Adios, America!

This ultra-patriotic gem was just beamed to me by my fellow Petersburg psychogeographer V., who found it forlornly pasted up in the former “party zone” on Dumskaya and Lomonosov streets in downtown Petersburg, a quarter which was thoroughly purged last year by the local powers that be for no good reason.

A quick scan of the QR code leads to the now-equally shuttered website El-Chapo.rf. According to the restaurant review site Restoclub, El Chapo is “closed indefinitely.” But what it must have been back in its heyday, during the first year of Russia’s glorious war against fascist Ukraine and its Western puppet masters!

Dance bar with Mexican cuisine on Lomonosov Street. El Chapo serves Mexican cuisine: quesadillas with oyster mushrooms, burritos with shredded beef and shrimp in coconut. To try the spicy chimichanga tortillas with meat, you have to sign a special contract. Here they mix cocktails based on tequila, rum and house-made tinctures. At the bar you can have your photo taken with local star Frida the Pig. El Chapo hosts DJ sets and parties, and plays Mexican rap, funk, and sometimes disco.

The once lively (and, in the early 2000s, avowedly ethnically and internationally tolerant) Dumskaya bar district is indeed now a ghost town, as witnessed by another snapshot which V. sent to me. ||| TRR

After breathing a sigh of relief, this was the first question that popped in my head:

Who are the 112 U.S. representatives who thought it was a great idea to unilaterally disarm Ukraine, an ally that is fighting for its survival against a U.S. adversary?

The list was published almost immediately.

My reflection is not about these particular people in particular, but the fact that in Washington, and in capitals across Europe, a hefty number of our democratically elected representatives are brazenly siding with Russia, a totalitarian state which has the aim of not only weakening our democracies but bringing defeat to our entire system and the international rules based system. They are siding with the destruction of a sovereign state, Ukraine, and the occupation of its territory and citizens.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is in the company of Matteo Salvini (head of the League), Giuseppe Conte (former Italian PM), and so many other European politicians who may be motivated to side with Russia for a variety of reasons. It speaks to the penetration of Russian capture in some cases, or industrial and commercial interests influencing our political base. Since Russia has no ideology at the present time, I’m assuming they agree with the neo-realist worldview which would see large states eat up smaller ones by force simply because they can, throwing out the entire concept of state sovereignty.

If they have been captured and are working for a foreign adversary, there is no indication that any of them (at least in Italy) are under investigation. The only way we can rid our system of elected representatives working openly in the interests of an adversary to the detriment of our national interests is to vote them out. In Italy, that isn’t possible because even if a head of a party loses an election, he/she can still remain in their place and continue working in the interests of Russia: see Salvini and Conte.

This is why I am overjoyed that the House has belatedly passed the aid to Ukraine bill, but unspeakably frustrated with our inability to rid ourselves of people who are ready to throw our security, and Ukraine, under the bus.

Dmitri Medvedev meltdown: He’s hoping for a civil war in the U.S.

No one doubted that American lawmakers would approve “aid” to a gang of neo-Nazis. It was a vote by the joyous bastards of the state:

a) in favour of continuing the civil war of the divided people of our formerly united country;

b) for maximising the number of victims of this war.

We will win, of course, despite the 61 billion bloody dollars that will mostly go down the throats of their insatiable military-industrial complex. Strength and Truth are behind us.

But in view of this Russophobic decision, I cannot but wish with all sincerity that the United States would plunge into a new civil war as soon as possible. Which, I hope, will be cardinally different from war of the North and the South in XIX century and will be conducted with application of planes, tanks, artillery, MLRS, all kinds of missiles and other weapons. And which will finally lead to the ignominious collapse of the vile evil empire of the XXI century – the United States of America

Source: Monique Camarra, Eurofile, 21 April 2024

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev became the first Russian to get the brand new iPhone 4, which are to go on sale on Thursday.

The Russian leader received the smarthphone [sic] as a present from Apple CEO Steve Jobs during his visit to the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

At 9.3 mm the iPhone 4 is 25 percent thinner than its predecessors and the thinnest smartphone on the market. The gizmo also boasts a state of the art battery, with seven hours of talk time and 300 hours of standby.

According to the Russian mobile operator Beeline, the brand new device may appear on the Russian market no earlier than September.

During his visit to the Silicon Valley the Russian leader also visited the U.S. office of the Russian search engine Yandex.

The Yandex Labs center, based in Paolo Alto, California, is involved in scientific projects concerning mainly the optimization of online search technologies and other advanced research activities.

The president was accompanied by Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh and the chief technology officer of the Silicon Valley-based Yandex Labs, Arkady Borkovsky.

Source: “Medvedev becomes first iPhone 4 owner in Russia,” Sputnik, 23 June 2010

This Iranian Life

Photo: Sergei Yermokhin/Delovoi Peterburg

Petersburg is getting ready to welcome groups of visa-free travelers from Iran. It could increase the tourist flow to the city by as much as eight percent.

