Unable to Find Real Oppositionists, the Russian Guard Now Dispersing Fashion Shows, Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 28 – The absence of a real opposition hasn’t stopped the Russian Guard, Russians say. Instead, it continues to look around for anyone it can suggest is a problem. The latest group it has chosen to target turns out to be those taking part in fashion shows in major department stores.

            That is just one of the jokes and anecdotes Russians are now telling each other that reflect how they feel about what they see going on around them. It is from the latest batch collected by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/45027/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       After Moscow banned the Meduza (“Jellyfish”) news agency, Russian aquariums have been removing all of those forms of wildlife lest they get in trouble too.

·       When a Russian complains he has never criticized the state in public, a policemen tells him that he shouldn’t play the fool. After all, his private correspondence was read by five departments in three special services. Given that, you can’t call it private.

·       The intelligence of Duma members is such that when one of their number slips on the ice of a Friday, his colleagues propose banning that day of the week. At the same time, they have decided to fight James Bond, a notorious foreign agent and allocated a billion US dollars to do so. The money is already being spent.

·       Russians can easily see that the authorities are incapable of fixing potholes on the streets but they nonetheless believe that Moscow will be able to ramp up the production of advanced electronics.

·       Kremlin spokesmen say the US could quickly solve the war in Ukraine if only it would send Abrams tanks not to Ukraine but to Russia.

·       Dmitry Peskov also said that the presidential decrees on the pardoning of Wagner PMC troops were classified. But hasn’t he revealed state secrets by saying even that?

·       When a Buryat court found a local man guilty of defaming the army by writing “no to war” on a wall, the judges showed leniency in that he is an unemployed father of two. Instead of the required fine of 30,000 rubles (500 US dollars), they fined him only half of that amount. Truly, Russia has the most human courts in the world!