Eight Russian Anecdotes for the Week

Paul Goble

Staunton, Sept. 26 – Each anecdote is a little revolution, several Soviet dissidents say. Their Russian counterparts could easily make the same observation. Russian blogger Tatyana Pushkaryeva offers eight especially instructive ones for this week (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/40909/-):

·         Moscow has decided to sanction 33 members of the US Congress. That means they won’t be able to visit resorts in Krasnodar Kray, use Russian banks, or take advantage of sales in Russian shops.

·         There are three things in Putin’s Russia that are truly eternal: the annulment of the constitution, the falsification of elections, and the making and breaking of promises to pensioners.

·         Lenin returns and asks KPRF head Gennady Zyuganov how goes it for communists under capitalism. Zyuganov replies that he and his comrades are well taken care of.

·         A pessimist says that Russians should be angry because their pay buys less today than it did yesterday, but an optimist says that they should be pleased that they can buy more today than they will be able to tomorrow.

·         A decade from now, Russia’s education minister says he’s flown around the world and can assure Russians that their schools are the best in the world. Someone in the crowd shouts how: How can you fly around it given that you are heavier than air and the earth is flat?

·         Zyuganov is the most polite politician in Russia. He politely greeted Yeltsin’s victory in 1996 and he politely greeted the results of the 2021 Duma elections. This shows that “the communist Zyuganov is a genuine aristocrat” who knows how to behave regardless of what happens.

·         “The chief of state cannot be considered an honest man when the unofficial ideology of his country includes corruption, lies, and the violation of constitutional rights and the impoverishment of his citizens. That’s the case in Nigeria – but maybe you were thinking about some other country?”

·         A Russian oligarch decides to visit Malta. His secretary goes in advance and spend enormous sums of money to clean up the beach, spruce up the hotel and ensure that breakwaters are installed so the waves are just right. His boss arrives and celebrates how wonderful it is that he can travel somewhere and that when he gets there things are perfect. “You couldn’t arrange things this well for any amount of money,” he says.