A week without Putin

“He left for the advice of the old man in the Altai Mountains”, “Ischemic Stroke”, “He has depression” - which are not discussed from the screens of Putin’s state screens at elite gatherings, on the ribbons of respectable foreign news agencies and on social networks, both supporters, and opponents of the president of the country

It was good in childhood - you will hide behind the porter and look in the slit, how they are looking for you: as, for example, a grandmother mockingly worships where our dear, or deliberately in a loud voice threatens, they say, well, we can do without it. And you are funny and a little scary: what if they don’t look for the truth?

Similar feelings, apparently, were experienced last week by Russian President Vladimir Putin: by the time his March schedule brought together the RBC, and a brilliant absence of the president in this schedule was found - Putin did not appear in public for almost a week. Foreign visits were canceled, already appointed negotiations were postponed, the press service reported on the next presidential meetings, using “canned food”-pre-shot photos: the last of them, from a meeting with the chairman of the Supreme Court, was presented on Friday, but this also does not prove anything. In a different situation, this could remain unnoticed, but now - against the backdrop of a crisis, sanctions, conflict in Ukraine, and most importantly - a week after the murder of Boris Nemtsov, immediately after the first results of the investigation, speaking at least about the expanse of the security forces of the security forces - Putin’s disappearance was striking and did not promise anything good. I got sick - badly, went to cosmetic procedures - if he can afford it at such a moment, then a guard; He retired to think in solitude - well, Ivan the Terrible also left with similar goals to the Alexander Sloboda, and how did the matter end?

In fact, it already happened - the most memorable, perhaps, was a multi -day Putin's silence after the accident of the Kursk submarine. And it is clear that if something serious happened, helicopters over the Kremlin would fly much more often, market indices would not have freezed in a daze, and Dmitry Peskov would not joke in an interview about how the presidential handshake “breaks his hands”. The power system in Russia is a black box about what is happening inside, one can only guess through shadows and glare on its surface; And the game of shadows in March 2015 looks like a reflection of some slutty disturbances inside-than a gleam of a disaster that can destroy the entire supporting structure.

According to the logic of Putin’s disappearances, the need for solitude arises in situations in situations when an unplanned failure occurs in his picture of the world, or uncontrollable spontaneous forces are invaded by it, when its usual elements begin to behave with an unusual way when it is necessary to re -draw the entire map with the designation of friends and enemies - and re -determine the boundaries of the permissible to them. Well, that is, when it is necessary to destroy the prevailing balance, make an unpleasant decision with unpredictable consequences - but I do not want to. The last time such a moment happened a year ago, but it was even easier with Crimea - based on the Putin picture of the world, it was obvious where his own, where a stranger. And in the case of the murder of Nemtsov - all his, socially close, power supports of the regime, and each pushes you to action, from which one of the supports will inevitably suffer - and you can’t leave the conflict in an suspended state (too serious bets are made), and it is impossible to stand over the fight and wait until you deal with each other: either you retain the functions of the Supreme Arbitration, or the next time, or the next time, or the next time. You will hide behind the porter, they will no longer look for you.

But if you distract from what is happening inside the conflict, the following can be seen. The war of power structures is ultimately a war for which Putin will take. In the absence of Putin, VTsIOM publishes record numbers of the rating - the inaction of the president who has retired from the affairs has already approved 90 % of the population of Russia. The tracking of the refusers to appear Putin is so exciting that even the investigation of the murder of Nemtsov, not to mention the truce in Ukraine, goes into the background in the field of public attention. Putin is the hypothesis that political scientists need to explain what is happening, the invisible center around which the security forces rotate in their orbits, the pole from which opposition forces are repelled. A person behind the porter can be satisfied: when he is hiding, they are looking for him. They are still looking for.

Photo: ODD andersen/AFP