The Economic Development Ministry reported that Russia has completed the procedure of exchanging lists of tourist organizations with China and Iran for the early launch of bilateral intergovernmental agreements on visa-free group tourist trips. In preparation for this, the St. Petersburg Tourism Development Committee and representatives of the hospitality industry held a series of “Welcome to St. Petersburg!” field presentations in the largest cities of the Islamic Republic of Iran—Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz. The events were attended by over 250 professionals from the country’s tourism industry.

“The people of Iran love to travel. The interest of the citizens of this country in Petersburg has been growing noticeably lately. The field events, realized as part of the national project ‘Tourism and the Hospitality Industry,’ provide Petersburg tourism industry professionals with a unique opportunity to establish new contacts with Iranian colleagues and, of course, increase interest in our city,” says Sergei Korneyev, chair of the St. Petersburg Tourism Development Committee Sergey Korneev.

On May 26, St. Petersburg welcomed the first passenger flight from Tehran, operated by Meraj Airlines, and on June 1, a direct flight from Iranian capital to St. Petersburg was made by Russia’s Nordwind Airlines. “Previously, when there were direct flights from Iran only to Moscow, trips were planned to the two cities at once. Now that direct flights have been established, tourists from Iran will be able to go straight to Petersburg and its suburbs,” says Yana Kozhevnikova, a partners and agencies specialist at tour operator Bon Tour.

Next year, Petersburg is planning to send a cultural and business mission to its Iranian sister city of Isfahan. Hossein Nasr, head of the Isfahan Association of Tour Operators, spoke of the need for vigorous development of tourism between the two cities. “Events where new connections can be established are very important to us. Representatives of the relevant companies in our city held constructive talks with their Petersburg colleagues, and this is a good foundation for strengthening relations and mutually increasing the tourist flow in the future,” he said.

Dmitry Tyurin, head of the commercial department at the international transfer ordering service I’way, argues that cooperation in the field of tourism between Iran and Petersburg opens up significant prospects for both sides. “This cooperation will bring many benefits both to the city and to business. An increase in the number of tourists will lead to an increase in the load on infrastructure facilities, thus contributing to the growth of profits and the development of the city’s economy. And the variety of needs and preferences among Iranian tourists will generate new opportunities for entrepreneurs involved in the hotel business, restaurants, souvenir shops, and travel agencies. In addition, the development of cooperation with Iran can contribute to the strengthening of diplomatic and cultural ties between the countries. The influx of Iranian tourists will enable local residents and entrepreneurs to better understand Iranian culture,” he says.

According to political scientist Inna Litvinenko, the willingness of Iranian tour operators to send tourists to Petersburg points to large-scale prospects for developing the tourism sector and related sectors of the city’s economy.

“First of all, it will affect the hotel and restaurant business, airlines, and tourist agencies. The growing interest in visiting Petersburg is explained by the Northern Capital’s rich historical legacy, its geographical location, and the concentration of business flows. Visa-free agreements with Iran will increase the tourist flow by 5–8%, and the word-of-mouth effect on neighboring Islamic states will also kick in, making it possible to achieve a 12–15% increase in tourists by the end of 2024. Another obvious plus will be the influx of investments into actively developing industries—construction, the hotel and restaurant business, and the service sector,” predicts Litvinenko.

Source: Elizaveta Sumriakova, “Eastern tilt: visa-free agreement with Iran will increase tourist flow to Petersburg,” Delovoi Peterburg, 24 July 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

I was just flying from Leningrad to Istanbul, and the coach of an Iranian football team was seated next to me. I had this feeling like I was in the movie Cabaret. On the other hand, if I had said to him, ‘Well, how’s it going with the ayatollahs?’ he could have said to me, ‘And how’s it going with Putin?’ He got up in the middle of the flight and handed out our poor northern apples to his players while I drank white wine. We caught each other’s eye and smiled at each other. For the last hour, he studied English on his phone using an Iranian app. The good guys will beat the bad guys.

Source: Nikolay Konoshenok (Facebook), 24 July 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

The Russian state is keen to foster loyal young people. We have already recounted how the authorities have clamped down on liberal universities and brought them to heel, rewritten school history textbooks, and shut down independent educational projects. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Today, the website Protocol and the YouTube channel RZVRT claimed that college students in Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone have been made to assemble [Iranian] kamikaze drones. They face expulsion and a fine of 1.5 million rubles if they refuse to do it. Students also have to play paintball, and the losers are forced to dig trenches and are “executed” with paintball guns. Two cases of suicide have already been reported. In addition, the college management tricks female students from African countries into doing the dirtiest menial labor.

“‘Alabuga: producing death with the hands of death.’ The second part of Protocol and RZVRT’s joint investigation of Alabuga. We talk about how students are forced to dig trenches and assemble Iranian Shahed drones, about how students from African countries were lured into applying to the college through Tinder, and about how the leadership of the special economic zone treats students.” Protocol (YouTube), 24 July 2023 (in Russian)

This is not the only such case. The authorities in Russia have recently been inspired by the idea of free child labor, including for the needs of the army fighting in Ukraine.

