Fifth February

Notes from a personal diary

The way Russian society is seen and felt in this, already the fifth wartime February, is very different from what was noticeable in it in previous years. At first, everyone looked around in anger or fear, looking up from the endless scanning of news on their smartphones. Sometimes anger bordered on rage. Then anxiety appeared: everyone began to look carefully not so much at the news, but more and more at the price tags. The numbers have grown vigorously, and the assortment on the shelves has not so much become poorer as changed into something domestic. After another year, fatigue appeared and something similar to the habit that all this would last for a long time. And also the habit of speaking a little more quietly in public places and blocking the smartphone screen from strangers. Last February beckoned with hope, everyone shook themselves up a little and - trump-trump-trump! — they began to wonder what they would do after peace. And now everything has frozen and turned into a gray viscous paste, where all that is known for certain is that they will continue to bomb and shoot, negotiate and deceive, tighten the grip of repression and restrictions, and also turn off the Internet. And when asked what you are waiting for this year, the most correct answer was: “nothing.”

***

Sooner or later this had to happen. In the last couple of years, in a building with twenty floors, one elevator or another broke down from time to time. And now they both stood up. Stuck on the upper floors were old women who had gathered in the morning to go to the clinic and get milk, children wrapped in four scarves, and dogs who definitely needed to go outside in the freezing cold. The bravest ones set off on a long journey, thinking with horror about the way back. The whole house called the control room in unison, the control room promised something “tomorrow”. And only when someone managed to get through to the “mayor’s reception” did repairmen appear in the late afternoon. Having quite cheerfully run up to the very top, they were stuck there for a long time. From the mine, obscene language was heard loudly throughout the house. Back, having launched only the smaller of the two elevators, a couple of hours later the gloomy ones descended. Numerous questions from the spontaneous meeting of residents on the first floor were answered reluctantly.

— Now it won’t break?

- Not right away, but if anything happens, call...

- And the second? When will the second one start working?

- When the details are found.

- Who will find it?

- Someone will find it. Maybe. And in general, these are not questions for us...

- And to whom?..

Then everyone fell silent and together looked somewhere upward. Everything was clear to everyone. It is unlikely that the search and delivery of parts for elevators is among the priorities of domestic parallel imports. More likely, it doesn't fit at all.

***

Where should a promising young graduate from the space department of one of the leading domestic technical universities go? How to where? In Skolkovo. Why to Skolkovo? Because there are drones. Drones? What about space?

- You see, everything is foggy with space now, but there is movement, there are ideas and, what’s more, money is there too.

You can’t imagine how much you can do with this if you add artificial intelligence. This is the future, everyone understands. There are no end to customers there, and government support is great. I’ll hang around there and then we’ll see... My great idea was accepted, we’re already doing bench tests.

- And then?

“Then we’ll compete with others and talk to customers about launching it into series.” Can you imagine? My ideas and maybe straight into series!

— You do understand that your customers may end up in uniform, right?

- What's the difference! It's a cool idea, a working idea. And then, all this will end, but the future will remain, and I will rule in it...

Eyes are shining, customers are lining up, prospects are shining. And the fact that a brilliant idea is painted in khaki is a waste of time.

***

Unusual frosts in recent years forced city residents to take out of their closets their half-forgotten thermal underwear, membrane down jackets and Colambia snowshoes. But not all ammunition has retained its properties over the years of storage.

- Yes, and it’s nonsense. I just went to the website and ordered new boots.

- Wait, but we don’t have them here, they left in the twenty-second, to what site?

- Pf-f-f-f... A year or two ago, you had to poke around in some chat rooms, search, order something from someone shady and figure out how to transfer money, how to bring it here. And then I pressed two buttons and received it yesterday. Beauty.

Sanctions, sanctions... For any sanctions, there will be Grandfather Marx, or whoever was there, with his supply and demand, and everything will fly as people need.

Yes, it’s a little more expensive, but it’s still beautiful: I have boots, the people who made this have a job, taxes are paid, the economy works.

