Russian Fairy Tales Holding Back Russian Economy, Central Bank Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 16 – Sergey Shevtsov, the first deputy head of the Russian Central Bank, says that a major reason why Russians are not inclined to work hard and instead count on good luck to get them to where they want to go is because they accept the lessons that Russian fairy tales teach.

            In testimony to the Duma’s financial affairs committee, the central banker said that despite improvements in the financial literacy of Russians, “people all the same will do incorrect things. We tell children about the gold fish and about the pike.” Such stories have unfortunate consequences (mskagency.ru/materials/2854053).

            “Just look,” they suggest. “The older brother works – he’s a fool; the  middle brother works – he’s a fool too, but the younger brother sits on the stove and then catches a pike and with him all is fell.” Children imbibe this message and they grow up and participate in the economy.

            What’s necessary, Shevtsov said, is to avoid stories that give such lessons and find others that encourage Russians to work rely on themselves and work hard.

            It is highly unlikely that Russian parents will take his advice and stop reading their favorite fairy tales to their children. Instead, it is far more likely that they will see this piece of advice as yet another example of the inadequacy of Russian officials.

            Two other pieces of advice Russians were offered in these days, one by a senior hierarch of the Moscow Patriarchate and a second by an archpriest in the Pskov bishopric, are likely to have the same effect – or perhaps even more so.

                In the first, Bishop Panteleimon, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for charity and social service, told young people engaged to be married should never kiss until after the marriage ceremony. That his proposal was more than his own is suggested by the fact that it was published on the Patriarchate’s official portal (politsovet.ru/61495-v-rpc-prizvali-rossiyan-ne-celovatsya-do-venchaniya.html).

            Kissing, the churchman suggested, rapidly leads to other things; and those things should be kept within marriage where they are blessed by God.

            And in the second, a woman who was runover in Pskov by a drunken priest who then fled the scene was told by a priest representing the bishopric there that she should consider that perhaps the accident was all her fault and that she was even being punished for here sins by God (newsru.com/russia/16jan2019/dtp.html).

                The woman remains in hospital with severe injuries and faces more surgery.  The priest’s words in this regard were hardly those of comfort that she might have expected. So far, even though the authorities have a video of the swerving car hitting her, the local police have not brought charges against the priest, so perhaps he enjoys protection of a kind God doesn’t usually provide.

            Those who hear this story – and it has appeared on a number of outlets – are certainly going to draw their own conclusions as well.