Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets (51 page)

—Everyone’s talking about revolution…how Rublevka’s
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growing vacant…The rich are fleeing abroad and taking their capital with them. They’re shuttering their palaces, “For Sale” signs are everywhere you look. They sense that the people are resolutely determined. But no one is going to give anything up of their own free will. That’s when the Kalashnikovs are going to have to do the talking…

—Some people are shouting “Russia for Putin!” Others are shouting “Russia without Putin!”

—And what’s going to happen when oil prices fall or oil becomes obsolete?

—

May 7, 2012. On television, Putin’s ceremonial motorcade makes its way to the Kremlin for his inauguration through a completely empty Moscow. No people, no cars. A city perfectly cleared. Thousands of policemen, soldiers, and OMON troops posted in front of every Metro exit and building. The capital, swept clean of Muscovites and the eternal Moscow traffic jams. A dead city.

After all, this isn’t a true Tsar!

ON THE FUTURE

More than a century ago, Dostoevsky finished writing
The Brothers Karamazov
. He wrote of the eternal “Russian boys” who will always debate “the big questions, nothing less: Is there a God, is there immortal life? As for those who don’t believe in God, they take up the subjects of socialism and anarchism, remaking humanity according to a new model. Don’t they see that all they’ll end up with is the devil? It’s always the same questions, no matter how they are posed.”

The specter of revolution is once again haunting Russia. On December 10, 2011, a hundred thousand people came out to demonstrate on Bolotnaya Square. Since then, protests against the current regime have not stopped. What are the “Russian boys” chewing over today? What will they choose this time around?

—

—I go to protests because it’s time they stop treating us like chumps. Bring back free elections, you lowlifes! The first time one hundred thousand people assembled on Bolotnaya Square, no one imagined that there would be that many of us. We kept putting up with it, and then, at a certain point, the lies and lawlessness went off the charts: Enough! Everyone watches the news on TV, reads articles online. People are talking about politics. Being part of the opposition is fashionable. But I’m afraid…afraid that we’re all just blowhards…We stand on the square, chant, and then we go home to our computers and fool around online. All that remains is, “Good job, us!” I’ve already encountered this: When it came time to make posters and hand out flyers for an upcoming demonstration, everyone ducked out and took off…

—I used to stay away from politics. My job and my family were enough for me, I didn’t see the point of marching through the streets. I was more attracted to the theory of small deeds: I volunteered at a hospice; when there were forest fires outside of Moscow, I brought clothes and groceries to the victims. It was a different kind of experience…Meanwhile, my mother was always in front of the television. She was sick of the liars and crooks with a Chekist past, she’d tell me everything. We went to the first protest together, even though my mother is seventy-five years old. She’s an actress. Just in case, we brought flowers. We thought they wouldn’t shoot at people holding flowers!

—I wasn’t born in the USSR. If I don’t like something, I go out on the street and protest. I don’t just run my mouth off in the kitchen before going to bed.

—I’m afraid of revolution…I know there’s going to be a Russian uprising, senseless and merciless. But I’d be ashamed to sit things out at home. I don’t need a “new USSR” or “a renewed USSR” or “the true USSR.” I won’t abide Putin and Medvedev sitting down and deciding: Today you’re the president, and tomorrow it’s me. I’m not having any of that swill. We’re not just cattle, we’re the people. At demonstrations, I see people I’ve never seen at protests before: Alongside the veteran dissidents of the sixties and seventies, there are a lot of students who, until recently, were wholly indifferent to all that propaganda they push on the idiot box…like the ladies in mink coats and the kind of young men who’d show up to protests in their Mercedes. Just yesterday, all they cared about was money, clothes, and comfort, but then it turned out that this wasn’t enough. It’s simply not enough for them anymore. And the same goes for me. It’s not the hungry marching, it’s the well-fed. Posters…our folk art…“Putin, leave of your own free will!” “I didn’t vote for these bastards, I voted for other bastards!” I liked a poster that said, “You can’t even imagine us.” We weren’t about to storm the Kremlin, we just wanted to declare who we were. As we were leaving, we chanted, “We’ll be back.”