***

Once upon a time, just a few years ago, they watched the World Cup matches together, hanging a large screen on the wall of the house, setting up a projector, taking tables and poufs out of their apartments, stocking up on beer and chips. They shouted and jumped together when someone scored, and swore in unison when they lost. And then February fell in the yard, someone left, someone left and returned, someone locked themselves within four walls and the home-work-home route, and someone stuck a huge cheerful “zette” on their car and began to show off their friendship with the “guys behind the ribbon.” When another big snow fell, according to old memory, everyone picked up shovels.

- Listen, the Olympics are coming soon, will you watch?

- Why watch it? These Pindos didn’t let us in, there are no more Olympics!

- Let our people be there, they made their way as neutrals...

- These bitches sold their homeland, there is no point in rooting for them, for these bastards...

- What are you doing? You used to look at the skis, get sick, yell, and there they are...

- If you say anything about these bastards again, I’ll break your nose...

And I would have broken it.

***

Puppies and older dogs habitually galloped around the area allotted to them. Maybe they galloped a little more clumsily because of the winter overalls that their caring owners had dressed them in due to the onset of cold weather. An ordinary quiet evening, an ordinary walk, ordinary routine conversations about nothing.

- Girls, girls, get ready, take your people, leave, he’s coming again!

A flushed elderly lady with a Pekingese in a sweater in her arms, slightly stumbling, hurried towards the site along the snowy path.

- He goes again with his own, and again without a muzzle...

Everyone immediately understood everything, began to fuss, began to call their pets, take them on leashes and move towards the far exit from the site.

“He” appeared here recently. Most often in civilian clothes, but sometimes in something khaki, not always sober as a glass, but not very drunk either. More like this, relaxed and talkative. No one had seen him here before, but they say he lived somewhere nearby for a long time, he just didn’t have a dog. And now she appeared, and with her he reached out to the company, to people. With her, a large young shepherd dog, and with his conversations about how no one here understands anything, that everyone lives in a relaxed manner, and that he had another incident. A couple of times, having drunk a little more than usual, he did not go to the site, but, slowly and not very confidently, making circles along the surrounding streets, loudly and offendedly told something of his own to the space. And it’s not very clear who everyone was trying to avoid more: a playful shepherd dog due to its age, but not very well trained in commands, or its owner. And who wanted a muzzle more? But with his appearance, both the square with the platform and the adjacent alleys became empty. Just in case.

And only a very elderly grandfather, who, without any dog ​​in any weather, fed pigeons at one of the benches, met and saw him off in a quiet voice:

- It’s a simple bad thing... If I didn’t wander around in search of adventures, I’d rather take care of the dog...

***

The phone rang very late in the evening. A distant relative from the southern region of Russia called. She and I exchange messages from time to time, without really pestering each other with questions: alive and well, and okay. So, routine questions about children and grandchildren, the same routine answers. And then she called.

- Listen, you were asking how Lenka is with us, and she just needs help. You're smart, maybe you can give me some advice. She and her friend opened a shop here, her friend invested the coffins, and Lenka invested her savings, they sell cosmetics and all sorts of things here, and it went well, they want to expand, and they thought that maybe they were entitled to some benefits or subsidies, they say that the authorities should help... Don’t you recognize?

What is there to find out, it’s in plain sight. Tax breaks have recently been introduced and loans are being offered. She gave contacts to the “Defenders of Russia”. There should definitely be a program for those who turn coffins into the future. It can't help but be.

***

You won’t envy the wipers in this winter Moscow. If not snowfall, then frost; if not frost, then a slippery thaw, and then snowfall again. And there seemed to be fewer people in orange vests lately, and there was bound to be an increase: especially gifted patriotic citizens began to fight them too hard.

It is definitely easier and more useful for the image - to fight against migrant janitors than to think about how to organize life in the country ourselves.

