euro got to 100 rubles, buckwheat and other products rose - they sit calmly. Even in 2013, the action in support of Alexei Navalny gathered several times more people. What to count on and hope for?

“Our Crimea,” the publicist popular in each post repeats in each post. There are authors (and where the author, there is a reader), who submitted from the European path to the Russian world and vice versa. The colonel carries home banks with pickles, the people's mayor misses at the meetings of the City Council, the Minister of Culture of the country, who showed the avant-garde at the Olympiad, discusses the “Rashka-Rydashka”, and his department is abolished by the department of fine art and his function passes it to the Department of Folk Art. The Moscow Maidan ends with a five -minute sitting in the “city of gnomes” and taking a Christmas ball. In one northern city near the outskirts of island pier, a tugboat is stuck in the ice - an iron flash, which transports passengers on an open deck, until ice has become on the river. Minus 24, steam is coming from the wormwood of the vessel. “Putin reduced the price of vodka, there will be less than two hundred per bottle, what does he think the crisis is pouring this? Found fools. It is necessary to do business, and not this, ”says a man in a balaclava (cold, river) fellow traveler, she nods her head. You never know, of course, what people on the streets are talking about, they talk little, but do even less, but maybe in the beginning of the year, despite the cheaper alcohol, sobering from the hopes of the conquest of the world will begin. The country will deal with its problems, although this is still a dream - in the unlimited New Russia and world domination, but it is impossible to live without waiting for the best. Behind the Christmas ball, behind the cop groove, behind the television screen. My word is strong and true.

Author - correspondent of the Kommersant Publishing House