Yamka and reed

When the crane flows or broke through the pipe, the plumber comes. When the light goes out, an electrician comes. When the stomach hurts and the tablet does not help, the doctor comes. When the house lights up, firefighters arrive. When a landfill flaunts in the place of an unheated school for a tenth year, the deputy comes. And when the plumber leaves, and the electrician hovered from the pipe, he hovered in the wires, and the light does not burn, they called the doctor, but he doesn’t go, the firefighters arrived, and instead of the house of ashes, the deputy left, and in the place of the school another 10 years of the landfill - then the journalist comes.

He is not a plumber, not a doctor, not a fireman, not a deputy and, as a shame, not a wizard, although some today dream of writing "on the radio" so that they deal with another outrages. He is just a voice.

Remember the myth of King Midas? Not about gold, but about how, during the competition of Apollo with Pan, Midas awarded the first place to Pan, and for this Apollo awarded him with donkeys. Of course, Midas hid these ears - as every ruler hides, and only brandy knew his secret. Of course, a radiant client clearly outlined him what he would do with him if he was ill of a shameful secret. And the brandy was silent like a grave, but the secret was so shoved that he once went to the river bank, dug a wet hole in the ground and whispered a secret into it. And the hole buried. And in the place of the hole, as usual, the reed grew up and shed: "And King Midas has donkey ears!" And everyone found out about it - and laughed at the king.

Here is the journalist and the last fossa into which people whisper about their forbidden troubles, and the reed that, no matter how you are lurking, is expensive power, no matter what hats are, but he will still rush about your donkey ears, long and shaggy.

So. I was going to write not so long ago about the troubles of a small town, a former military man standing on the lake. The former he was a former, but the warriors did not go anywhere and the locals seemed to be won-they don’t let them go to the beach, they don’t give any improvement, even it became impossible to privatize the apartments for some reason. In general, the people have been depressed-he suspects that the lands of this town, the lands are gold, since the coastal ones want to sell with some kind of quiet, and to throw out people of worthless people from there-this was already done before their eyes with neighboring territories, also former military. That is, if there were no people there, everything would be quite simple, and so ...

I have already agreed with one resident of the town that I will come and talk with people. And that resident, because he himself was not in business, gave me the phone of a local activist. And the next day he called me and said: “Oh, you know, I ask you - you don’t call him. I completely forgot that you are now a foreign agent, and my friend is a military pensioner. Here they will find out that he gave you an interview and will be reduced in the rank and his pension will decrease - I don’t want to substitute a person.” I say: "Like it, they will lower it in the rank - retroactively the star will be torn off the strap? But this is impossible!" He says: "You do not know them, everything is possible for them."

I did not argue. You can’t help these people anymore, the worst thing has already happened to them. Fear has already won them - it means that everyone else will conquer, whoever they are - insolent military, judicial, prosecutors - will drive away from the earth, and they will deprive the apartments, and they will only be silent and rammed.

And not so long ago, a book about repressions came out - an excellent study that showed one of the white spots on the map of the Gulag. I call the author, I propose to talk. "Oh, no, thank you, sorry, sorry, but the bosses have a transparently hinted that there were no interviews to foreign agents, I would gladly understand everything, but you also understand me, this is all our university, sorry, sorry, sorry."

Yes, I’m what-life will not forgive.

The saddest thing is the person who so touchingly protected me as from the plague, a familiar military pensioner, he was once not the last person in the city, not at all the last, he made decisions, much depended on him. So, and then this sticky fear of them sat in his soul - for which "everything is possible"? Or maybe he was not so cautious, maybe his fearful colleagues also lost everything from the very beginning - at a decisive moment for the country - because they were afraid? Maybe that's why we are now where we were?

My grandmother, by the way, was also mortally afraid of them . Only they always called them. In the last year of his life, when consciousness had already begun to become in places, I was absolutely sure that a neighbor in the stairwell had tapped us for something and therefore would come for us. From day to day. That's it. Once, while I was in the kitchen, I secretly made my way to my desk, opened a box where our meager money was lying for expenses. The son came running, clogging the alarm, I come: "Grandma, what are you doing here, why did you open the box?" - "You must break all the money!" - Grandma proudly straightened up. "For what?!" - "So that they do not get!"

In grandmother's times, the hole where one could whisper a secret about her troubles, about the donkey ears of power, was covered for a long time, the reed is trampled. Today, the owners of donkey ears are digging the last pits and trampling the last canes, still rustling about their indecent. They trample on us, journalists, disarming us into the Jutovskiy caps of foreign agents - so that everyone shies and afraid - and thereby help to trample us even faster.

Do not be afraid! Do not help them ! It’s not a matter of us, the matter is about you: every trampled journalist is a planted, stunned, squeezed out of the country-this is an unchilding scream, someone’s shut-up mouth, an taken away apartment, a broken life. This is a bright prospect to live for decades with a gag in the mouth: not to us - but you. That is all of us.

The shadow of my grandmother stands in front of me no worse than the shadow of Father Hamlet - and appeals. Grandma, I hear, I will not forgive them your fear. I will try not to be afraid.

Sofya Rogacheva - journalist

The "Opinion" expressed in the heading of the point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial office