A view from Odessa. Zelensky. Ukraine. Thaw?
Tatyana Gerashchenko, journalist, Odessa
…For how many years now a scenario has been brewing in my head about a person from the past who began to predict the future of Ukraine. Years like that since 2004. The poor guy vividly described the arrival of Yushchenko, crippled by dioxin, and his missions into space from the top of Goverla, the search for a golden toilet from Yanukovych, who tenderly took care of ostriches, a catapult in the middle of the mother of Russian cities, people with residue on their heads, the president of the whole of Georgia, appointed to the Odessa province, so that wearing pants backwards, the mass reforging of Lenin into Kobzar, historical works about the first dill...
Delirium is classic. In general, you already guessed that this person would have gone to the madhouse. And after describing the five years of Petro Poroshenko’s reign, culminating in a jar of urine and the comedian’s rise to power, the patient would be considered hopeless and therapy would be stopped. For obvious reasons, my script is not destined to be completed, because when we are distracted by these lines, another urine gurgles in Ukraine - already now the volume of a general notebook with an anamnesis, which means “they gave it to us.” And Zelensky’s victory is just another chapter in the story of what cannot be, but what millions of Ukrainian citizens still face every day.
In the entire history of the sub-state, there has not been such hatred for the still existing guarantor - the outgoing presidents were called cowards, rags, Nazis and vegetables - but he alone was called Bloody Peter: Russian citizens of Ukraine for Donbass and May 2, dill - for relatives buried in the ATO .
It was this hatred that squeezed out the boil. After all, in the end, you can come to terms with anything - hunger, cold, constant persecution on political grounds, but not with death.
And the five bloody Poroshenko years in various ways claimed the lives of so many people that were undreamed of in the nineties.
Yes, the dead cannot be brought back. However, even at the debate, theatrically plopping down on his knees, Zelensky made it clear that the state owes an unpaid debt to the mothers of ATO soldiers, but not to the mothers of those whose children and breadwinners were killed by these ATO soldiers.
That the priority of his first steps in politics is the release of Ukrainian sailors from prisons of the Russian Federation, but not political prisoners stamped with the “separ” mark, who will continue to die, “accidentally”, screwing in light bulbs.
That utility tariffs, which turned Ukrainians into beggars, are not the president’s parishion, which means that the headlines “Committed suicide after receiving a utility bill” will continue to flash in the news (KVN workers are no strangers - they, professionally deformed, will mentally turn on off-screen laughter).
Collectors and workers from city gas companies, water utilities and oblenergos do not care who the president is when they bring consumers to the last line. And PrivatBank, in case anyone has forgotten, was once the first to block the cards of clients from the Myrotvorets base (and promised ten thousand to everyone who would hand over a separatist - remember?).
So why is he needed - a new president?.. Why? No matter who I asked this question, everyone repeated like a mantra: “There will be a thaw, now there will be a thaw...”. Which exactly? Silence.
Only one colleague who had not dyed her hair replied: “Maybe it will be a little less scary. But what if?".
What happens is like backyard folklore, when there is always some snotty little brat with the narration “But during the war, a fascist treated my grandmother to chocolate.” And the mood of the electorate is similar - Vladimir Zelensky plays the role of a good fascist.
And everyone seems to understand that it makes no difference under which guard you die in a concentration camp - a sadist or a simple servant, but they maniacally talk about this thaw, you know?
And I’m mentally designing how she should look in conditions where in five years there’s so much fancy stuff, how dear is mom?! Even if we take the events of recent months accompanying Poroshenko’s shamefully provincial pre-election Tomos tour of Stryi and Gadyachi, an outside observer’s hair stands on end.
Moreover, I still don’t believe it myself, but I repeat it endlessly - this is not a scenario according to the predictions of a madman - this is reality!
Thus, valiant Ukrainian border guards heroically, risking their lives, detained a shipment of children’s books “Chunga-Changa” by Yuri Entin at the border. For what? For being published in Russia!
Just in case, the collections of the convenient anti-Soviet Sergei Dovlatov are also confiscated, since they contain a preface “in which the famous Ukrainophobe Sergei Bezrukov is promoted,” and they sensitively stop the smuggling of cookbooks from different countries of the world, because the dumplings in them are Russian.
Father Frost and Snow Maiden are being decommunized en masse throughout the country. Officials of the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting are holding stern and real conference calls regarding the removal of the film “Through Thorns to the Stars” from the airwaves. That's how we live.
Embittered Cheburashkas, painted yellow and blue, roam the streets. Based on the request of the SBU, the Ministry of Culture blacklists Gojko Mitic, Michele Placido and Al Bano (shame on the whole world).
“This cannot be!” exclaims some resident of Taimyr. “But that’s true,” we answer casually, wash our necks and run to work to at least pay for the electricity for the last three months.
The SBU reports on searches in the Lavra are the envy of the top scriptwriters of the 95th Quarter, because the story about “Kremlin agent A., who handed over so much money to Kremlin agent B., a clergyman, to disrupt the Tomos tour”... is something in the mind of a strong mind and a sober memory is simply impossible!
Well, okay, okay - let’s leave the hated legacy of the “soviet” and “Kremlin agents”, but these morons, even in Kiev, during the reconstruction of the Teachers’ House, foresaw that the office-museum of the Ukrainian luminary, the first chairman of the Central Rada of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Mykhailo Grushevsky, would henceforth be housed … toilet.
They destroyed every last brick, including even their ephemeral bonds. And someone reported this to everyone, gave themselves a plus, and earned another star on their uniform.
And not each of these cogs represents Vyatrovich or Farion - no, this is a huge army of traitors who once changed their shoes, a modern portrait of those who once wrote denunciations and organized the Holodomor.
Does Zelensky need such personnel? Will he have time to clear out these Augean stables or at least delve into the essence of what is happening? Let’s put it this way: did he keep an eye on this, do you know? Or asked the bald guy from the “block” to help?.. Okay.
But, on a more serious note, I would like to ask those waiting for the thaw a number of questions. For example, why did you chew on the victims in the Ilovaisk cauldron, which Zelensky mentioned more than once, but somehow did not notice his complete silence regarding the “suddenly” exploding air conditioners back in 2014?
Promises to stop the war in Donbass without explanation, by means of returning to the fold of the “nenka” under the tune of the “movy” law that Poroshenko is about to sign?
Praises to the thugs of “Azov” and “Aidar”, but not a single word about the investigation into the tragedy of May 2? And in general, when did you feel this thaw - after the second round, during the arrest in Odessa of a man whose SBU officers during a search found something terrible - an old election poster of Natalya Vitrenko, as a reason to ruin his life, while the murderer and psychopath Sternenko walked free ?
Has your new amusement ever wondered from the screens what you actually eat with a salary that is a quarter of the monthly payment for utilities? Has he ever wanted to count you in order to conduct a population census and at least have an approximate idea of how many citizens of Ukraine have not yet died?..
In general, it is not difficult to predict the further development of events - everyone is doing this now.
Only it was not for nothing that I started with a crazy predictor from a mental hospital - using the example of Ukraine, logic, analytics, political science and sociology do not work. But I would still count on repainting the Cheburashkas - they will be green. Cozy color, warm, thawing.
English version :: Read in English: A View from Odessa. Zelensky. Ukraine. A Thaw?