One house from the Kremlin

And how much calmer has our life become now than in the 90s? Now not everyone asks themselves this question

For those who are not very familiar with the geography of the Russian capital, let me clarify that the Romanov Dvor business center is located on Romanov Lane in Moscow and the Kremlin from here is not just an abstract 350 meters, as they say in the news, but just one house away. It is physically impossible to be closer to the Kremlin. Only if we start a showdown with shooting directly in the heart of our Motherland.

However, such things have happened in history - with the storming of the Winter Palace, the shooting at the White House from tanks, and revolutionary soldiers fought in the Kremlin in 1917. But the current government had a notorious contract with society: “You don’t get involved in politics, we guarantee you well-being and security for this.” In everyday life it boiled down to the formula “The main thing is that it’s not the 90s.” Which, the further you go, the more they acquire the mythology of a nightmare - with continuous shooting, poverty and national humiliation.

We seem to have dealt with the humiliation: the people are confident that Russia has not only risen from its knees (by the way, this phrase was first uttered by the now hated Yeltsin), but has also taken a leading position in the world, where we are both respected and feared.

There don’t seem to be any particular problems with satiety either. Of course, everyone evaluates their personal situation and well-being in their own way. Of course, prices and tariffs are rising. But when did they decline? It's like sunrise and sunset - an inevitable process. But statistics show an increase in income, a reduction in unemployment and other joyful moments that allow a citizen to think that even if everything is not so great for him personally, then overall things are going well in the country.

But what about security? This is the most important thing! Banditry, terrorist attacks, raider takeovers, contract killings - no one would want all this to return. What do we see? We see the tragedy of Crocus, which is on a par with the bombings of houses, Nord-Ost and Beslan. We see shootings in Dagestan when there are real battles in the streets. Hostage-taking in detention centers with assaults and casualties. Let's not forget about the pogrom at the Makhachkala airport. And these are just the stories that the whole country was talking about.

Our territory has not been shelled for 80 years. There has been no foreign army on our land for 80 years. Raids, burning and exploding warehouses and refineries - all this is a reality that no one could have imagined even in the 90s!

Hundreds of thousands of refugees who do not know when they will be able to return to their homes, and do not know whether these homes will be safe. And one cannot say that the authorities are showing any noticeable concern about this. Of course, they talk about this, they help someone with something, “they don’t abandon their own,” but refugees and raids have turned into a kind of routine, a variant of the norm... Do we need to get used to this, as to the inevitable rise in prices and tariffs?

The shootout with victims near the Wildberries offices reminded us of two more important things. Persons involved in murder cases can file a complaint, go to the SVO and not be held accountable for the crimes. No responsibility. The logic of the authorities is clear. People are needed at the front; ordinary people want “someone else” to fight, but not themselves or their loved ones. This is why sending migrants with Russian passports into battle is socially approved. That is why no one objects to former prisoners (or even potential prisoners) taking up arms. If you think that a criminal’s place is in prison, and not in the ranks of the defenders of the Fatherland, take a machine gun instead. Or no desire? If you think that guest workers should not fight for Russian interests, take a machine gun instead of them again. Or don't be outraged!

But all this works in the abstract. Until the moment when a particular ex-convict, who has not served any serious time for a serious crime, suddenly finds himself next to you again, and he is a citizen like you. Even better! Because he went through the front, he is a hero, and criticism of him is almost a crime.

And here we are again in the center of Moscow. Where there is shooting, armed people solve commercial, family, or God knows what other issues with shooting and corpses. But instead of being punished under articles that provide for sentences up to life, these people are given the opportunity to atone for everything! You can't be sure that they will actually fight heroically in the trenches, but you can be sure that they won't end up in court. How should society understand this? Does it promote peace, security, justice? This does not signal to unsavory elements that no matter what they do, at worst they will simply write an application to participate in the CBO - and this does not necessarily count as the worst case. What's the worst thing about it?

And the second point - you saw the footage of the meeting of the bodies of the dead Wildberries guards in Magas, when thousands and thousands of Ingush came to meet their dead fellow countrymen and pay tribute to them. Not every dead Ingush is greeted this way. Why? Because it is important how and from whose hands people died.

When the Soviet Union began to burst at the seams, it began precisely from the “national outskirts”. And the two Chechen wars already in the Russian period of our history became the most difficult test for the country until February 2022. How confident can we be that national conflicts are definitely a thing of the past? To what extent does the Kremlin, in the same house from which people were shot and killed in the fight for the marketplace, control all these processes and generally consider this threat to be real?

And how much calmer has our life become now than in the 90s? Now not everyone asks themselves this question. Not everyone will answer negatively. But it seems that many people will no longer be able to answer it positively.