Thus, on July 20, the State Duma immediately passed in its second and third readings a bill on “community service” for schoolchildren. Children will now have to clean classrooms, plant trees at school, and help in the library on a “voluntary-compulsory” basis. Permission from parents will no longer be required for this. Commenting on the new law, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said that “only through labor can one cultivate an attitude to many issues that [the child] will later need to solve. The child will grow up different. Harmony will come.”

“Community service” goes hand in hand with the militarization of schools. During “basic training” lessons, children will learn how to pilot drones. “Today’s army is not only the Kalashnikov assault rifle, but also advanced unmanned vehicles,” said Federation Council member Artyom Sheinin.

From September 1, military training will be introduced for pupils in grades ten and eleven. Among other things, children will practice military greetings, drilling, handling small arms, combat actions, and first aid during hostilities.

And the name of subject itself, “Fundamentals of Security and Vital Activity,” in which schoolchildren study the basics of military affairs, has been changed by the State Duma to “Fundamentals of Security and Protection of the Motherland.”

There are also serious changes to the history curriculum. In September, high school students will get new textbooks featuring chapters about the “special military operation.” They will be told that:

Kiev “secretly colluded with NATO.”
Peace in Crimea was preserved by the “polite people”, that is, by the unidentified Russian soldiers who seized the peninsula in March 2014.
It was the West’s fault that new “Minsk agreements” were not signed.
Ukraine wanted to get its hands on nuclear weapons.
The war, which was the Kremlin’s only option, has “consolidated society.”
There is a “fake news industry” in the world that allegedly lies about the Russian army’s actions in Ukraine.

Schoolchildren will also be made to read excerpts from Putin’s speeches and look at a map of Russia that includes the occupied territories in Ukraine.

The refusal of State Duma deputies to raise the lower limit of the draft age from 18 to 21 is part and parcel of the same series of initiatives for turning schoolchildren into propagandized soldiers. Deputies claims that there are a lot of young people who want to go to serve right after leaving school. Meanwhile, universities are raising tuition fees, effectively introducing income barriers to higher education.

Children must learn in advance how to shoot, assemble deadly drones, pilot them, and love the Motherland. The Russian state doesn’t seem to need anything else from them.

Source: “Children are forced to march in formation, assemble drones, and study Putin’s speeches,” I Don’t Get It newsletter (Mediazona), 24 July 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

Best Russian Brand

Yevgeny Prigozhin. Photo: Yuri Martyanov/Kommersant

Russian businessman, owner of the Concord Group of companies, “Putin’s chef” and confidant of the president, founder of a media empire and the Wagner Group, and one of the most famous people in Russia, Yevgeny Prigozhin now faces criminal charges of organizing an armed rebellion.

Prigozhin was born in Leningrad on 1 June 1961. We know that his mother, Violetta, worked at a hospital, his father died early, and his stepfather Samuel Zharkoy raised the future “Kremlin chef.” Zharkoy also encouraged Prigozhin to ski: his stepson graduated from Athletics Boarding School No. 62, where the swimmer Vladimir Salnikov and the gymnast Alexander Dityatin were his classmates. Prigozhin then enrolled at the Leningrad Chemical and Pharmaceutical Institute, but, according to his own account, he did not finish his degree there.

In 1979, the entrepreneur was given a suspended sentence on robbery charges. According to media reports, in 1981 he was sentenced by the Zhdanov District Court to twelve years in prison for a number of crimes at once, but in 1988 he was pardoned, and in 1990 he was released from prison early.

Beginnings

As Prigozhin himself recounted in an interview, his first business, founded in 1990, was selling hot dogs at the Apraksin Dvor market, the first such outlet in the city. “The mustard was mixed in my apartment, in the kitchen. My mother also tallied the proceeds there. I earned $1,000 a month, and that amounted to piles of rubles,” the businessman said.

In the 1990s, Prigozhin managed Kontrast, a chain of private grocery stores. He launched his future restaurant business in 1995 by opening Wine Club, a bar and shop on Vasilyevsky Island. In late 1996, after meeting the Briton Tony Gere, Prigozhin opened the Old Customs House, which is considered one of the first elite restaurants in Petersburg. According to some reports, his partner in this business venture was Mikhail Mirilashvili, a well-known Petersburg entrepreneur who years later cofounded the VKontakte social media network.

Prigozhin later opened three more establishments: Seven Forty, Stroganov Yard, and Russian Kitsch. In 1998, he opened the restaurant New Island on the used passenger ship Moscow-177, purchased for fifty thousand dollars, which became a popular spot in Petersburg. When Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin and IMF managing director Michel Camdessus visited the city in June 1999, New Island was the only decent place to wine and dine the high-ranking guests.

In 2001, Vladimir Putin dined there with Jacques Chirac, and a year later with George Bush. In 2003, according to media reports, the Russian president celebrated his birthday there. Since the businessman personally served dishes to the president, he was dubbed “Putin’s chef” and “the Kremlin’s chef.”

