Family by the lake

The presence of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev at the opening of the Yeltsin Center can cause discomfort for those who still believe that Putin has created a new state, which is significantly different from the predecessor left to him. That is why the strangest explanations that are beyond political logic of the explanation are used - from Vladimir Vladimirovich’s personal fidelity to the former friendship to his desire to interrupt the tradition of groaning the predecessors.

Have mercy, if Putin really wanted to interrupt this tradition, he would be much more favorable to the living Gorbachev than to the dead Yeltsin. But Gorbachev is not at all interested in either Putin or other representatives of the Russian leadership - although in words they rave the Soviet Union and cannot forgive its destruction - for some reason it is not for the one who really destroyed it, proclaiming the independence of Russia, but to the one who tried to keep the scattering republics. Alologically too? Yes, not at all. Because Putin is Yeltsin. Only late Yeltsin.

Our helpful memory carefully throws us Yeltsin’s pictures on an armored car, Yeltsin prohibiting the CPSU, Yeltsin next to Sakharov and Starovoitova ... Against these bright historical personnel, late Yeltsin, surrounded by relatives and passages, or, if it is completely honest, is a prudent. Yeltsin, who untied the crazy war in Chechnya. Yeltsin, who promised that "we and China" will show the United States where the crayfish winter. Yeltsin, holding power even when the physical ability to manage the state disappeared. Yeltsin, who designed the creation of a criminal corruption state with his authority and conducted it with an economic collapse. Yeltsin, whose "close circle" was mired in corruption and was saved from Carla del Ponte with the help of girls thrown into the bed of Yuri Skuratov. From such Yeltsin to Putin one touch; Actually, Putin is a product of such Yeltsin.

And it is not by chance that the second president of Russia looks so organic against the backdrop of relatives and associates of the first. It is no coincidence that these relatives and associates of the late Yeltsin retained the fullness of power and influence during the early Putin and moved - and it was unclear whether they moved - only later. But even this change of environment has its own logic. Putin, like Yeltsin, trusts only "his own." Just Yeltsin was a living person who was able to feel some warmth to his wife, daughter and son -in -law, and Putin was the function of succession, and his “family” is a cooperative “Lake”. But this is the same family as the real, Yeltsinsky - and therefore the essence of power in modern Russia over the past two decades has not changed at all.

Yeltsin Russia is a feudal plutocracy, pretending to be a democratic state. Putin Russia is feudal plutocracy, pretending to be an authoritarian empire. But from the change of masks, the amount remains the same - negative. And it is no coincidence that when the people of these two - or rather, this one Russia - gather all together at the monument to their creator, you simply physically feel the void that has been in the place of the Russian political and entrepreneurial elite.

What did Yeltsin mean when he punished Putin to save Russia - if you discard unnecessary pathos? For him, Russia was equal to power and control - and for Putin it was equal to power and control. But Putin is smaller, more conservative, easier. He does not have the main Yeltsin talent - the ability to historical mimicry. Therefore, there is a chance that he will still destroy this terrible, false, cynical Yeltsin Russia. That he is not the one who can save this regime.

And then, in the place of this burning Yeltsinsko-Putin kleptocracy, it will be possible to build something else, new. Human.