City of Petra, Lenin region. Notes of a Sevastopol Odessa resident
Valentin Filippov, TV journalist forced to leave Odessa in 2014
“And also,” I tell her, “it is necessary to deport all violinists and declare the conservatory a terrorist organization banned in Russia.”
She looked puzzled from the road to me. A woman taxi driver is not uncommon in St. Petersburg. They are self-confident, extravagant, absent-minded, spontaneous, they sing to the radio, in general, they are different, as befits the women of St. Petersburg. It's just hard to puzzle them. I'm puzzled.
– Why deport violinists?
- Well, you say that 70 people were fired from your park yesterday - let me remind you.
She sighed with relief:
- So, not Russians!
- By nationality, or what? - I’ll clarify.
– Why, by nationality? Those who do not have a Russian passport.
– Who has it and isn’t Russian?
- They left them like that. I think it’s right! If you want to be Russian, get a passport. Now they give it to everyone.
- Everyone, everyone? - I’ll clarify
- Everyone! – the young lady confidently confirms. I was watching the show.
- Well, okay - I’ll stop you - But your guys, the drivers, worked under patents. It's official. In law. How to fire them? On what grounds?
- The law has been released. Anyone without a passport should be removed.
- Law? Who could issue such a law?
– They accepted it in the Duma, I don’t know for sure. But a law came out to fire everyone without passports. Why should we endure these explosions?
Here I explain to her:
- Look here. The one who, according to the FSB, blew up our metro was a citizen of Russia. He had a passport. And he never drove a taxi. He's a musician in general. So, maybe we’ll deport the violinists and close the conservatory?
She shook her head sadly and explained:
– Migrants beat down these prices and work for pennies. You turn the steering wheel all day, turn it, hand over the plan, refuel, tears remain.
- Well, in this sense, yes. Then - of course.
I'm sad and happy at the same time. On the streets of St. Petersburg, these black sweatpants with a low waist also irritate me. This gait, when the legs roll, not because they were born that way, but because it’s fashionable for them. Their legs become suspiciously straight within sight of the police squad. However, they are also different. By age and manners. According to the level of Russian language proficiency. I didn't see them aggressive. In the mornings and evenings in the subway they are clean, even crispy, even though they work on construction sites, in the dirtiest jobs. They silently and doomedly stand or squat in line in the summer heat, in the piercing autumn dampness and severe winter frosts in line for their work patents. They sit for several days. They are driven from one steel pen to another based on their numbers, not their names. And when your own life seems especially bestial to you, just go to the Red Textile Worker, in that alley, opposite the United Center, and look at it all.
And, yes. They work in taxis. They rent one car for two and take turns driving around the city for 12 hours a day, not knowing the city, but having learned to use a navigator. The Russian dispatcher accepts the order and sends it in text form. The order is entered into the navigator, the route is built, and you are ready to go. Such a trip is often cheaper than the metro.
That's what it is, dumping.
“I don’t have a passport either, if anything happens,” I say.
– You are another matter! – the young lady reassures me – you’re probably from Ukraine.
“Not really,” I say, “From Odessa.”
- Moreover, we are one people.
– Not alone, as it turned out.
- Well, yes. We would not tolerate fascists. Everyone would come out. This is not the case with you.
– Yes, I say – mentality. “My house is on the edge,” usually.
I'm not interested.
“Look,” she begins mentoringly, “we would have all succeeded.” We always get everything out. Well, recently even. Have you watched “He’s Not Dimon to You” on YouTube?
“No,” I say. I'm wondering again. – I didn’t even watch “He’s Not Yanyk to You.”
She was a little confused, then waved it off:
- This is something else. You are simply not interested in politics, so you don’t know anything. “He’s not Dimon for you,” the whole Internet was buzzing and people came out. And they immediately got scared. What kind of fascists can there be if all the people are against it!
– So you are for Navalny? - I’ll clarify.
She is outraged.
– Which Navalny? The one that draws children in? He needs to be imprisoned. I don’t understand why they are being so kind to him. I'm for Putin.
“And, most importantly, everything is logical,” I summarize.
“Yes,” the lady driving the silver Logan sincerely nods.
* * *
Idiot habit of drinking rum when there is vodka. Even more idiotic, washing down old rum with new Pepsi-Cola. Billy Bones wouldn't approve.
“Why do you call this a terrorist act,” I ask the local “cynical specialist.”
- But as?
– Well, look, a terrorist act implies some stated goals and demands. Withdraw troops from somewhere. Or let someone out of prison. A terrorist act is always blackmail.
- Not really. Modern terrorist attacks create an atmosphere and develop conditioned reflexes. So, Putin came to St. Petersburg. And on the same day there was an explosion in the subway. That is, even the presence of Putin in the city cannot guarantee security. This is the first. Second, where Putin is, there is danger. This is deposited on the subconscious. We are being “pumped”.