By that time, Prigozhin had already moved into the catering business, founding Concord Catering in 1995. In 2002, he launched the Damn!Donalds chain of fast food restaurants: the businessman came up with the name himself. The chain was shuttered ten years later, however.

As the businessman recounted in an interview about the success of his catering business, by 2005 he owned “the largest catering company in Russia for ten years running.” “We did all the G8s and the summits,” Prigozhin recalled. From information available in open sources, it follows that the businessman actually did organize a number of banquets for high-ranking guests, including meals at the Russian Federal House of Government.

Buoyed by this success, Prigozhin decided to enter the school meals market. “I decided to try my hand at it and chose a couple of schools on Vasilyevsky Island — No. 10 and No. 18. Of course, it wasn’t a business. I began feeding the schoolchildren airtight-packaged box meals. I set up modern compact kitchens right in the schools — everything fit in a six-square-meter space. At the same time, I carefully researched the topic.”

In the 2000s, Prigozhin went into the construction business. In particular, he built Northern Versailles, a gated mansion community, in Petersburg’s Lakhta district. In 2016, a company belonging to the businessman built the Lahta Plaza [apartment and hotel] complex next to St. Petersburg Tricentennial Park.

In 2016, it transpired that a Prigozhin-affiliated company bought the premises of the Shop of Merchants Yeliseyev, which he had occupied on lease since 2010, after making expensive renovations. By 2015, Prigozhin’s companies had become the largest supplier of food to the Defense Ministry.

In 2018, Vladimir Putin said in an interview with western media, “He is not my friend. I know such a person, but he is not on my list of friends.”

Media Empire

In 2013, it was reported that the Internet Research Agency, which was informally dubbed the “troll factory,” was located on Savushkin Street in Petersburg. Hundreds of people worked on the media holding’s websites. Prigozhin’s connection with the growing media empire was denied by Concord’s press service.

2019 saw the emergence of the Patriot Media Group, which included the Federal News Agency (FAN), Economy Today, Politics Today, and Nation News. Yevgeny Prigozhin headed its board of trustees, but the businessman’s financial involvement in the project was denied.

Western sanctions against Prigozhin were imposed for the first time over the involvement of his media outlets in the information campaign [sic] for the US presidential election.

Wagner

The Wagner Group, a private military company, was founded in 2014. Subsequently, Wagner soldiers were involved in fighting in eastern Ukraine and, later, in Syria. In 2017, the company was placed on the US sanctions list. But [Prigozhin] admitted his involvement in founding Wagner only in 2022. Western countries have claimed that Wagner mercenaries have also operated in Libya, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Mozambique, and Mali.

SMO

Since 24 February 2022 and the beginning of the SMO, Prigozhin gained worldwide fame in connection with the Wagner Group’s actions in Ukraine. Wagner’s troops have been heavily involved in the fighting. Mercenaries recruited among convicts have been actively joining the ranks of Wagner PMC. In March, the businessman claimed that over 5,000 ex-convicts had returned to Russia after participating in combat.

The conflict between the Defense Ministry and Prigozhin rapidly deteriorated in 2022, although friction between the two parties had essentially begun several years earlier.

A year later, in February 2023, Prigozhin publicly voiced dissatisfaction with the lack of ammunition during the battles for Bakhmut (Artemovsk). A campaign entitled #GiveWagnerShells gained momentum on the internet.

On May 10, the businessman, amid rumors of a “shell famine,” publicly announced his willingness to transfer Wagner’s positions in Bakhmut to Chechnya’s Akhmat Regiment at the suggestion of Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov. On May 20, the businessman said that Wagner had taken Bakhmut, and once again made highly critical remarks about the Defense Ministry. Five days later, Prigozhin announced that he was withdrawing his units from the city.

In June 2023, the businessman asked Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to release the Concord Group from its catering contract in the SMO zone after more than sixteen years of successful cooperation with the Russian military’s kitchens.

Moreover, Prigozhin said that an order that members of volunteer detachments must sign contracts with the Defense Ministry did not apply to the Wagner Group.

Then came June 23. Wagner’s founder made new public statements, triggering criminal charges against him. If convicted, Prigozhin faces up to twenty years in prison.

Source: Irina Kurbat, “Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin?” Fontanka.ru, 24 June 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

Goods bearing the emblems of the Wagner Group (including chevrons, flags, t-shirts, baseball caps, and sewn-on patches) have been brought back to the “counters” at Wildberries, as our correspondent verified on the evening of June 24.

In the first half of the day, a source at Wildberries told RIA Novosti that the online retailer had bearing removing goods bearing the [private military] company’s emblems and was going to remove them altogether. Later, such goods were hidden by Ozon, where they are still unavailable.

Source: “Wildberries brings back Wagner-branded goods,” Fontanka.ru, 24 June 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader

A search for the phrase “Wagner PMC” on the website of popular Russian online retailer Wildberries garnered 8,736 items, including the fetchingly reimagined Russian tricolor flag, below. This search was performed at 11 p.m. Moscow time on 24 June 2023.

