Friday, May 17, 2019

Putin’s Reaction to Film about Russian Life Shows How Out of Touch He Is


Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 16 – The All-Russian Peoples Front, which this year occurred in Sochi so that Vladimir Putin could attend, showed the Kremlin leader a video about the lives of Russians today.  His reaction to it highlights how out of touch he is with the lives of ordinary Russians and how few answers he has to their problems.

            Yelena Yegorova of Moskovsky komsomolets reports that this year’s session like its predecessors focused on the implementation of national projects “which by 2024 are supposed to make the country stronger … and Russians happier” (mk.ru/politics/2019/05/16/putinu-pokazali-shokiruyushhie-video-o-zhizni-rossiyan.html).

            “To vary the format of the forum,” she continues, “the organizers decided to show Putin clips taken by regional media about the problems which are interfering with the successful implementation of the national projects in the spheres of life which are most important for citizens.”

            He was shown scenes of villages where residents can’t get medical care, schools with horrific meals, orphanages with bugs, lakes full of sewage, decaying monuments, and similar pictures of everyday Russian life. Not surprisingly, his claque, including TV star Yelena Malysheva insisted that everything is better in Russia than elsewhere.

            But Putin’s own reaction was the most instructive. As to housing problems, Putin said he himself “had lived in a building without an elevator and carried his neighbor up five flights when she couldn’t get there herself.” 

            Presented with evidence that “not one of the health care facilities residents of Crimea have been promised have yet been built,” Putin had no answer at all.  According to Yegorova, he “clearly didn’t expect that the criticism would be so raw.”  He simply fell back on talking about other things where there had been successes.

            “A journalist from Yekaterinburg asked him to comment on the situation which has arisen around the construction of a church in the city square: ‘People already have been protesting there three days. The situation is quite wild.” In response, Putin had a question for the journalist: “’What are they, godless people?”
           
            The Kremlin leader said he had heard a little about the situation in the Urals city and was surprised because “usually people ask that a church be built and here someone is against that. If these are local people, and not activists from Moscow [a classic reference to ‘outside agitators’], then their opinion should be considered.”
.           And when he was asked about the fires in Irkutsk Oblast and told that people there believe that some of the fires have been set to cover illegal logging operations, Putin was, Yegorova says, “forced to acknowledge that asking that people have the right to put the question that way.” He had no answer as to what should be done.
            At least two things about these exchanges are important. On the one hand, the activists were not afraid to confront Putin with some of the unpleasant aspects of Russian life, a development that suggests much of the magic of his figure has worn thin and those who can are prepared to challenge him.
            And on the other, Putin’s reaction showed how out of touch he is with the lives of ordinary Russians. He and his pocket television stars may be upbeat and happy in their imaginary Russia, but Russians who have to live in the real one know better – and more seriously, they can see that their president hasn’t a clue.
            One of the developments that precipitated the end of the Soviet system was the growing sense among the population that their leaders did not know what was going on in the country. Yury Andropov admitted as much, and many Soviets felt that their leaders had never set foot in the country in which they themselves had to exist.
            Apparently this pattern is being recapitulated under Putin something that may be far more corrosive of his authority than almost anything else. 

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