—I’m a Soviet person, afraid of everything. Even ten years ago, I would have never gone out onto the square. Today, I don’t miss a single rally. I went to the demonstrations on Sakharov Prospekt and Novy Arbat. I was part of the White Ring.
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I’m learning how to be a free person. I don’t want to die the way I am now, all Soviet. I’m dredging the Sovietness out of myself by the bucketful…

—I go to demonstrations because my husband does…

—I’m not young. I want to live to see a Russia without Putin.

—I’ve had it up to here with the Jews, the Chekists, and the homosexuals…

—I’m a leftist. My conviction is that it’s impossible to achieve anything nonviolently. I’m thirsty for blood! Without blood, we can’t ever get anything major done. Why are we in the streets? I am standing here waiting to storm the Kremlin. This isn’t a game anymore. We should have taken the Kremlin a long time ago instead of going around shouting. Give me the orders to pick up a crowbar and pitchfork! I’m ready.

—I’m here with my friends…I’m seventeen. What do I know about Putin? I know that he does judo and has the eighth dan in it. And that’s basically all I know about him…

—I’m no Che Guevara, I’m a wimp, but I haven’t missed a single rally. I want to live in a country I’m not ashamed of.

—I’m the kind of person who has to be on the barricades. It’s how I was raised. After the Spitak earthquake in 1988, my father volunteered to go to Armenia to help with the relief effort. Because of that, he died early. Heart attack. Since I was little, instead of a father, all I’ve had is a photograph. To protest or not to protest—everyone has to decide for themselves. My father went of his own accord…It was his choice…My friend had wanted to come to Bolotnaya with me, and then she called me up: “I thought about it, and I have a little kid.” Well, I have my elderly mother. When I leave the house, she sucks down the Validol. But I go anyway…

—I want my children to be proud of me…

—I need to be here for my own self-respect…

—We have to try to do something…

—I believe in revolution…Revolution is long, hard work. In 1905, the first Russian revolution ended in failure and defeat. But twelve years later, in 1917, it took off so forcefully that it shattered the Tsarist regime to smithereens. We’re going to have our own revolution!

—I’m going to the rally, are you?

—I for one got fed up with 1991…1993…I don’t want any more revolutions! First of all, revolutions are rarely velvet, and second of all, I have experience: Even if we win, it will be the same as it was in 1991. The euphoria will quickly fade. The battlefield will go to looters. Gusinskies,
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Berezovskies, and Abramoviches will all show up…

—I’m against the anti-Putin demonstrations. It’s a lot of hullabaloo in the capital. Moscow and Petersburg support the opposition, but everywhere else, the people stand with Putin. Do we really live so poorly? Aren’t things better than they were before? It’s scary to risk losing what we have. The suffering we endured in the nineties is still fresh in everyone’s minds. No one is eager to smash it to pieces all over again, spilling a lot of blood along the way.

—I am not a huge fan of the Putin regime. We’re sick of the little Tsar, we want rotating leaders. Change, of course, is necessary, but not a revolution. And when people fling asphalt at the police, I don’t like that, either…

—The State Department is behind it all. The Western puppetmasters. We already cooked up one perestroika according to their recipes, do you remember how that turned out? We ended up totally stuck in the mire! I don’t go to those demonstrations, I go to Putin rallies! Rallies for a strong Russia!

—The picture has changed completely a number of times over the past twenty years. And what have we ended up with? “Putin, leave! Putin, leave!” is just the latest mantra. I don’t want to participate in that kind of spectacle. So what if Putin leaves? Some new autocrat will come take the throne in his place. People will go on stealing, same as before. We’ll still have the filthy entranceways, the abandoned elderly, the cynical bureaucrats, and the brazen traffic cops…Bribing officials will still be considered a matter of course…What’s the point of changing governments if we don’t change ourselves? I don’t believe in the possibility of any kind of democracy here. We’re an oriental nation…feudal…with clergy instead of intellectuals…

