Russia’s New Iron Curtain will Be Built with Fences Produced in China, Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 1 – During the first cold war, Soviet citizens produced the materials they needed to construct the iron curtain; but now things have changed, Russians say. The new iron curtain will be erected using materials imported from China, the reverse of the import substitution the Kremlin promises.

            That is one of the new anecdotes circulating in Moscow that have been assembled by Russian journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/45266/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       Smart political analysts predict everything the Kremlin wants will happen, earn money, and buy property in Europe where they will move after that doesn’t happen, an outcome they certainly know is what will prove to be true. But stupid ones predict disaster in the hopes that Moscow will avoid it, but their reward is to be denounced as foreign agents.

·       Russia’s real problem is that its simpler people have turned out to be too simple.

·       The head of the Jewish Autonomous Region is the only Russian governor who has not been sanctioned by the West. He wants to complain to the European Court about this discrimination against him but can’t because Moscow has already withdrawn from that institution.

·       Being a Russian patriot has never been easy but now it is harder than ever because a genuine patriot must simultaneously love the Russian Empire, the USSR, the tsar, Stalin, the FSB and Putin and also be a religious believer.

·       A Russian in Ukraine is asked if he has seen any Banderites. No, he responds, but the Russian asking the question insists they are there. Then he is asked if he has seen Russian soldiers. The man replies that he has, but then he is told that they are not there.

·       Russians aren’t panicking about the slowdown in Internet speeds because they have been told that everything they need to know will be on state television.