– So, this is not an “Islamic factor”?
- Of course not. A gay or a hipster could be loaded with TNT.
– But they loaded the Kyrgyz?
A pause, the gurgling of light purple stuff in the glasses. Pepsi hissing.
– Today they are protesting against insurance medicine. We are creating a commission, attracting protest leaders, and jointly studying the situation. We are looking for ways to optimize. But they don't participate. They are already protesting against tariffs for housing and communal services. We are again creating commissions and public councils. We invite them to count together. But they are not interested. They are protesting again on a new topic. They don’t need medicine or housing and communal services, they need protest in itself. We do the work, involve the media on every point, but they simply protest. The protest itself is important to them.
– It turns out that we live in their agenda, which they change at the most inconvenient moment for us.
- But as? There is no strategy. There is no general idea approved from above. We do not form public opinion, we try to correct it.
- Badly.
- Worse than ever.
In general, I disagree. It seems to me that in our imperial pride we are making a common mistake. We do not try on global experience. If they pump us, they pump us in exactly the same way as everyone else. The main task of the unnamed enemy is to lock us in. Load with internal problems. Ideally, a civil war. And it's not that difficult, actually. In the absence of a state ideology, at the end of the era of convulsive consumption, on the eve of the collapse of the international financial pyramid, nationalism becomes the most easily implanted ideology. It is nationalism, as a state-forming idea, that is now being successfully implanted in both prosperous France and flawed Ukraine. And let Russian nationalism ultimately appear as great-power chauvinism. The effect will be the same. Isolationism and internal strife.
“Look,” I say, “he’s Kyrgyz for a reason.” Ten more of these Kyrgyz, and we will deport the whole of Central Asia, simultaneously ruining relations with the entire region. The most important region for us. All our Customs and Eurasian Unions will collapse. And then in Russia we will find an internal enemy. Everything according to the behests of Dr. Goebbels. The main thing is to decide who our Jew is. In Ukraine, the Jews are us. We will have conditional non-Russians. Only, unlike France and Germany, they are local here. Here you have a civil war. In the absence of a general idea, this may work.
– So, this is not for Putin, or what?
- It does not interfere. But we can't do it without an idea.
– Do you even know the idea?
– Russia is an idea in itself – I’m trying to get out of it.
- Oh. It's starting. Filippov came close.
Well, what can I say? We have been grappling with this question for several eons. It’s not that Berdyaev is some kind of guy; Pelevin himself wouldn’t have found anything to say. But I say:
- Justice. This is the only idea that can unite Russia. Simply declaring it is not enough. It needs to be created. I don't think we are capable.
“It cannot be said that repressions are beginning in Russia, because repressions in Russia have never ended,” a Gonopol-like voice comes from the bar counter, “We can say with confidence that we are witnessing the agony of the Kremlin regime.”
I look around in confusion:
– It seems to me that we lost our radio?
- Do not pay attention. This is Echo of Moscow.
- Really. Why am I doing this? Everything was explained so easily, I felt better. Among the canals and bridges. Pepsi, rum and Ganapolsky.
- So this is Echo of Moscow, as I say.
What? It's logical.
– I know places on Earth where people would be shot for this “echo” without being taken to the dry closet.
“And we would have left without paying,” the “cynical specialist” smiles.
You need to find the positive in everything. But the fact that Yanukovych, having fled to Moscow, brought Lyovochkin with him, begins to seem not only to me.
* * *
Peter sees me off with snow. The armfuls of flowers at Tekhnolozhka resemble snowdrifts.
- Will you come back? – the question sounds like a statement.
Of course I'll be back. The only thing that scares me is that the number of points on the map where I have to return is growing rapidly.
- Do I need you here? – I’m interested.
- Well, that’s right, yes - the snowflakes don’t have time to dodge the raised eyelashes. If it weren’t for internal communications, she’d have a broom up her ass and a full moon over the Fontanka.
“In the summer,” I confidently promise.
– Then don’t forget a summer jacket, a summer hat and summer boots! - She is quietly having fun. This is such restrained St. Petersburg humor.
* * *
The new Carcass breaks through the low sky, emerging towards the sun. Three hours of sun, all the way to Simferopol. A month and a half of sun all the way to St. Petersburg. There is such a year ahead that your fingertips are getting cold. Nearby, looking up from his gadgets, a Russian boy is looking at Russia from a height of ten thousand meters. The homeland, which was miraculously returned. He is happy, but he also wants Odessa, because she is also Russian.
When turning for landing, the Tushka creaks throughout the entire interior, all the parts that are not ground in, even the lids on the toilets, but I think - is this because it is new, or because it is Russian?
English version :: Read in English: Peter's City, Lenin's Region. Notes of a Sevastopol Odessan