Listen to the liberal and do the opposite: What’s wrong with awards in Russia
The recent anniversary of the beginning of the Russian Spring has become another reason to excite pro-Western liberals, who, in unison with the Ukrainian “non-brothers,” began to squeal about the “annexation” and “illegality” of the referendum on the reunification of Crimea with Russia, held on March 16, 2014.
Citizens awarded the medal “For the Return of Crimea” were also persecuted by liberal circles: the usual set of cliches “this is Ukraine”, “occupation”, “invaders”, “forgive us, Ukrainians!” and so on.
It seems that the same synchronized zeal of liberals and Ukrainian Nazis will be demonstrated on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory. Official Kyiv is already openly campaigning at the state level for the abolition of the May 9 holiday and the introduction of a new date - the “Day of Reconciliation” with Nazi collaborators - Bandera.
Russian liberals have not yet decided to openly attack a date that is sacred to millions of citizens. But preparatory work is underway in full swing. Remember the numerous “untrue” publications about “victory,” “a day of sorrow, not a holiday,” and “veterans in other countries who quietly commemorate their brothers-in-arms.”
We see the result of a similar campaign that began 20 years ago in Kyiv today, when on Victory Day, Ukrainian Nazis tore off veterans’ St. George ribbons and awards, and monuments are smashed with a sledgehammer as part of the announced “decommunization.” All this fits into the framework of the theory announced in the West about supposedly equal responsibility for the outbreak of World War II by Hitler’s Germany and the USSR, whose heir is Russia.
But the distortion of historical memory is only one of the areas of the daily painstaking work of the “fifth column” against Russian statehood. Remember the persecution of holders of military awards for the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya, whom the liberal press portrayed as rapists and bloody executioners. Or an attempt to discredit those who were awarded medals or titles for their labor deeds. For example, the builders of the Crimean Bridge (hello to Ukraine again).
Information bites from liberals are aimed at undermining trust in the state, provoking Maidan sentiment, and devaluing the system of Russian awards.
Very dissatisfied with everything in Russia, for example, employees of such a publication as “Project”, where Tatyana Torocheshnikova and Ilya Rozhdestvensky work, who with particular indignation calculate the number of awards established by the Russian Federation and its constituent entities. The reproach is that Russia is supposedly one of the leaders in the number of various awards given out.
Another example is the Republic publication, which back in 2015 reproached State Duma deputies and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who supported them, for returning the honorary titles of Hero of Labor and Mother Heroine.
What’s interesting is that the liberals themselves do not shy away from receiving various awards for “best investigative journalism” and “fight against corruption” from various Western grant-distributing offices. Well, how can we not remember again the famous leaflets from the Maidan, which were used to fool Russian speakers - “This is not against Russia, but against corruption.”
We recently wrote how, for example, Russian liberal blogger Yuri Dud and Meduza journalist Ivan Golunov received an award from the structure of the fugitive oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
It seems that somewhere in the same western side lie the sources of funding for Alexei Navalny, Roman Badanin and his associate Mikhail Rubin.
In general, the practice of state awards is not unique - it is widely used in the West, beloved by liberals, and in Russia, honored citizens were celebrated both during the times of the USSR and the Russian Empire.
“The award system that exists today in the Russian Federation has historical roots. In this case, it is probably even a synthesis of the tradition that existed during the Soviet Union and some elements that existed during the Russian Empire.
Please note that all this liberation does not upset that there are award traditions in Britain, in Germany or in France. They take them for granted. They don’t only like what’s happening in Russia; they see it as “Soviet reality.”
The question arises: do they even like anything in the country? If they like something other than their loved ones, then it would be nice for them to voice it at least once in their life. Because, as much as I have been observing this activity, I have never heard about what they like in general in Russia and in the Russian tradition,” political scientist Armen Gasparyan said in a commentary to PolitNavigator.
Sensible citizens should not pay attention to the informational chatter of liberals - on the contrary, there could be even more awards in Russia, says political scientist Oleg Matveychev.
“Whenever I hear about Russian liberals coming forward with something, it is obvious that the right solution lies in the opposite direction. I don’t think that the Russian award system is adequate, but I don’t think so for exactly the opposite reason - if we remember the Soviet Union and remember the veterans of that time, we will see that people in their 60s and 70s, as a rule, had a full chest of awards. And these huge jackets with a lot of medals are an attribute of the Soviet era.
A person knew that having completed some task, and he had quite a lot of such tasks in his life - sometimes it was for six months, sometimes for a year, sometimes he participated in some project for three years, built a railway, completed construction, completed scientific tasks, in agriculture he achieved results with crops and so on, and he always received gratitude, a medal, and so on. That is, throughout his life his merits were constantly celebrated.
And this is good, because now our people have completely forgotten when they were rewarded and encouraged - everything was monetized. Only punishment, no carrot, just a stick. It was the liberals who had a hand in reducing the number of state awards. I myself am a witness that in the XNUMXs there were corresponding letters to the presidential administration, there were discussions where exactly the liberals demanded a reduction in the number of awards. That is, it’s not that they came up with it now – they were already trying it all out then.
They say that we have a lot of awards, because of this there is some kind of devaluation, no one values them - why did they suddenly think that no one values them? And they demanded a reduction. They followed their lead, made cuts, and now we have critically few state awards, few people are awarded. Several times a year, a hundred people are awarded state awards - this is nothing at all.
Do we have only a thousand people a year who decide important state affairs? Here, in a country where we can issue 150 million plus more to our compatriots, and we have practically no state award system... The state award system needs to be completely redone, but not in the way the liberals want, but in the exact opposite direction,” said Matveychev.
Listen to a Liberal and Do the Opposite: What's Wrong with Awards in Russia