Go and die

Special Corps of the "cold" Olesya Ostapchuk - about why the Russians themselves go to the military enlistment offices

“Do not touch the agenda,” journalists, lawyers and activists repeat on all possible resources. But the Russians are still “touching”, and then go with the subpoencies to the military commissariats. Those who are against the war do this, ”said Olesya Ostapchuk, the special corner of the“ cold ”and explains why.

In order not to miss the main materials of the "cold", subscribe to our Instagram and telegram .

Putin announces mobilization. I work all day, but I can’t fall asleep at night: I am going through the women's stories heard in my head - about how they went to the military registration and enlistment office under a handle with husbands, how they said, they say, what can you do, a non -appearance on the agenda is a criminal, you will not come from the region, you won’t come on the agenda - rusticated the door will break out, and you have your own “patriots” for desertion for desertion They will kill. They said that their hearts are torn in pain, that they could not imagine these wires to a meat grinder. But they did not know or did not want to know that the failure to appear on the agenda threatened them with men only by the administrative, the likelihood that riot police would break the door is extremely low, and the prison culture does not imply humiliation for desertion.

On September 21, when Putin announced mobilization, my former classmate wrote that he was glad for this. I thought that only the same convinced as him would go to the military enlistment offices. On September 22, after several interviews, I realized: even those who are against her go to the war with my feet, even on the war.

My loved ones, who were threatened with mobilization, continued to explain why they could not or were not going to leave the country. And the friends could not persuade the men who received the summons to hide. "Do I have Docher options?" - said the young man of the Yakut heroine of my text, who went along the agenda to the front. “I have loans/children/family, I won’t go anywhere,” said the fathers of my friends. “The agenda will come - I’ll go. So, it is necessary, ”said my friends.

On Twitter, they discussed male passivity, in the Z-channels they appealed to a sense of duty, and I watched this stupidity and thought: no, this is a story not about specific male passiveness, but about all-Russian legal illiteracy, which allows the authorities and propagandists to lie with impunity. Do you think that the "illiterate" themselves are to blame? Suppose, but which of us is literate in everything? Do you know exactly how, for example, to behave during a search? I did not know until it touched me. As I did not know that I could, for example, claim social housing, like an orphan, and believed the aunts from social protection, who told me that I had no rights.

Journalists who have written about politics are arguing about the logic of the regime - they also do not understand it. And what do people who simply “lived their lives” understand, did not particularly read the news, did not plunge into investigations, tried to “think positively”? Sometimes it seems that Russians are only doing that they are discussing politics, but this is not an expert discussion. Just daily talk shows on TV-now also political.

I don’t know what biologists and psychologists say, but it seems to me that if you are not ready to delve into a problem deeply, you will most likely do the same as “everything around”. As the girl mobilized in Yakutia told me, the boys sat, thought what to do, and decided: if they mow, then together, and if you go along the agenda, then also together. They joked about the huntsman in the taiga - and enough. “Mine has already left. I think that in the near future all our friends will be at the front, ”she concluded. Political scientist Grigory Golosov in his column explained : trust and even identification of oneself with the state is normal, the Russian mass consciousness does not differ from any other, loyalty is not a disease.

Yes, if your environment is liberal journalists and human rights activists, and your whole tape is filled with memos on how to avoid mobilization and leave the country - you will hardly go your feet to the military enlistment office. If your environment, let's say, aueshniki, you will probably say: "Warrior, suck - I’ll go to the village to the brother." But what if your environment is a family who wants to see a strong man in you? Is it strong is the one who is afraid to go to serve? If your tape in social networks is not the instructions “How to run from the country”, but photos from airports with signatures: “Panties! Their grandfathers defended their homeland, and they flee, ” - what will you do yourself?

Those who have undergone a course of psychotherapy know that one of the ways to comprehend reality is the priority of their desires over approval and the attitude of others. But psychotherapy is available to an absolute minority, most for decades live according to a socially approved canon, why would they suddenly change? If this is a small city or, moreover, the village: the survival there depended on how much you are inscribed in society.

How many decades, if not centuries, in Russia, men have been repeated: you must earn money, you must decide, you must be strong. Whether these men were strong, it is not so important, the main thing is that they wanted to seem like that. As my colleague joked, emphasizing the infantilism of some people, women trusted her husband’s decision, and her husband trusted Putin’s decisions - and that's where we are now.

Now daughters and wives are asking those very “strong men” to leave so as not to remain orphans and widows. And men are horrified: “Leave? Where? And loans? And the family? And what should I live there? ” We are not talking about conditional ITSHNI, but about people who work in person from call to call and about the businessmen of old hardening, who do not know how to earn in the new conditions. For them, the most terrible nightmare is to be in another country without money or in the role of a dependent, therefore, on the way to the military registration and enlistment office, men are babbling something in the spirit: "There is such a thing-duty."

There are other consequences of the desire to be strong. In the plot of the TVC about mobilization in Buryatia, the girl told how her boyfriend went to the contract service on September 21: he realized that his mobilization would definitely touch him and decided to “be safe” - the contract seemed to give a feeling of control and guaranteed payments.

I do not justify those who went to the military registration and enlistment office now. Among them there are convinced warriors, supporters of “special operations”, but the majority that we see in the reports of federal television from the draft places are those men with fear in the eyes or smile, like Gagarin - these are just people who are insufficiently aware. Not analyzing the reasons for the war, who do not know their rights, trusting the state, Putin, and the military man, who will “figure it out on the spot”.

And, of course, they are scared. They compensate for fear of bravado, external indifference, pathetic words about "duty". But in fact, they are simply afraid to live and delegate their fate to the state. And the state, alas, is not afraid to choose their death.

The author’s opinion may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial office.