Mirror for the hero. Jan Levchenko - On expropriations during the "special operation"

After a month of the Russian-Ukrainian war, news began to come from the rear Belarus that the Russian military brought household appliances and gadgets, furniture and clothes to send them home delivery services. Before that, the media has repeatedly reported that the inhabitants of the ruined Ukrainian cities are repairing a lynch over the looters. But these were internal conflicts, during which more responsible citizens of the country tried to call for a less responsible response. Video shot by surveillance cameras at SDEK company points showed marauders in Russian form, busily and serenely packing stolen things. This was a clear evidence that the genocide of the civilian population was not just an act of revenge for the alleged covering of the military. People are killed to pick up their property.

A random, at first glance, sample of cities where parcels from Belarus were sent, opened some pattern. The main blow to the stolen good fell on the city of Rubtsovsk, Altai Territory, where, according to the Mediazone, 128 departments of a total weight of a little less than 3 tons took a couple of days. Against this background, 5 parcels to Ussuriysk and even 12 in Chita do not make such a murderous impression, but also indirectly indicate the standard of living in those places from which the personnel for conducting military operations was mobilized. This is not the capital with a high percentage of wealthy and, more importantly, conscious citizens. These are not wealthy or even subsidized subjects of the European part of Russia. Although the list of addressees included the millionth Omsk (4 parcels) and Novosibirsk (2 packages), the geography of departments suggests that residents of the least prosperous regions of Siberia and the Far East are fighting in Ukraine.

The media already wrote about four correctional institutions of Rubtsovsk, in which residents of the city dream of working. The Altai Tractor Plant served as a city -forming enterprise from 1941 to 2011, after which he was bankrupt and closed. Throughout the 2010s, a wasteland with ruins has formed at the site of the plant’s buildings-a symbol not so much of the “post-Soviet decline”, about which supporters of the planned economy are repeated, how many celebrations of the penitentiary system, with whose help the raw materials are protected from unresolved problems. Containing the colonies personnel for budget money, making the desired, more precisely, non -alternative, abomination work for 20,000 rubles, is much easier than regulating the investment climate and monitoring legal support when changing owners. The gloomy irony of fate is that Rubtsovsk in 2019 was recognized by the residents themselves one of the most dirty in Russia. First of all, this is a coincidence, although very eloquent. As if contractors who escaped to Ukraine from their hopeless city staged a flash mob so that the world would make sure that being still determines consciousness.

"Treked" is not a random word. In the last century, a saying was popular about one famous unit of the French army: "Do you want to see the world - sign up for a foreign legion." Indeed, modern tourism began in the era of geographical discoveries, only he was clearly militarized. The mercenaries knew the white light and enriched, as they knew how, and France, England, Spain and Portugal became transcontinental empires. There is no reason to assume that the army of the Spanish conquistadors consisted of noble and courteous Idalgo, which did not allow thoughts about the robbery of the civilian population. However, the difference between the digital modernity is that robbery observes the whole world in real time, and the establishment of the personality of robbers is a trifle business. Everything is open and transparent, the regulations for using tracking cameras do not provide for dosing of information. Yes, this is not the need. Exposition does not make sense.

The situation in modern Russia is such that the city of Rubtsovsk or any other city in a similar situation is unlikely to be ashamed that its sons are demonstrating a devoted concern for loved ones. When and how else the guys could get out of the "this hole", as sometimes, probably, they themselves call their small homeland. Everyone is arranged as they can. And first of all, the state was well settled, the following "golden" rule of army logistics in the USSR: fighters should not serve near their habitats. For soldiers from the regions of Siberia, the inhabitants of Ukraine are like the Indians for the conquistadors. Not a trace of empathy, no sympathy, only a displeased surprise: "Look how well they live." And to those who are waiting for the guest at home, it is even easy to divide the former owners of looted good. Trophy peasant, accordions and mirror trellis determined the life of the post -war USSR and nobody, with rare exceptions, did not shock.

Going into the details of the Ukrainian pogroms, I remembered one of my father’s stories. In 1956, he graduated from a school in Tallinn, tried to enter the University of Tartu for physics, but did not score the necessary points, was drafted into the army and served, as it was opened then, for three years in Ukraine. First, the grenade launcher of the infantry department, then the headquarters clerk and the artist-former, since the authorities notice his neat handwriting and the creative decision of the wall newspaper. According to the father, grandfathers did not walk then; In their division, "everything was calm", with the exception of skirmishes between immigrants from different regions of the Soviet Union. The guys from the Pskov region often quarreled with the Estonians, who were considered "fascists" and threatened to "dispossess". Indeed, the Estonians received parcels from the house and slightly murmured to army conditions, and their southeastern neighbors only watched the analysis of households and could not get enough that the army gave them the opportunity to sleep on the beds. "What did they sleep before?" - I asked my father in surprise. “I don’t know,” there was an answer. “They were happy that they were lying on a sheet and hiding in a sheet.”

In the 1950s and 2020s, a similar mechanism works. Some are yearning for the house and hardly getting used to harsh conditions, others rejoice at the opening window that has opened. Not everyone is able to make a spiritual effort. When life is a synonym for survival by any means, there is no need to talk about any obvious morality. Give - take it, beat - run, and other "folk wisdom". Everything that is able to overcome this instinctive impulse requires conscious work. The state has so effectively took care of the discredit.

Jan Levchenko - culturalist and commentator

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