Best Way for Russians Lost in Woods to Be Found is to Criticize Putin; Then, Russians Say, the Police will Immediately Show Up

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 3 – The diligence and speed with which Russian police will find and arrest anyone who criticizes Putin gives Russians who may find themselves lost in the woods new protections, Russians say. All they have to do to be rescued. All they have to do is to start criticizing the Kremlin leader and the police will quickly find them.

            That is just one of the anecdotes Russians are telling each other about Russian life today Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova has posted online  (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/46512/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       Russians must firmly believe in a bright future. Otherwise, they will demand a bright present and ask difficult questions about the dark past.

·       The New York Times has quoted someone who must be a stand in for Putin’s press secretary.  Dmitry Peskov supposedly said that “our presidential election is not a real democracy but a costy bureaucracy.” That can’t be the real Peskov because he never tells the truth.

·       Aleksandr Dugin says that liberals are always preparing for high treason. The latest indication that in Russia patriotism and idiocy have become intertwined.

·       Maria Zakharov says Ukrainians display “an inability to love” Russians despite all that Russians have done for and to them.

·       Moscow plans to establish a federal register of fairy tales. It will include the Constitution and all of Putin’s promises. A special law will punish those who read fairy tales not on this register.

·       After the introduction of new history textbooks about Russia from 1970 on, anyone who remembers the contents of past textbooks will be subject to arrest for extremism.