«Russians, we did it!» — such billboards appeared the day after Alexander Ovechkin broke the record for goals scored in the NHL. The forward's phrase included a broader context, in particular, he was addressing the fans present at the ice arena of the New York Islanders, meaning the universal support for his sporting achievement, but taking words out of context for the sake of fitting a PR idea is our way.
Genuine achievements are always personified. And the masses always want to identify with the hero. After all, boys and just fans wear shirts and jerseys with the names of their favorite athletes on the back. Citizenship and national affiliation also, of course, matter and elevate the collective 'we' of the nation. Since 1972, from all the speakers came the voices of Pakhmutova-Dobronravov: «We want to give our ringing names to all records!» Sport is a state affair, a weapon of soft power, an instrument of identity.
This is especially important when the nation or, rather, the regime in power, has few real achievements, or they are somewhat strange. For example, the Soviet Union was justly proud of its achievements in space, in any case, the word Sputnik, like the later concept of Perestroika, symbolizing the end of the fear of nuclear war, had quite a peaceful meaning and emphasized soft power. About the 'Oreshnik', a new means of identity, this cannot be said — it is definitely not soft power, moreover, a source of fear for the whole world.
That is why Ovechkin's peaceful goal is so important. Strictly speaking, in recent years, if not decades, this is the only achievement of Russia recognized by the world. Putin's Russia, which it gladly attributes to itself, to its collective 'we'. 'We' did it. Together we swung the stick, together we made the shot, together we hit the goal... of the Russian goalkeeper of the Islanders, Ilya Sorokin. He also did 'it', letting the puck through.
Alexander Ovechkin, New York, April 6, 2025. Photo: Adam Hunger / AP Photo / Scanpix / LETA
A Russian scored against a Russian in North America, in the best hockey league in the world, where all hockey players dream of playing. And where they are not always allowed: at the beginning of the SVO, there were problems for the brilliant forward of Minnesota Kirill Kaprizov, who saved the Russian national team from defeat in the final of the Olympics in Pyeongchang in 2018, who had to prove that he had a deferment from the army because he was studying at RANEPA; and the national team goalkeeper Ivan Fedotov was not released to the NHL by the competent authorities, he served in the army, returned from there and was again forcibly assigned to CSKA, lost his former form and now still plays in Philadelphia, but in secondary roles.
In 2022, Igor Shesterkin, the Rangers' goalkeeper, received the most prestigious award for the best goalkeeper — the Vezina Trophy. All of hockey New York was proud of him and chanted: «Igor! Igor!» Whose collective 'we' was it — the Rangers fans, the residents of New York, the Spartak fans, for whom Shesterkin once played, Russians?
Alexander Ovechkin was congratulated by everyone — from the main competitor he surpassed, Wayne Gretzky, to, of course, Putin, whose charisma Alexander boosted by once allowing himself to be involved in the PR project of the collective 'we' Putin’s Team (by the way, why not in Russian?). From Danny DeVito to Roger Federer, from Dmitry Medvedev, who suggested to the former goalkeeper Dominik Hasek, who criticized Ovechkin for political reasons, to commit suicide, to the ex-candidate for the presidency of Russia from the 'New People' Vladislav Davankov. The latest initiative of this 'new person' — to add a function in 'Yandex. Taxi' to refuse a migrant driver (taxi — 'only for whites'?) — harmonized perfectly with his congratulations: «It doesn't matter which club Ovechkin played for today. He is Russian and remains a patriot of his Motherland. Such records unite people and countries». How to understand this: should Ovechkin justify himself for not playing patriotically under one of the Rotenbergs in SKA, but has been representing the alien to the Russian person 'Washington' for two decades?
The collective 'we' is mainly fed by the past (except for Ovechkin) precisely due to the lack of achievements now. The Great Patriotic War is equated with the SVO, Gagarin's flight is still in the mass consciousness — the country's main success, inherited like a passing banner. Gagarin is also part of the collective 'we', as if we all flew into space together and said: «Let's go!» Achievements in space almost seventy years ago, which today no one is even close to repeating, remain in the mass consciousness as the calling card not of the long-gone USSR, but of Putin's Russia. This is so symbolically important that the 'resetting' of Putin's terms in 2020 was entrusted to be proposed by the first woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. (Now, in connection with Trump's threats to go for a third term, someone joked that it should be proposed by Tereshkova.)
«Yura, we fixed it!» — such graffiti appeared on the end of a five-story building on Nakhimovsky Prospekt in Moscow after the annexation of Crimea. There was nothing else to cover. More precisely, no one. Especially touching was this in the decorations of one of the classic microdistricts of Khrushchev buildings. Oh, this eternal ability to drag someone else's genuine achievements by the ears to one's own actions today. To justify destructive instincts with past creation. To appropriate the unifying factor of other generations under other leaders. It is characteristic that 'Yura' flew into space under the 'bad' Khrushchev, such successes were not observed under the 'good' Putin, although he has been leading the country two and a half times longer than Nikita Sergeyevich.
These people manage to vulgarize even Bulat Okudzhava, singing his 'Here birds do not sing...' at their propaganda events, which is an outrage against the memory of a poet and citizen with anti-war and humanistic views. But everything is thrown into the furnace of Putinism indiscriminately. They started long before the SVO with Valery Kharlamov in the vulgar film 'Legend No. 17' — the country needed heroes opposing the West, although Kharlamov was as much a hero of Canada as of the Soviet Union — he was admired just as much as Ovechkin today. Then they began to sort through the imaginary card index of standard people, of course, from the field of sports. This year they finished with a film about Irina Rodnina. Part of the collective 'we' is, of course, Vladimir Vysotsky. And he, of course, would be with 'us'. True, they do not paint him on the ends of five-story buildings. Actor-conspiracist Nikolai Burlyaev, the wonderful boy from 'Ivan's Childhood' and Boriska from 'Andrei Rublev', speculates on Andrei Tarkovsky — he, who died abroad, acutely feeling the onset of a nuclear catastrophe, is also 'ours'? Vysotsky and Tarkovsky cannot answer, so one can continue to speculate on the great 'silent ones'.
The collective 'we' cannot exist without the collective 'they'. 'They' attack us, do not love us, 'they' are soulless, 'they' cannot understand us with their minds. But with Ovechkin's record, such a clear black-and-white confrontation does not work out very well, because 'they' are also happy. With pure sporting, universal joy.
The regime turned to archaic and lives in the past. Borrowed achievements. Stolen successes. Meanwhile, February 2022 destroyed or turned into a toxic asset all possible heritage of the country — from its great writers to even what was done during the relatively successful economic post-Soviet modernization.
That is why Ovechkin's goal caused such delight and was equated almost to Gagarin's flight. The mass consciousness missed peaceful events that could justify and somehow detoxify the collective 'we'.
*Andrey Kolesnikov is considered a 'foreign agent' by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.