Zenit FC midfielder Wendel has decided not to return to Petersburg due to the situation with the Wagner PMC, reports Sport Express, citing the player’s agent Cesare Barbieri.

“This is definitely a very delicate situation. Wendel will stay in Brazil until the situation improves. The club has already been notified of this. Zenit has reacted understandingly to the situation,” the agent said.

In the 2022–2023 season, 25-year-old Wendel has played twenty-five matches for Zenit in the Russian Premier League, scoring eight goals.

Source: “Zenit football player Wendel afraid to return to Russia,” Fontanka.ru, 24 June 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

Flagpole Sitta

Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in a ceremony to raise the flags of the Russian Federation, the USSR, and the Russian Empire in St. Petersburg Tricentennial Park.

The head of state arrived in the area of the Gulf of Finland near Lakhta Center on the yacht Okhta. He watched the ceremony from the water.

On board the yacht, the head of state was welcomed by Elena Ilyukhina, deputy general director of Gazprom Neft and general director of Gazprom Lakhta LLC.

“St. Petersburg’s aquatic area and maritime facade,” she said, waving her hand at the view. “It’s beautiful. I understand that you have finished this complex,” Putin said, pointing at the 462-meter tower of Lakhta Center. Ilyukhina briefly told the president about the project, and also announced plans to build a 555-meter skyscraper next door.

[…]

“I understand that today’s event is connected with the fact that one stage [of the project] is ending and another beginning,” Putin said. Ilyukhina explained that the flag-raising ceremony, whose guest of honor of was the head of state, commemorated historical dates: the 165th anniversary of the Russian imperial flag, the 100th anniversary of the Soviet flag, and the 330th anniversary of Peter the Great’s tricolor.

Ilyukhina underscored that the choice of banners was not accidental: each flag represented a certain historical stage, marked by feats of heroism, victories and achievements. “The raised banners are a tribute to our history,” she pointed out, saying that Gazprom had erected the three 179.5-meter-high flagpoles to form the world’s first ensemble of flagpoles of such a height built on water. “The trinity symbolizes the continuity of our history,” Ilyukhina emphasized.

“It’s beautiful,” Putin said appreciatively. His interlocutor also noted that as part of the comprehensive improvement of St. Petersburg Tricentennial Park’s shoreline, hydraulic works had been designed to protect the coastline from erosion. A pedestrian bridge would stretch from each of them to the shore. The project’s development and implementation required complex engineering and design solutions and innovative construction techniques.

When the Russian national anthem rang out during the ceremony, Ilyukhina continued her story. The president stopped his interlocutor’s narration with a gesture of his hand, however. He put his finger to his lips, thus asking for silence as the national anthem was played.

After [the anthem was performed], the flag of the Russian Federation, the flag of the Soviet Union, and the flag of the Russian Empire soared into the air. The raised banners are remarkable for their immense size: each width of cloth is slightly larger than half of a football field: sixty by forty meters. Each flag weighs almost half a ton.

St. Petersburg Tricentennial Park is the youngest in the city. It was founded in 1995 to commemorate the three hundredth anniversary of the city’s founding [which did not occur until 2003]. [The then-Petersburg mayor] Anatoly Sobchak and future president Vladimir Putin each planted a tree.

According to Ilyukhina, as part of the project for improving the city’s coastal area, they are now planning to work on the park’s shoreline, including building a water sports base and equipping the beach, sports grounds, and walking paths.

Source: “Putin watches from boat as flags of Russian Federation, USSR, and Russian Empire raised in St. Petersburg,” TASS, 17 June 2023. Translated by the Fake News Tsar. Photo courtesy of the Military Review (Voennoe Obozrenie). Thanks to frequent TRR Marina Varchenko for the heads-up. Earlier today (18 June 2023), another frequent TRR contributor, Sergey Abashin, posted this panorama of “Three Flags over St. Petersburg” in an album of snapshots he entitled “as if nothing is happening.” The Lakhta Center skyscraper complex is all too visible in the background.

Harvey Danger, “Flagpole Sitta” (1998)

I had visions, I was in them
I was looking into the mirror
To see a little bit clearer
The rottenness and evil in me

Fingertips have memories
Mine can’t forget the curves of your body
And when I feel a bit naughty
I run it up the flagpole and see who salutes
(But no one ever does)

I’m not sick but I’m not well
And I’m so hot ’cause I’m in Hell

Been around the world and found
That only stupid people are breeding
The cretins cloning and feeding
And I don’t even own a TV

Put me in the hospital for nerves
And then they had to commit me
You told them all I was crazy
They cut off my legs, now I’m an amputee, God damn you

I’m not sick but I’m not well
And I’m so hot ’cause I’m in Hell
I’m not sick but I’m not well
And it’s a sin to live so well

I wanna publish ‘zines
And rage against machines
I wanna pierce my tongue
It doesn’t hurt, it feels fine
The trivial sublime
I’d like to turn off time
And kill my mind
You kill my mind, mind

Paranoia, paranoia
Everybody’s coming to get me
Just say you never met me
I’m running underground with the moles, digging holes
Hear the voices in my head
I swear to God it sounds like they’re snoring
But if you’re bored, then you’re boring
The agony and the irony, they’re killing me (whoa)

I’m not sick but I’m not well
And I’m so hot ’cause I’m in Hell
I’m not sick but I’m not well
And it’s a sin to live this well
(One, two, three, four)

Source: LyricFind. Songwriters: Aaron Huffman, Evan Sult, Jeff Lin & Sean Nelson. “Flagpole Sitta” lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

The Death of Theodor Herzen

A WAKE for Theodor Herzen will take place at 11:30 a.m., Thursday, 20 April 2023, at the Chernyakhovsk District recreation center in the village of Shchegly.

