Translated material
We are here
There are no prospects at the negotiations, and neither are the external contours. What remains is the inner contour, and we took it seriously
Last week was a busy one. However, lately all the weeks have been filled with something - just have time to dodge it. But even against this background, a concentrated set of sentences, arrests, negotiations, shutdowns, statements, truces, searches, blockings and the routine increase in international tension stands out quite clearly. If we add to this the general background of pre-Easter emotions and slightly enthusiastic feelings for the people who have flown to the other side of the Moon, then the need to record what is happening somehow automatically transforms into the desire to understand what is really happening. And where does this happening lead us?
Although, it would seem, it’s just another, already fifth spring in a military environment. You could get used to it by now. Many people are used to it. This can be clearly heard in the intonations of what is said about the special military and how they speak about it. Those who do not seem to be directly involved in it have learned to skirt around this topic and leave it outside the brackets of their own current existence. Those who are closer to her also, in many ways, habitually swear at everything, are irritated by everything, dissatisfied with everything. And it’s also clear why. Everything is stuck, everything is not moving anywhere, and the losses are adding up, the drones are flying. And they fly further and further. There is a distinct feeling that no one, neither in the trenches nor in the highest offices, knows what’s next and how to get out of this.
Until recently, there were hopes for negotiations, for Trump, for some cunning combinations that could develop somewhere behind closed doors, and the economic would be exchanged for the political, and the political would be multiplied by the military, and somehow it would all result in something acceptable for all parties. It didn't spill out. Trump has fallen head over heels into the Iranian adventure, all of his traditional envoys and advisers have gotten themselves into the same mess, scattering a fair amount of their reputation and trust along the way. Europe froze like a pillar, clearly waiting, or perhaps habitually waiting, for either the donkey, the padishah, or both to disappear somewhere. Energy prices are jumping like a pre-infarction cardiogram, following the revelry of messages from the American president on his own social network, but they are jumping mostly upward. Therefore, the most zealous and reasonable ones do not indulge themselves in illusions and, just in case, stock up on everything they need for future use.
And so it turns out: there are no prospects in the negotiations and there are no prospects on the external contours. This means that the internal contour remains, and they have obviously taken it seriously. Which is absolutely logical. Any more or less reasonable government manager or political strategist, having tracked the growing disappointment and fatigue of people from existing in an atmosphere of protracted military operations, from the lack of a clear perspective and from the need to endlessly adjust to rising prices and a shrinking quality of life, would offer two options: loosen the reins or tighten the screws. We chose the second one. Which is also logical
for all this growing ideological burlesque with traditional values and the special path of the state-civilization simply does not imply the option of increasing people's freedoms, rights and opportunities. Moreover, there are still some, but also elections are around the corner.
Then we simply bend our fingers, moving along the news feed of one week:
female students were fined for videos on Telegram,
the man was sentenced to 17 years under the article of treason,
the former governor was sentenced to 14 years for bribery,
a math teacher was sentenced to 15 years for setting fire to a steam locomotive,
a popular Moscow bookstore announced eviction from the premises,
there was a massive failure in the operation of Russian banking applications and services,
security forces came to the Buddhist festival and disrupted it.
Impressively tight? Calm down, it was just one day.
Next will be the arrest in absentia of the host of one of the online channels, arrest for comments on the network four years ago, restrictions for users of marketplaces when using VPN, fines for chat moderators, arrest of one vice-governor and a long sentence for another, sentences from 6 to 12-plus years for six young people for their civic position, then another bunch of fines, criminal cases opened, arrests and sentences, recognition of a non-existent international as extremist movement "Memorial" *, a search in the very existing "Novaya", the arrest of an investigative journalist for some unknown reason, searches in the offices of three Russian trade unions, shutdown of the mobile Internet here and there, recognition of an undesirable organization of one of the largest and coolest American universities, another addition to the register of "foreign agents". Plus a ban on the Alla Pugacheva fan festival, a fine for reacting on a social network in the form of poop, and another fine for photos of kisses. And then Easter.
It is, of course, very, very great that the Easter truce happened at the front. Even if it’s only for a day and a half, and even if it’s not 100% observed. It is obvious that no truce is expected in the foreseeable future in relation to citizens who think wrongly and walk out of step within the country. This car cannot be stopped, and no one needs it.
She rolls around in such a regular, cruel rollercoaster that those around her even become accustomed to this endless stream of messages about arrests, jail terms, and fines.
I caught myself doing this, and I heard from a colleague that it seemed to her that the repressions were kind of slowing down. But they don't. They are the opposite.
This is probably why a very young girl, when we and other young Muscovites like her were talking last week about the fears of her generation, chose not the usual and understandable things that others most often talked about (illness, lack of money, nuclear war, death of loved ones, loneliness), but a relatively unexpected one: the fear that everything here will become like in North Korea. And she quite calmly confirmed that she feels such an option approaching, she notices it, and she is aware that this is not a figure of speech, but a completely possible option for the real future. Moreover, that future, which includes tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, next week and next year. And which is only partly related to whether hostilities will continue or end.
Some time ago, the “you are here” meme was very popular, making fun of people who did not believe in the prospects of Elon Musk’s space programs: in it, one could move along a chain from the flight of the first rocket to the colonization of Mars, stopping at the point that corresponded to the next achievement. Then the same chain was made for censorship and restrictions on the Russian Internet: from the first bans to its complete shutdown.
It is quite possible today to look at the events of recent years as a whole, applying the same principle: here is “she drowned”, here is the old NTV no more, here is the spy stone, here is the Munich speech, here is Georgia, here is Crimea, here are the “foreign agents”, here are the undesirables, here are the extremist terrorists, here is the first telegram ban, here is the new Constitution, here is February twenty-two, here are the new laws, here is the revocation of media registrations from “Novaya”, “Echo”, “Interlocutor”**, here is the ban on social networks and applications, here is the routinization of repression, here are the huge sentences for everything, here are the shutdowns of the mobile Internet, <you are here>, here are the criminal and administrative sanctions for using VPN, here are the terms for what there were just fines for, here is the Internet with special cards (we will skip here, so as not to give a hint, everything previous has already been thrown away, but was discussed), here you are in a very large, but Northern Korea.
It is interesting that in recent years it has seemed to many that if hostilities begin to move towards the end, or at least towards some kind of freeze, then breathing in the country will become a little easier. Perhaps someone will... But no one has yet been able to answer the question: why should the authorities turn around? What will she get in return that is so useful for herself? Nothing. And there is also a much bigger question: how will she, if she allows relaxation, cope not with individual habitual dissenters snatched at random from their ordinary life,
and with a completely stern and very irritated crowd of those who believed in all this saber-rattling and military campaigns for the glory of the state-civilization and clearly, even today, do not look happy with the direction everything has turned? And why did they train, maintain and build up all these National Guards and other security forces for so many years?
Therefore, for now we all remain here, on this very unpleasant path to a very unpleasant impending dead end, which has very clear outlines and, to be honest, disgusting even in the most general terms existing and future characteristics. But the history of mankind is structured in such a way that at any time, inside such rushing countries, without clearing the road and not counting the victims, people still live in their scary future of countries: they fall in love, get married, give birth to children, go to schools, enter universities, write books, study and teach, dream about the future, record, describe, “we are here,” look for options, come up with solutions, hope and believe.