‘You’re Not Peter I! You’re Adolf II,’ Russians Say of Putin

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 11 – Vladimir Putin’s efforts to promote himself as a Russian leader in the style of Peter I are backfiring with at least some Russians now saying “you’re not Peter I; you’re Adolf II,” an obvious reference to the similarities between the current Kremlin leader and the fuehrer of the Third Reich.

            This is perhaps the sharpest but far from the only suggestive Russian anecdote Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova offers in her latest collection (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/43161/i). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       Putin has transformed Russia into a real wonderland where everything means something other than it is supposed to, but his greatest achievement is still ahead: after he dies, the entire country will immediately fly to a paradise of one kind or another.

 ·       A senior Duma deputy has propose doing away with science-based medicine and using traditional cures instead. He may not succeed in doing that, but he has made an important contribution to the task of giving the deputies yet another victory over those who write anecdotes.

 

·       A young Muscovite woman escaped arrest for having a backpack showing the colors of the Ukrainian flag when she was able to show that her New Balance sneakers had something that looked like “a z.” The police knew they didn’t dare arrest her given that.

 ·       The Russian government has finally show that it favors torture and will support jailors who use it. It has done so by banning the Committee against Torture. If the regime is against that group, it is all too obvious what it is for.

 ·       Yet another Russian paradox is emerging: Putin’s friends are stealing, but Navalny’s friends are the ones the police search.

 ·       Librarians are taking books off the shelves if they offend the regime. The time has not yet come for burning them, however.

 ·       Now that Russia is producing its own laptops without foreign components there are only a few problems: sometimes the carburetor jams.

 ·       Russia has zero chance of becoming like North Korea. First, it would have to stop all the stealing going on, something that is beyond the realm of the possible.

 ·       Creating a government in exile is not as hard as many imagine. Russian police do it all the time. All they need is an order and money to pay the guards.