Source: Chernyakhovsk NEWS (VK), 18 April 2023, via Goryushko (Telegram), 18 April 2023, where Mr. Herzen, a resident of the Kaliningrad (Königsberg) Region, is identified as the 20,700th Russian soldier whose death in combat it has confirmed using open sources. It claims to be publishing this catalogue of war dead “for meditation and as a sedative.”

History Matters, “Why Does Russia Own Kaliningrad?” (2020)

RussianPlus, “Kaliningrad, Russia: Russian People and German Heritage” (2021)

World Festival of Youth and Students

Lev Rubinstein, born 1947 in Moscow, as photographed in 2017 by Natalia Senatorova. Courtesy of Wikimedia

There should be at least some news to slightly brighten — like a mosquito-sized flashlight — the gloomy hopelessness of the current media landscape.

So, this morning a news item flashed across my screen that seemed provisionally positive and even slightly heartwarming amidst the already familiar meteor shower of news items, each one more nightmarish and ridiculous than the last.

However, this seemingly welcome news is also shipshape when it comes to absurdity.

Amid the events happening around us this bit of news struck me as quite strange. I immediately wanted to check whether it was a fake (sorry for the non-Russian word).

But it seems to be true, alright.

“In February–March 2024,” I read, “the World Festival of Youth will be held in Russia, per the decree signed by President Vladimir Putin.”

“Within three months, the government,” I read on, “should start prepping for staging the festival, as well as finding sources of funding.”

While I am amazed, to put it mildly, at the incongruity and obvious strangeness of all this, and while I imagine how the eyes of the various “preppers” and “stagers” light up when they read the word “financing,” one of my most vivid memories serves as a powerful backdrop to these spontaneous reflections of mine.

In the summer of 1957, Moscow hosted the World Festival of Youth and Students — a festival of left-wing youth organizations that had been held since 1947.

The Soviet propaganda of those years stressed the “fight for peace” as an alternative to the “aggressive policy of the imperialist West.”

In the phrase “fight for peace,” the emphasis increasingly shifted towards the word “fight.”

Be that as it may, the word “peace” [mir] in those days, in terms of the frequency with which it was used in both official and unofficial speech, knew no rivals. This is especially often and especially vividly remembered in our own time.

Be that as it may, the 1957 Moscow festival, conceived as a propaganda event, was an important and gratifying event in the life of not only the Soviet capital, but also the whole country.

“Moscow Youth Festival” (1957). Silent footage from Pathé News

I was ten years old—not so big as to understand everything, but not so little as to understand nothing.

That summer, parents were strongly recommended to take their children out of the capital. I don’t remember why I stayed in Moscow, moreover, smack dab in the center of it.

My friend and neighbor Smirnov and I would roam the streets of Moscow during the festival.

My eyes were blinded by the vividness and polychromatism. I remember an overexcited middle-aged dame grabbing the hand of a skinny Indian man. Speaking loudly and syllabically, as often happens when people talk to foreigners, she told him: “I i-dol-ize Indian cinema! Do you understand? I i-dol-ize it! Do you understand me?”

The Indian smiled and nodded his head, which was wrapped in something terribly foreign and incredibly beautiful. Then he shoved some kind of colorful pin into her hand. It is quite possible, however, that he was not from India but from somewhere else.

Smirnov and I were also given pins and postcards by foreigners. We kept them in our collections at home for many more years. Then they disappeared.

In those days it suddenly became obvious that, before the festival, we had been living in a black and white world. A spirit of unthinkable, unimaginable freedom reigned over the capital, which had become prettier and younger and had lapsed into charming frivolity.

“We Became Friends in Moscow” (1957). In Russian

The air was so supercharged with erotic energy that a year after the Moscow festival, babies of all colors of the spectrum showed up in noticeable numbers. Those babies are now all grown up.

But this was not the only trace left behind by the festival. Nor were the toponymic relics in the form of the countless “Festival Streets” and Druzhba (“Friendship”) cinemas. It was then, by the way, that First Meshchanskaya Street (“First Bourgeois Street”) was renamed Prospect Mira (“Avenue of Peace”).

Many artists of the older generation would later admit that the exhibition of modern painting brought to Moscow by the French and shown during the festival turned their ideas about art upside down and provided the first impulse to everything that is now collectively known as contemporary art. However hard the ideological leadership tried to put the “abstractionists” in their place a few years later and in subsequent years, the genie had been let out of the bottle.

