"I want to be like in the USSR"

How was Russia's Day in Moscow. Report "Medusa"

On June 12, in Russian cities, as well as in the occupied territory of Ukraine, events were held in honor of Russia Day. In the Moscow metro on this day, according to the OVD-Info , at least 43 people were detained according to the person recognition-some of them said that they had previously participated in anti-war shares. Medusa visited the Festival “Times and Age” on Gogolevsky Boulevard and a concert on Red Square in Moscow and asked the audience about their attitude to the current holiday in the conditions of war in Ukraine.

Gogolevsky Boulevard, festival

“So it pulls me to Odessa, my sunny city” - the song of Leonid Utesov sounds from the speakers on Gogolevsky Boulevard.

Military equipment lined up along the boulevard. Nearby gathered participants and spectators of the historical festival “Times and the era”, which has been held since 2011 with the support of the Moscow authorities. The first years, the “times and era” was arranged in the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve, then-in 2017-it was transferred to the Boulevard Ring and Moscow Parks. This year, the military victory of Russia was the central theme. The first defense of Sevastopol is reconstructed on Nikitsky Boulevard, the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812 on the Tver, and in Gogolevsky - the battle for Moscow 1941-1942.

A girl of about seven sits behind the wheel of the Soviet motorcycle M-72. The reconstructor, dressed in a soldier, gives her a dummy of a rifle. The girl poses while her mother takes pictures. Nearby, another woman turns to her son: "Leshenka, go take a picture."

Further along the boulevard - the table on which front letters lie. Here they are taught “in a military”, in a triangle, to turn the paper. “It was impossible to write military information, it is impossible to write that“ I feel bad, there is dirt, dampness ”,” says one of the reconstructors to a woman with short blond hair. She is surprised: where there were so many censors to read all the letters going to the front.

“I have never seen the guns and Katyusha stand here,” the 80-year-old artist, who introduced himself to Medusa Sergei Ivanovich, is surprised. According to him, at the festival he was accidentally - on the way home. “Three days ago they put equipment all night, they thundered, they didn’t give sleep,” Sergey Ivanovich complains. But much more the artist is bothering that no one has been buying his paintings for a long time: “People without money, everyone dreams of something.”

“I lived under the USSR all my life, it’s somehow not particularly joyful [to celebrate Russia Day],” adds Sergey Ivanovich. “I hope Ukraine will soon join Russia, as well as Belarus.”

Another table on the boulevard sits in German uniform. “This is a prisoner, it can be interrogated,” the reconstructor standing next to him explains. - He surrendered, brought the card, says, a German communist. We decide what to do. ”

On the contrary, on the grass, a woman lies in a raincoat. She pretends to be aiming at someone from the machine gun (fake, like much at the festival). “To have a serious face. Shoot! " - A man who takes the scene on the phone gives her a command. “You can shoot with your lips: tra-t-ta,” the reconstructor advises.

“I am proud of Russia. A special operation is a forced measure. We would have turned into a state that should obey someone, ”a woman of about sixty tells Medusa, who refused to name his name.

The 32-year-old sales manager Marseille, who, according to him, at the festival, is in absentia in absentia. He calls the war "an absolutely meaningless thing." “I can’t fully believe in what is happening,” says Marcel, and, pointing to the reconstructor in military uniform, adds: “It’s like if a young man began to get fire with a stone.”

Marseille does not like and how Russia Day is now celebrated. “This year there is a lot of military topics, this has not happened before. I remember flags, tricolors. Now everything is Soviet. I would like to more positive, talk about education, education, ”Marcel explains. “And now, somehow, in a myilitarist, they note.”

"And put us the music to listen!" -Asks a blonde for 50 years in a short dress with bright pink-green earrings. "Soldier" includes a pateophone. The woman thanks him and begins to shoot the video on the phone. “Medusa” she seems to Alla - a housewife who never misses the festival “Times and the era”.

“People missed after two years of isolation,” says Alla. “Previously, a person is going in a gadget, and now people communicate with such pleasure [at the festival], share information, almost throw each other's neck.”

Soon, according to Alla, people who live in the Donbass, who "suffered eight years," will be able to "breathe calmly". “This is the liberation of people who are citizens of the Russian Federation, and we are responsible for them,” Alla says about the war in Ukraine and adds: “It seems to me that Donetsk will be part of Russia, there will be a referendum. I am sure that Russia will not force. ”

The accessions of Ukrainian territories to Russia, Alla claims, are also waiting for her relatives from Lviv - Russian Stepan and Ukrainian Love. When the war began, the woman explains, acquaintances reproached love for married to Russians. Therefore, the couple left for a while in Poland. “Lyubochka cried into the phone. Some strange persecution began, possibly after the Donbass, ”Alla comments.

