Paul Goble
Staunton, July 20 – Russia’s deteriorating demographic situation can be addressed in one of two ways, socially by boosting the birthrate and politically by exiting from conflicts where men are losing their lives, Russians say, but they note that the country’s health ministry insists that doing the first is far easier than doing the second.
This is just one of the anecdotes Russians are currently telling each other about their country that have been gathered by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/46347/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:
· After a Russian arms dump blew up in Crimea, Moscow officials insisted that this was part of the Russian army’s effort to demilitarize Ukraine and that everything was going according to plans.
· On the day that officials turned off hot water for the summer, Russians attended meeting on high tech business and integrating 21st century technologies into the economy to achieve technological sovereignty.
· Many Russians disliked falling asleep because it seemed like they had fallen out of reality for eight hours, but now they love it because in their dreams, they do fall out of Russian realities for at least a third of the day.
· Putin didn’t avoid going to South Africa because he was afraid of being arrested; he didn’t go to help his South African allies avoid having to decide the difficult task of knowing which Putin had in fact shown up.
· Russians know that no one lies on Moscow TV because Moscow TV has told them so.
· Russians are almost unanimous in supporting pension reform. A recent poll asked them “at 70, would you like to die or retire?” 98.5 percent gave the second answer.
· Now that the Duma has raised the penalties for not showing up when summoned to draft centers, Russians are asking: which is better? To be fined or to be killed?”
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