After the festival, the stilyagi — the first aesthetic and, so to speak, behavioral dissidents in the Soviet Union — emerged. After the festival, the idea of fashion and fashionableness arose. After the festival, rock and roll appeared in the Soviet Union and spread around the country. After the festival, the youth subculture in our country took on distinctive features, however timid and provincial.

The Stalinist reinforced concrete (not even iron!) curtain was not flung open during the festival. Only a narrow crack opened in it, but the flow of air pouring through this crack was so powerful that it intoxicated an entire generation for many years to come.

“Khrushchev and the Avant-Gardists: from the Manege to the Manege” (1990). Artist Eli Belyutin and his colleagues look back at “30 Years of the Moscow Union of Artists,” held at the Moscow Manege in 1962. The show attracted the notice of the Soviet and foreign press, but it also angered Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. In Russian

The festival was yet another lesson about the important fact that freedom is not an absolute concept. That freedom is tangible only in the context of non-freedom. That freedom is just the feeling of freedom and nothing more. And it was this feeling that we experienced then. We were not given freedom. We were only shown it through a crack in a thick curtain.

Smirnov and I didn’t know how to articulate anything of the sort back then. We sensed this freedom in a childlike way, directly. It had appeared to us in a bright and sparkling shape that made even a New Year’s tree seem almost as tedious as a synopsis of the painting Arrived on Vacation.

There was no freedom, but there was the feeling of it then.

This powerful feeling touched even me, a ten-year-old. And for many young people from my older brother’s generation, this event largely shaped their further social and cultural evolution.

People who were twenty years older than me often recalled another brief but bright time when it seemed to many who had returned from the front, who had been able to see another world and other people, to spend time with the soldiers and officers of the allied armies, that “now everything would be different.” They also considered it a great fortune, despite the fact that they were very quickly shown who was the boss in the house, and, most importantly, who had really won that war.

Live coverage of the opening ceremony of the 12th World Festival of Youth and Students, Moscow, 1985. In Russian

History shows that when a totalitarian or authoritarian government, under the influence of certain political (most often external) circumstances, is forced to provide its citizens with a “whiff of freedom,” this is almost always followed by bouts of reaction in different shapes and guises. “You had a little breather and that’s enough!” the government seemingly says to citizens who decided that now things would be different.

Freedom, according to the great poet, comes to us naked. But when she sees that no one welcomes her with flowers and songs, she waits in vain for a while before dejectedly going home.

I cannot even really imagine the upcoming triumph of the spirit, the style and overall thrust of its staging, the number and, most importantly, the quality of its intended participants, and how the keyword of all the previous festivals, the word that begins with a “p,” and which has now become semi-forbidden, will be spun. I lack the imagination.

Source: Lev Rubinstein, “You can’t stifle this song, you can’t kill it: why Putin wants a World Festival of Youth,” Republic, 7 April 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader. The videos inserted in the article, above, were part of the original publication, but the photo of Mr. Rubinstein was not.

But Will It Con the Kids in Kathmandu?

Source: Russian House in Kathmandu (Facebook), 6 April 2023

Source: Los Angeles Popcorn Ceiling Removal

Source: Shutterstock

P.S.

Source: Saint Javelin (Twitter), 31 March 2023. Thanks to Monique Camarra (EuroFile) for the link.

P.P.S.

[…]

First, if you know someone who might like this newsletter, please forward it to them.

Next, the story. I know many people this week are focused on the killing of Russian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in St Petersburg. We are working on that (stay tuned).

But I want to talk about the long-term impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the social crisis it has caused in my country.

In this case, it’s about Ukraine’s teachers, who are facing serious salary cuts against a backdrop of high inflation, prices, rents and costs of basic services.

It’s a story about who is paying the price of Russia’s war, which has caused hundreds of billions of dollars of direct and indirect damage to Ukraine.

To do it, I spoke to teachers, local officials and trade union activists to find out how the Ukrainian government is being forced to pursue austerity – and what that means for hard-working people across the country.

I found that some local authorities are managing to pick up the shortfall in central grants – while others just can’t do it, as tax income has dropped off following the invasion.

Either way, local officials know it’s political suicide to fire people en masse, and have to scramble and scrape to get through the funding shortfall.

But it feels like a crisis postponed – rather than solved.

Read our story

Source: oDR Weekly Newsletter, 6 April 2023

RUNI (A Love-Hate Relationship)

A 20% discount for Sally Rooney’s birthday.

The promotional campaign runs from 17 to 23 February 2023.

The novels of the Irish writer are about modern youth, friendship and love. Her characters live here and now, and difficulties do not frighten them.

To get a 20% discount, follow this link or enter RUNI on the promo code page by February 23.

Source: Litres newsletter, 20 February 2023. Translated by TRR

A city of contrasts. Moscow, 2023

“Retarget Washington. RS-28 Sarmat. Sarmatmobile. For a sovereign Russia.”
The Sarmatmobile is, apparently, the work of NOD, the National Liberation Movement, who were profiled in this recent VICE News video.