Alla has not noticed any changes in life from the beginning of the war. “Despite the special operation, we walk, go to restaurants, parks. Globally, little has changed for the Russians, and this is the merit of Vladimir Vladimirovich. I am a sharp Putinist, ”she says.

And he assures that she is ready to live and worse. After all, when the war ends, Alla explains, it will be necessary to rebuild Ukraine, "help the brothers."

Red Square, concert

At five in the evening on Red Square is crowded. According to the press service of the Moscow Ministry of Internal Affairs, 42 thousand people came to a concert to Russia's Day.

The program includes the speeches of Grigory Leps, Dima Bilan, Valeria, Alexander Rosenbaum and other artists. The concert is conducted by Dmitry Guberniev and Maria Sittel. But you can go to the square through the framework of metal detectors only by invitation. All Medusa interlocutors received free tickets at work, study or in the city administration.

“Everyone who wants to get to this event and see the stars of the Russian stage can be signed up for me in personal messages,” wrote a teacher of Moscow Pedagogical University in a student chat. The screenshot of the Medusa message showed one of the students. According to her, neither her nor her classmates were forced to go to the concert - and most of the event ignored.

Employees of the Moscow State Budgetary Institution “Housing” were not forced to come to the concert, one of them claims. “On“ our Crimea ”[March 18, on the anniversary of the region’s accession to Russia] they drove kicks, and then they are silent,” he adds.

The framework of metal detectors has a volunteer in a T -shirt with the inscription: “We are together Z”. On his cheeks is a tricolor. He asks the audience not to linger at the entrance. Police are also required to pass deep by the square, not crowded near the scene erected next to the State Historical Museum. “They soon ****** [beat] will be batons,” the guy trying to get through the crowd reacts irritably to this.

"We will live with the holiday of Russia!" - shouts from the stage Irina Allegrova. "Russia!" - the crowd chants in response, waving with tricolors.

At a distance from the stage, pressing against the fence at the Lenin mausoleum, there is 64-year-old Svetlana, a kinomechanics engineer. “Before the pandemic, people were more fun [on Russia's Day], happiness was on their faces, and now it was sad. In the eyes there is no joy that was before. It somehow becomes hard in Russia. War, prices ... ”she argues.

Following Svetlana recalls friends who, according to her, are sitting in a basement in a suburbs of Lugansk. “They are bombing endlessly, write that they sat for three days without water. The husband died in a friend, the heart exploded when they were bombed, ”she says and adds:“ Many acquaintances from Donbass are offended that Russia has not helped them before. ”

Svetlana says that she was in Kyiv and exactly, she really liked it there. “I want it to be like under the USSR. There was a world. So that people do not kill and hate each other, ”she says. And, not noticing the contradiction, he continues: - But among them [Ukrainians] there are fascists whom I would also shoot. They kill ours, execute. " In Russia, Svetlana is convinced, it is necessary to resolve the death penalty, because now in the country "more lawlessness from impunity."

Svetlana is interrupted by her friend Valery, a 70-year-old design engineer. “I think, until the money ends [Russia], the war will not end. Another partisan war will be, they just will not give up, I have a mother -in -law from Ukraine, ”he says. But he refuses to talk about his attitude to the war: “I don’t know, I am a techie, I don’t get into politics globally.”

“Our troops defeated the Crimean khan. The Middle and Lower Volga region stayed with Moscow, ”the hosts say on the stage before declaring the performance of Dima Bilan. The crowd joyfully shouts the name of the singer. Several people begin to dance. The next on the stage is Grigory Leps. “I am happy like no one,” the gathered in the square sing.

At the concert, a 35-year-old novel came with his girlfriend Anna. “I feel pride in the country. I am in a T -shirt to support our country, ”Roman says smiling. The letter Z is visible on the black fabric. “The truth and the strongest will win in the special operation,” the young man concludes.

In Ukraine, relatives live with Roman, but they do not communicate with him anymore. Because they consider the Russians “invaders,” explains Roman. And he adds: “Those who left at the beginning of the special operation say:“ You are bombing for us, we are sitting in the basements ” - and they live in the Czech Republic, Spain. No real patriot will run away from his country. ”

The novel himself claims that he is ready to go to Ukraine: he works as an anesthetist-resuscitator and, in his own words, signed up in line to serve in the war. “We were not taken, because many volunteers turned out to be. I'm sitting in stock while I am sitting. I am ready for the front line. If everyone will refuse and be afraid, Russia will not be such a great power, for this the country needs such men. In order for wives, children and parents to calmly sleep, ”Roman says proudly. The girl Anna, standing next to him, shrugs and says that this is “his choice”.

The concert goes longer than an hour, and the audience is clearly tired. The place of rest, many chose a paving stones next to the mausoleum. Someone even took off his shoes. Finally, the anthem of Russia sounds. People do not rise from the ground, but almost everyone takes out phones and record the video. And when the music ends, as they leave the square on command.

Valeria Kholmova