The masters do not complicate things.
— And the gravediggers in «Hamlet»?
— Craftsmen!
Leonid Zorin, «Pokrovsky Gates»
Last Thursday, police outfits stood in the alleys along the entire length of Tverskaya Street. A reliable popular sign — it means that the top leadership is going somewhere.
Then the closures began. And not of the type familiar to the older generation — they closed traffic on Kutuzovsky for fifteen minutes, Leonid Ilyich drove towards the dacha in the Nemchinovka area, and opened the traffic. Here everything is fundamental and for several hours. Moscow stands to the death. On the same Tverskaya, you can get on a bus (formerly a trolleybus), pay the fare, sit for half an hour in an immobile vehicle, and get off at the same place, but not at the same hour.
The feudal lord's preferential right of passage has somewhat worsened in its scale and consequences compared to the late Soviet times. The justification, as in all other cases — from the start of the SVO to the bans on rallies due to «covid» and the blocking of media, YouTube, messengers, and finally, the internet — is one: «safety». And we know whose safety it is.
Photo: limousine from the presidential motorcade during the inauguration ceremony of Vladimir Putin, May 7, 2024. Sputnik/Valeriy Sharifulin/Pool via REUTERS
Knights of the Long Table
The head of state kept the rest of the country at the distance of a long table and a two-week quarantine. Now distancing occurs on the scale of several square kilometers, spreading as a result of the laws of physics over several dozen square kilometers — closures have always been there, but certainly not of such a catastrophic scale. And yet the president only went to an extended board meeting of the Prosecutor General's Office. From where a big hello was sent to various layers of the already paralyzed with fear «elite»:
«...Neither the official position of anyone, nor status, nor even past merits can justify breaking the law, causing harm to the state, violating the rights and legitimate interests of other citizens, including those whom we, the army, protect, and even more so violating the rights of colleagues...»
Closures, the appearance of reinforced outfits on the streets of the capital, some mobile anti-aircraft devices, endless airport closures, blocking communication and payment channels, official reports of dozens of drones shot down over Moscow. Only the characters standing right by the Kremlin walls with the imperial flag and demanding «return the flight missions to Washington», collecting signatures for... additional powers for Putin, feel calm.
And here is Sergey Shoigu's message that 56 states are conducting subversive activities against Russia. Reflections of the governor of the Sverdlovsk region Sergey Pasler that the reason for the destruction of livestock is foot-and-mouth disease, which entered Russia as part of sabotage along with German feeds. Everyone and everything is against Russia, and it is still decidedly unclear — what happened?
The main thing is that citizens must buy the main product imposed on them — threats. As «measures are strengthened» and even the construction of a «sanitary» belt around Russia, security somehow becomes not more, but less. So, it is necessary to understand the actions of the state and law enforcement officers, and at the same time tighten the belts, because security requires increasingly significant taxpayer funds.
Citizens at their own expense buy themselves a garrison state and a police state. You can even sell yourself to the «state-civilization» and become its «ally» at the same time. As Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently noted, Russia's number of allies is increasing — previously it was only the army and navy, and now also the aerospace forces and unmanned aerial vehicle forces. Soon our entire economy will be reduced to this «something was flying in the sky of silvery metal». It's a pity it's not edible.
By the way, one minister forgot the recent words of another minister — of finance, who, cataloging allies, counted three — the army, the navy, and stable finances. To support the army and navy, of course, and not for anything else. True, such a configuration contradicts financial stability — firstly, it provokes inflation, secondly, it increases unproductive expenses, thirdly, it leads to a budget deficit.
Who is Afraid of Donald Trump?
Observers often explain the spring exacerbation of prohibitive measures, very harsh and absurd, to the envy of Orwell, by the Kremlin's fear of the actions of those inclined to «change regimes». Indirectly, these fears are expressed in the worsening hostile rhetoric towards the almost ally — the Trumpist USA. Not only the «usual suspects» like Dmitry Medvedev now ironically comment on «sunny Pindostan», but even the entire foreign minister indignantly accuses the States of pushing Russia out of energy markets. It should be noted that the Obama and Biden administrations did not push Russia out of anywhere, and only Putin's great friend Trump, in his one and a half terms, destroyed the foundations not only of the world order but also invaded all those territories that the Kremlin considered its zone of influence. Apparently, the end of friendship is approaching.
It was precisely the pro-Kremlin media and masters of thought who, after the Maduro and ayatollah incidents, started talking about «we are next». No one pulled them by the tongue. But this is not an adequate analysis of the situation, but hidden fears that have come out (as well as a secret belief in the omnipotence of the USA, and at the same time «Zionists»). And supposedly these fears forced the top people, who fetishize their «safety», not only to strengthen measures to protect themselves from the rest of the world but also to cancel the internet environment and modern communications. That is, to protect themselves, finally, from their own people not only with bayonets and batons, as is customary in the classics, but also by introducing almost complete digital totalitarianism. Who are they more afraid of — Trump, who is not at all going to «change the regime» in Russia, or their own people?
The Craftsman Craft
Whether this was the motive for blocking the internet and messengers, or another — the evolution of the regime was happening before our eyes. First, they destroyed the political opposition, then they took on the external environment and «domestic» civil society. And as a result, they took on society as such, including those who believed: the matter would be limited only to liberals and other scrofulous intelligentsia, talking about unnecessary rights and freedoms of man and citizen. It was not limited — the state entered every home, not bothering with ceremonies and «rules» recorded in the Constitution of the Russian Federation. For some, it slaughtered livestock, for others, it disconnected the internet, interrupting even vital communications within families.
Even Z‑bloggers began to whine, reasoning that the liberals were right. The informer Remeslo came on stage, calling for Putin to be judged (at the same time, residents of Belgorod region called for Roskomnadzor to be judged, the main, in current times, power agency). In the epic times, forensic psychiatry was based on the fact that only a madman could criticize Soviet power. Therefore, blogger Remeslo, whether he is a provocateur or not, ended up, accordingly, in a mental hospital.
Part of the liberal public immediately for some reason decided that the regime was shaken by this story, it would soon fall, and Putin was almost in the refrigerator. If one of the owners of the shaky tripods in the anxious offices of the Kremlin decided to exchange them for the dubious comfort of the Serbsky Institute's wards, then such conclusions could be made. But not in connection with the craft of Remeslo.
«I'm Tired of All This»
If anything reflected the story of this person, it was either the new old technologies of Chekist operations or the extreme fatigue of society from everything happening with the release of suppressed internal hysteria. If suddenly Remeslo is not a claquer and not a planted circus duck — this is just an expression of the opinion that is slowly (very slowly) ripening under the cover of the spiral of silence. The spreading fatigue across the country (52% of respondents of the «Levada Center», answering the question about what feelings they personally have now about the SVO, chose the answer «I'm tired of all this») does not pose a direct and immediate threat to the regime. However, the accumulation of dissatisfaction «increasingly», especially against the backdrop of chronic stagflation and a sense of one's own powerlessness in the face of permanent humiliations (which include the disconnection of the communication environment), cannot but occur.
Maybe someone believes that foot-and-mouth disease was brought into the country by German poisoners or some other «doctor-killers», but part of the population is beginning to suspect that the beast lizard in the form of the native Leviathan may well be the true source of problems and the permanently depressive state of everything around.
No one argues — «We have never lived so poorly as under Obama». But why are we living poorly under Trump too? Something doesn't add up. Trump definitely did not turn off the internet, and he did not poison the cows, he has another, fatter game in mind.
So who is to blame for everything?
* Andrey Kolesnikov is considered a «foreign agent» by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.