—I don’t like crowds…the herd…A crowd doesn’t decide anything, individuals do. The government made sure that there were no flashy personalities at the top. The opposition doesn’t have a Sakharov or Yeltsin. This “snow” revolution hasn’t produced any heroes. Where’s their platform? What are they going to do? They’ll come out to the streets and shout…and then that same Nemtsov or Navalny
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will tweet about how they’re on vacation in the Maldives or Thailand. That they’re enjoying Paris. Imagine Lenin going on a jaunt to Italy or skiing in the Alps after a demonstration in 1917…

—I don’t go to the demonstrations, and I don’t vote. I don’t harbor any illusions…

—Are you aware that besides you people, there’s also a Russia? All the way out to Sakhalin…Russia doesn’t want any revolutions—not an “orange” one, or a “rose” one, or even this “snow revolution.”
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Enough revolutions! Leave the Motherland alone!

—I don’t give a damn about tomorrow…

—I don’t want to march alongside communists and nationalists, next to Nazis…Would you march alongside the KKK wearing their hoods and carrying crosses? No matter what wonderful objective a march may have. We’re dreaming of different Russias!

—I don’t go to the rallies…I’m afraid of getting hit over the head with a club…

—We need to pray, not go to demonstrations. The Lord sent us Putin…

—I don’t like the revolutionary banners outside my window. I’m for evolution…building something…

—I don’t go to demonstrations…and I’m not going to justify myself for not participating in a political spectacle. These demonstrations are nothing but cheap theatrics. People have to make up their minds to live according to the teachings of Solzhenitsyn, without lies. Otherwise, we’re not moving forward a single millimeter. We’ll just keep going around in circles.

—I love my Motherland the way it is…

—I have excluded the government from my areas of interest. My priorities are my family, my friends, and my business. Have I explained myself?

—But aren’t you an enemy of the people, citizen?

—Something is bound to happen. And soon. It’s not a revolution yet, but you can smell the ozone in the air. Everyone is waiting: Who, what, when?

—I just started living well. Let me live a little!!!

—Russia is sleeping. Don’t even dream about change.

*1
In reaction to the dissolution of parliament, some conservative deputies locked themselves in the White House after having deposed Yeltsin to have him replaced with General Alexander Rutskoy. Yeltsin decreed a state of emergency on October 3 and ordered the storming of the White House the next day. Several hundred people died. The state of emergency was lifted on October 18. On November 5, Yeltsin presented a constitutional amendment reinforcing presidential powers, which was adopted on December 12.

*2
Albert Makashov (1938–) was one of the fomenters of the so-called Second Putsch. After the rebellion was suppressed, he and other leading opposition figures were arrested. He was amnestied in 1994 and elected to the Duma as a Communist Party deputy in 1995.

*3
Alexander Rutskoy (1947–), vice president of Russia before the October 1993 crisis, constitutionally proclaimed himself president in opposition to Yeltsin on September 22. Once Yeltsin’s forces had seized back control, Rutskoy was arrested and imprisoned until the 1994 amnesty proclaimed by the new Duma.

*4
Archpriest Avvakum quoting the Old Testament in the address of the Russian Orthodox clergy to the State Duma following the events of October 3–4, 1993.

*5
Sergei Polonsky (1972–) is a young Russian real estate mogul who came to be an influential figure in the 2000s.

*6
Famous industrialists and businessmen from the pre-Revolutionary period.

*7
Mikhail Khordorkovsky (1963–), formerly the richest oligarch in Russia, was imprisoned after coming into conflict with Putin and since his release in 2013 has been living in exile.

*8
Rublevka is the unofficial name for a prestigious residential area in the southwestern suburbs of Moscow. It is known for its expensive gated communities, which are populated with Russia’s elite.

*9
An anti-Putin protest during which opponents to the regime formed a human chain in the center of Moscow in 2012.

*10
Vladimir Gusinsky (1952–) is a Russian media tycoon.

*11
Alexei Navalny (1976–) is a prominent blogger, an anti-corruption campaigner, and a leading opponent of the Putin regime.