Moreover, society is inflamed with migrant phobia and happily approves of any initiatives against visitors, without really thinking about who will take them in taxis, who will bake them bread, bring them groceries from the store, sell fruit and sweep their yards and streets. And then a lot of snow fell, the city stood up, the townspeople, cursing, crawled through the snowdrifts to work.

And then suddenly groups and groups in orange vests suddenly appeared throughout the center. A dozen people here and there are pushing away the snow, not very skillfully, but they are trying, scraping. In front of each group there is a young man of a very well-groomed appearance, walking back and forth, giving instructions, shivering from the cold. And they, if you look closely, are not at all of the traditional janitor appearance, much more southern. I randomly ask the girl, wrapped up to her eyes in a thick scarf:

- De donde eres?

- De Cuba...

He seems to smile with his eyes, but immediately turns away and again begins to scrape the stubborn crust. A well-groomed young man frowns and moves towards us. I leave, not wanting the girl to get into trouble, and I think what kind of phantasmagoria is this, in which the fight with Tajik janitors led to the fact that the shovels ended up in the hands of Caribbean beauties.

- But they clean up well... So far, in a straight line...

In the dressing room of the court store, a couple of our local, ordinary and familiar janitors are leaning against a cabinet with advertising leaflets, drinking something warm from a thermos and watching something humorous on their smartphones. On their street, it’s as if a dump truck loaded with gingerbread has overturned: they are cleaning up for them, they are now, as it were, even in charge of someone. For once. I asked them how they felt about it all. And they are happy:

“Then we’ll go through, take a look, add salt where necessary...

She asked them not to sprinkle too much, salt was too bad for dogs, and people in good shoes didn’t feel too good either. They promised, nodding understandingly. Now they seem to have become local, we have to conform.

***

Of course, in our times there were pioneers and Zarnitsy, but it is still unusual to see very small schoolchildren in full paramilitary uniform. Sand suit, red beret. The Youth Army seems to have taken up a strong presence in many schools, especially those where cadet classes have mushroomed. And no matter what happens with patriotic innovations in schools, for some reason these berets are especially catchy.

Especially when you see very young parents accompanying their children to school, and they strictly ask them to wear the beret correctly, and do it very seriously and with concentration. And then from the schoolyard rushes:

- Today we will fight against the second bae! And we will defeat them!

It seems like an ordinary children’s school fuss, and everything would be fine, but a cocktail of “lessons about the important,” “heroes’ desks,” running around with obstacles, new subjects about defending the Motherland and new history textbooks, overflowing with greatness, plus this very uniform with a beret, indistinguishable from the maroon berets of the Russian Guard, make all this very frightening in the future. And now there are cybersecurity schools that enroll from the age of six, and drone piloting programs for older students. And here the Youth Army berets will seem like the lesser evil.

***

A girl driving a sedan somehow cleared of snow, parked with its nose in a snowdrift on the corner of one of the Arbat alleys, peers intently at the navigator, presses something on it, then leans back on the seat and closes her eyes. Something is clearly going wrong. Opening her eyes, she looks around and opens the window:

— Can you tell me how to get from here to Paveletsky station?

It seems not far, but the task is not an easy one, given the interweaving of one-way lanes and the total traffic jam on Sadovoy.

— He writes that I’m in Khimki!

- Not surprising at all. He writes to me that I am in Sheremetyevo. Now he writes things like this to everyone here all the time. Here, the mobile Internet is jammed everywhere: to the right is the military, to the left is the government. Couriers and taxi drivers are going completely crazy. So, remember...

Having dictated the route to the girl, which she recorded on a voice recorder (thank God that it still works without the Internet), I wish her, even if not quickly, to get there. She thanks:

“But you must admit, it’s infuriating.” But nothing can be done. It’s good that they haven’t turned it off completely yet...

We agree that yes, it’s good, and that, alas, it’s really “for now.”