Source: Igor Stomakhin (Facebook), 20 February 2023. Picture caption by TRR

Speak Speech, Speaker (The Imperialist Mindset)

One day, I hope, someone will explain to me why “progressive” Russians find the English words speak, speaker, speech, etc., so sexy and exciting that they have to incorporate them needlessly into Russian every chance they get.

Do they know that, in English, these words are less evocative than three-day-old bread, duller than dishwater?

In this case, hilariously (and awkwardly, too: “speak” appears after chas, generating an awkward phrase that translates as “hour of speak” or “speak hour,” although it’s supposed to be a play on the idiomatic phrase chas pik, meaning “rush hour”), the word “speak” adorns Sergei Medvedev’s reflections on the “imperialist mindset.”

Indeed.

Thanks to TP for this gem of Rusglish.

Below, you can watch the actual interview (in Russian, not Rusglish — well, almost), which, if for no other reason, is interesting because it was posted almost three months before Russia invaded Ukraine. ||| TRR

Historian and writer Sergei Medvedev is the program’s guest.

In an interview with Nikita Rudakov, he explained:

Why the idea of Russia’s “civilizational superiority” is so popular

Why propaganda encourages the ideological complexes of Russians

How the elite of the 2000s is trying to turn back history.

00:00 Chas Speak: Sergei Medvedev 01:40 The imperialist mindset and the idea of Russia’s greatness 06:10 Is there no place for nationalism in the imperialist mindset? 08:05 “Russia colonized itself” 14:03 The superiority of big ideas: why didn’t the USA become an empire? 21:02 The ideological complexes of Russians 25:41 “We rise from our knees via military achievements and parades on Red Square” 26:50 “Lukashenko does with us what he will”: Russia and Belarus 30:56 “Russia wants to live in the myth of 1945” 34:40 “We were unable to create a nation state”

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Source: “Sergei Medvedev: ‘We don’t have a state. We only have an imperialist format’ // Chas Speak,” RTVI Entertainment (YouTube), 9 December 2022. Annotation translated by Thomas Campbell

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Book reading and experience sharing program at Russian House

On December 29 Russian House in Kathmandu conducted a book reading and experience sharing program in collaboration with Half Tone Design Private Limited.

The event featured an interactive group discussion program with a brief introduction of the Russian library, books, authors, quotes, and poem recitation. There were over 40 people: authors, students, poets, and professors. The main purpose of the program is to build reading habits and share experiences. In the program, many of the audience suggested their favorite books, which are as follows:

1. How to win friends and influence people — Dale Carnegie, and Bhagwat Gita by Mr. Indra Prasad Adhikari.

2. Ramcharitra Manas. By Mr. Rudra Dulal.

3. Jeevan Yatra by Mr. Bhola Shrestha.

4. Muna Madan, Aamai and Paheli by Mrs. Goma Banjade.

5. Mother – Maxim Gorky by Ms. Mira Pokherel.

6. Guna Ratna Mala by Mr. Narayan Thapa.

Source: Russian House in Kathmandu, Facebook, 29 December 2022

Ukrainian officials said that over 120 Russian missiles had been launched at the country’s cities. Explosions were heard in the capital Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odessa and Zhytomyr. The mayor of Kyiv said that three people had been taken to hospital, and that 16 missiles were destroyed in flight by the city’s air defences. On the southern front Ukrainian officials urged residents of Kherson, which they liberated just six weeks ago, to evacuate their city as Russian forces escalated mortar and artillery attacks.

Source: The Economist, “The World in Brief” email newsletter, 29 December 2022

Mikhail [Lobanov] telephoned. He says that he has been charged under Article 19.3 of the Administrative Offenses Code.*

Mikhail managed to convey that during the search he was beaten in the face and chest. There was blood on the floor of the apartment.

* “Disobeying the lawful order of a police officer, a serviceman, an officer of the Federal Security Service, an officer of state security bodies, an officer of bodies exercising federal state control (oversight) in the field of migration, or an officer of a body or institution of the penal enforcement system, or an officer of the Russian Federal National Guard,” as amended on 19 December 2022.

Source: Mikhail Lobanov, Facebook, 29 December 2022. Translated by TRR

The home of Mikhail Lobanov was searched today. Mikhail’s [legal] status and the article of the criminal code [which he is being charged with or suspected of violating] are not yet known.

Mikhail was taken to the Ramenka police department.

During the search, the investigator mentioned the name Ponomarev (probably referring to Ilya Ponomarev), with whom Lobanov is not acquainted and is not connected in any way. All electronic devices were removed from the home.

The security forces quickly sawed down the door and talked with Lobanov in the apartment for more than three hours. They did not allow him to contact a lawyer, demanded that he sign some papers, and behaved heavy-handedly, Mikhail’s wife Alexandra Zapolskaya reports.

Source: Mikhail Lobanov, Facebook, 29 December 2022. Translated by TRR