Translated material
Putin and children
State television channels turned out to be the most stingy in expressing feelings - they, unlike ordinary people, can be ordered not to overdo it
AUDIO VERSION
This material has an audio version on Youtube. Read by Irina Petrovskaya.
A birthday is, in general, a deeply personal holiday. There is no special merit of the birthday people themselves in the fact of their birth. Remember Vysotsky? “Thank you, saints, for spitting and blowing that suddenly my parents decided to conceive me.” But in some cases, birthdays become national holidays and are celebrated by the whole country - sometimes during their lifetime, sometimes after the death of prominent people. As a sign of respect, gratitude to them or memory of their services to the Fatherland and humanity.
President Putin’s birthday is a new, albeit still informal, holiday in modern Russia. A holiday during his life and under his power. By the way, I don’t remember that the birthdays of his predecessors - Gorbachev and Yeltsin - were in any way celebrated by the media at the time when they were still leading the country. And a pathetic film “The Tale of a Communist” was made about Brezhnev only for his 70th birthday. And before that, it was Stalin’s 70th anniversary that turned into a celebration of almost a worldwide scale - a solemn meeting at the Bolshoi Theater, loud-voiced pioneers with toasts in honor of their beloved leader... And so many gifts were given to the Father of Nations from all over the country that it was even necessary to create a separate museum.
In the end,
Is it the leaders’ fault that the people love them so much? Would you forbid this people to show their love in different ways? People can be banned from many things, but love – never!
Eighteen years ago, one of the best representatives of his people, Nikita Sergeevich Mikhalkov, solely of his own free will, sang the praises of President Putin in his author’s program with the laconic title “55.” Oh, no one else rose to such heights after him - not even full-time Putin expert Pavel Zarubin, who was constantly choking with delight and reverence for his one and only hero.
Nikita Sergeevich, however, assumed that someone might have a feeling: they say, it’s not very clever to say some words to the leader’s face. It may be awkward for some, but for him, a great artist and also a close friend, it’s very clever. After all, it is thanks to Vladimir Vladimirovich that life in the country is improving, Russia is concentrating... And now, when it would seem that one would live and rejoice, multiplying successes and victories, Putin leaves. His second presidential term is ending. This issue is resolved. But Mikhalkov, with tears in his eyes, foresees: “Wherever fate takes him, in any quality of his existence - I want to believe and I think this belief is shared by the majority of people living in our country - he will do all this with the dignity of a man and an officer...”
Vladimir Vladimirovich listened to this panegyric addressed to himself, thought, briefly said goodbye to the presidency - and did not leave. And now he is celebrating his birthday at the post. As Vladimir Solovyov noted on the morning of October 7 on his radio broadcast: “Putin returned the country to the people.” And therefore, the people are happy that they can congratulate the president in all ways available to him - flash mobs “from Donbass to Kamchatka,” songs, poems, children’s drawings and crafts, thank-you posts on the Internet. The main thing is that from the bottom of my heart.
This time, state television channels turned out to be the most stingy in expressing feelings - these, unlike ordinary people, can be given an order not to overdo it in expressing loyal feelings (especially since they do not have any others). Therefore, in news broadcasts, the presenters simply informed the audience that today was the president’s birthday, that about three or four dozen leaders of friendly countries congratulated him, and he celebrated his big day surrounded by military leaders in the tomb of the Russian tsars in the Peter and Paul Cathedral of St. Petersburg.
But on the social networks of patriotic bloggers there was an unprecedented riot of eyes and a flood of feelings. They greeted and thanked their president, not shying away from excellent epithets, as if taking as a basis the main postulates from Mikhalkov’s congratulatory creation of 2007. Ekaterina Mizulina paints an apocalyptic picture of the early 2000s: “The factories were dismantled piece by piece, people did not receive wages for years or they were paid with plywood and nails. Gloom, hopelessness, constant attempts to make our Motherland a vassal of the West... All the changes that have occurred are the titanic work of our President.”
Mizulina and the same Nikita Sergeevich are echoed by presidential adviser Elena Yampolskaya: “It’s hard not to admire how uniquely our President combines the qualities of mind and heart, a planetary level of thinking and warm attention to a specific person. Thank you, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, for the daily lessons of clarity, honesty, and great simplicity! Your titanic work has given us the opportunity to once again be proud of a powerful, self-sufficient Russia, a stronghold of common sense and justice in a confused world.”
Zakhar Prilepin, who was appointed to the Cultural Council on the president’s birthday, is laconic, but out of an excess of feelings he writes in capslock in telegraph style: “MY PRESIDENT. ON THE WAY TO A NEW WORLD ORDER. STRENGTH AND ENDURANCE! FOR THE GLORY OF THE GOD-GIVEN FATHERLAND!”
Even political scientist Sergei Markov, who was recently recognized as a “foreign agent,” did not miss the memorable date. Under an expressive photo of Putin on horseback he wrote: “Vladimir Putin is cool! In politics, he has become one of the symbols of masculinity. Alpha male, as he is called in the world. A real man, as they call him in Russia.”
Even the former best (Hero of Labor), but suddenly disgraced writer of the Russian Land Alexander Prokhanov, who presented another “gift” for Putin’s birthday - the seditious novel “Lemner”, trying to wash himself off, beats himself in the chest: “I am a statesman, I see in President Putin the personification of Russian history on its ascending turn, when, by the will of the president, Russia rises from great upheavals to greatness.”
But the president received the most touching congratulations from children, because it is known that Putin loves children very much. In principle, from children’s gifts to the president alone, carefully orchestrated by adult mentors, a whole multi-part saga “Putin and Children” could be composed.
A school in the village of Lozhkino, Altai Territory, published such a congratulatory video with the participation of students of different ages - from young to old. “Maxim (Ilya, Vanya, etc.), who is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for you?” — the teacher’s excited voice sounds off-screen. “The dearest and kindest person,” says one of the boys. "Why?" - the teacher does not calm down. “Because,” the guy mutters, without going into details. I remembered Voinovich and an episode from his story about the soldier Ivan Chonkin: “Girl, who do you love more - dad or mom?” “Stalin,” the girl said and, embarrassed, ran away.”
AUDIO VERSION
This material has an audio version on Youtube. Read by Irina Petrovskaya.
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