***

The fact that Russia’s image of the future has collapsed is not news. But the fact that her understanding of where to look for her future in principle will begin to become thinner turned out to be unexpected news for many. Even those who, at the very least, have come to terms with the new realities in general, and with the infinity of Putin, and with the Northern Military District, turned out to be somewhat unprepared for the fact that our national historical tornado would be inside a global large hurricane.

It has become completely unclear where our friends are, where our enemies are, which part of the West we are fighting with and which we are eating chebureks with, from whom we can expect help and from whom we can expect a stab in the back.

All this uncertainty has led to the fact that even quite recently, reasonable people began to grab, like a life raft, those callous but time-tested ideas with which the current government is trying to pave its way into the future.

— I read your article about the new ideology...

A former university classmate looked kindly, but clearly disapprovingly. He pursed his lips and shook his head.

- You don’t understand anything... So you’re ironic about the fact that family, faith and service should be at the center of everything. What's wrong with that? Why are you putting these “pray, serve, give birth” in there, as if it were some kind of vulgar slogan. Think for yourself. What's wrong with that? Do you have any objections to high moral standards? Or are you against everyone being together during a difficult period? Against a strong family? A collective affair? What instead?

And there is nothing to answer. After all, I will not remind him or anyone else how he himself studied in Europe, and then endlessly went there, went and went again. How he rode at concerts of now-banned groups, how he himself wrote lyrics about freedom of thought, how he changed his life at some point and started his own business. How he admired new authors, young and free, how he talked about them with sparkling eyes.

I won’t remind him that he became what he became only because no one nailed him to distribution work, like a failed marriage, and didn’t force him with a stick to cut his punk hair and go bow in church. This would definitely be cool.

***

At some point, the sense of clarity of what was coming next, which was accelerated by the expectations of the world of last year, began to thin out not only among those who spent these four years on pins and needles, but also among those who diligently lived in the mode of “everything is generally in order, but we’ll see.” People seemed to become quieter, their movements became a little slower, everyone seemed to begin to look closely and listen to the world around them, trying so hard to pretend that everything was normal that everything became noticeably abnormal. And if you ask...

- Do you think it will actually end?..

A close friend, well integrated into modern realities, with a job and income vaguely linked to something private, slowly stirs sugar in her tea. We had already talked about children and weather disasters, about exhibitions and concerts, about mutual friends and plans for the summer, and God knows I didn’t bring her up to talk about something more. But, apparently, the question was so overripe that it broke down on its own. And I have no answer to it other than to shrug my shoulders.

- You see, I honestly expected it to somehow gradually taxi out. I don’t know how or what, but it will taxi. But it froze, neither back nor forward. It seems that up there they don't know either. And they pull the tires. I'm having surgery soon, and I'm scared. What if something happens? And the son postponed the wedding “until peace” so that everyone could be together. Now until when? Five years, seven, ten?

I understand her and I don’t understand her. Yes, many of us believed, hoped approximately every day that on any day out of these one thousand four hundred and sixty a miracle would suddenly happen - and peace would come. But this hope began to fade when it became clear that there were also many around who did not need peace, and some of them sat much higher, and it was they who decided everything. And there are those who wanted peace, but now they are angry that it has been gone for so long, and that here and there people are suffering, children are dying, and it already seems to them that what is needed is not peace, but victory.

— Everything seems to be fine at the moment, if you look at life as a list. But why then do I feel like a bug stuck in amber? I see everything from the outside, I live this life, it goes on outside of me, but it seems to be suspended, and there is a feeling that it will last for a long time... Tell me, not for long? Not forever?

Some part of me, the one that once cheerfully told others that “there are no historical precedents for endless corrupt regimes,” is ready to lend a shoulder and confirm that no, this will not last forever and one way or another must be resolved. But the other, new me, who has lived the last four years, who has carefully examined these years from the inside, is only ready to offer the possibility that the word “after” exists for a reason: everything in the world, in principle, should have it.

Another thing is that now I’m not at all sure that we will definitely like the coming “after”.

This material was published in the sixteenth issue of Novaya Gazeta. Magazine". You can buy it in the online store of our partners.