And on his chest a medal with WB glowed

Not everyone can steal a billion with the “teeth of a dragon.” But everyone can afford to buy a dozen medals on the marketplace

Punish the innocent, reward the innocent. This is usually the case with us. About the innocent and the punished is a separate conversation, but the other day about awards they started talking from different sides, and quite loudly. It turned out that mummers began to wander around the country. Citizens whose chests are hung with assorted medals, badges, plaques and other tinsel. Tinsel - because all these garlands have nothing to do with real awards.

On marketplaces, for ten thousand rubles you can buy yourself an entire iconostasis! Moreover, even copies of real state awards with accompanying documents cost some minimal money. And the range of any award cringe is generally limitless. It’s something like “Joke Bank tickets” - only in the world of orders and medals.

The fraudulent tradition has deep and strong roots. From the classics - Chichikov. From the Soviet classics - the children of Lieutenant Schmidt. From modernity - Cossack women with stripes and tons of some badges and spillikins covering their entire chests. On what fronts they got these tchotchkes, there’s no point in even asking. A whip, a beard up to the navel - it’s obvious that he’s a “herol”!

Do you remember how, at a parade on Red Square not far from Putin, they captured a grandmother who had general’s shoulder straps, the stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Hero of Socialist Labor, the Red Star, three of the Patriotic War - and so on, including just some badges and bows? Real veterans couldn’t go to the parade, but you just don’t understand who was next to the president! And already this year, on May 9, a bearded man in a Marine Corps uniform was found on the guest stand, but his shoulder straps were decorated with eagles from... police caps. On which “Kolchak fronts” did this sailor fight?

But Cossack women, costumed grandmothers and sea bearded men are separate and clearly visible “incidents”. The patriotic public is much more concerned about ordinary-looking “veterans” who appear at events, speak at schools, cut ribbons - they don’t mind becoming deputies, demonstrating a visualization of their merits.

In fact, how many people know for sure what state awards look like? The medal “For Courage”, which is given for real actions, and the medal with the same name, purchased on WB - will you definitely notice the difference? You can ask a person a question directly. But what if he really is a front-line soldier? You will also run into criminal charges for discrediting, treason, or I don’t know what else you can get for bad behavior. For example, in the eye.

A round table was held in the Public Chamber. The topic is formulated as follows: “Initiatives to tighten penalties for wearing awards of an unknown type on military uniforms. A ban on the sale of copies of military orders in online stores.” Hero of Russia (a real one, in the sense that he was officially awarded during the Chechen campaign), Rustem Klupov, who spoke at the round table, even classified award lovers not by rank. Like, some are still going back and forth: they actually fought, performed feats, received awards and titles, but decided to increase their status and assign higher titles and greater rewards. The second category is volunteers. They really helped the front, they even took risks by going to the line of combat contact, but now they expect to receive the status of combatants and some other privileges that, with all due respect to them, are not entitled to them. And the third category is 100% mummers who seize the moment and hype the military-patriotic theme. Again, who will check at school or university whether a person really fought, whether he has real awards?

As a branch from the topic, I cannot clarify one more question:

Who are these SVO veterans who speak out, run for office, and so on? Contract soldiers serve to the limit. Mobilized ones too. All these people are in the trenches. Wounded and discharged? Yes, they can. But most of the veterans we see seem to be quite healthy people.

The arms and legs are intact. And we know that even those who in former times would probably have been dismissed from the army are returned to the front. Maybe these are all former Wagnerites or amnestied people who had fixed-term contracts?

And the numerous officials who were driven away for a couple of months, who took a bunch of photos there in uniform against the backdrop of tanks and missiles - how did they return so quickly? Are all these people definitely reliably tested and have grounds to pass on their military experience to the youth?

But, probably, I just don’t know some of the nuances and doubt it in vain. Or, let's say, I'm exaggerating the scale. But the round table on “medals” is a reality. It happens in our country that no attention is paid to really important problems and no tables are assembled - neither round nor square. Here, it turns out, there are too many people who have stuck around to ignore them.

We started with a proverb, a proverb, and then we’ll make a loop: to whom is war, and to whom... You know the continuation without me. And fake medals are far from the most disgusting of this “mother’s sake.” “Urgent collection” channels, whose administrators collected money to help the front, and then disappeared somewhere, having managed to monetize donations for houses and cars. Is there anyone else from the former leadership in the Kursk region who is not now under investigation? And not only in Kursk. Belgorod, Bryansk regions - theft in the construction of defensive structures and shelters and other acts. I'm not even talking about the proceedings in the Ministry of Defense!

All these gentlemen seemed to be supposed to protect the Motherland and its citizens, to help their fellow countrymen, but in fact they decided that spending such money on patriotic purposes was stupid and it was better to appropriate the rubles for themselves. But here who already has what opportunities. Not everyone can steal a billion with the “teeth of a dragon.” But everyone can afford to buy a dozen medals on WB.