Putin has Transformed Russia’s Place in the World: It’s No Longer in the East of Europe but in the West of Asia, Muscovites Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 31 – More than a century ago, Rudyard Kipling famously observed that “the Russian is a delightful person until he tucks in his shirt and imagines he is the most easterly of Europeans rather than the most westerly of Asians.” Now, Muscovites are saying that Putin has corrected Russians who thought otherwise.

            According to an anecdote in the latest collection of Russian jokes collected by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova, residents of the Russian capital are suggesting that Putin has changed Russia’s place in the world: their country is no longer in the east of Europe but in the west of Asia (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/44317/-).

            Among the best of the rest:

·       Putin’s special military operation gives Russians both a chance to go to prison if they refuse to serve in it and a chance to get out of jail if they agree to do so.

·       If Ukraine is an American colony where Washington dictates everything, why shouldn’t Russians conclude that their country is a Chinese one in which Beijing decides everything?

·       Putin historians have come up with a brief history of the USSR. According to them, collective farmers travelled to Moscow for sausage but couldn’t go because they didn’t have passports. If they did reach the city anyway, they couldn’t purchase sausages because they didn’t have any money. But if they did manage to buy some, they couldn’t east it because it was made of toilet paper which didn’t exist in the USSR.

·       Moscow’s gay clubs have cancelled the VIP cards of all deputies who are promoting the Duma bill banning LGBT propaganda.

·       The defense ministry demands that all Russians be dressed up as mobilized soldiers for Halloween.

·       The tsars had a law on serfdom; Putin has now introduced in its place the obligations of serfdom.

·       Russians have been divided into two classes: the insane who go to Ward 6 and those who are members of the wrong nationalities as listed on Paragraph Five of their passports.

·       Rulers who surround themselves with pygmies create the illusion that they are kings.