Chess Teaches Dangerous Lessons and Must be Banned, Some Russians Now Joke

Paul Goble

             Staunton, Jan. 9 – It is long past time for the Duma to ban chess because of the dangerous lessons it teaches young Russians, some in that country are saying. How can a game be allowed at the time of Putin that has as its main goals the capture of the queen and the forcing of the king into a place where he cannot move? They ask in a new anecdote.

            That is just one of the jokes now making the rounds in Russia that Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova has assembled (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/41781/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       Health officials say that whenever people go into the streets to protest the pandemic will get worse but that whenever they take part in pro-government demonstrations, just the reverse will happen and the virus will disappear. Go figure!

 

• Can anyone imagine the EU invading England to prevent it from leaving?

 

•    Kazakhstan President Tokayev has called on the governments of neighboring countries to kill those of their citizens who are fed up with corruption. None of the leaders of these countries has so far responded officially; but what is important is that no one has rejected the idea in public either.

 

•   In many places in Russia, the main things terrorizing people are bad roads and collapsing apartment buildings. In Saratov, people are demanding that Putin introduce an anti-terrorist campaign to stop these plagues.

 

• Russians want to know why the US only tries to overthrow dictatorial governments while Russia only tries to overthrow those which are democratic.

 

• Following Putin’s intervention in Kazakhstan, VTsIOM failed to ask whether Russians share the views of the 86 percent of the population who highly value the Kremlin leader’s move or whether they agree with the 14 percent who are demanding more decisive acitons.

 

• If you hear Russian leaders calling for war, there is only one thing you can be absolutely sure of: those doing so have never served in the military. In this regard, they are just like impotent people obsessed with sex.

 

• No one intends to build a new Soviet Union because Russia today lacks the two kinds of people that would require – idealists and fanatics. At present, Russia has not yet gone beyond a time of marauders.