Many Russians Expect the End of the World to Bring Changes for the Better, Other Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 28 – Many people in Russia are waiting for the end of the world with interest and even hope because they believe that it will at least bring some change for the better, a comment on how bad things are for them now and an example of the insights provided by stories they are telling each other.

            That is just one of the anecdotes that Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova offers in her latest online collections (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/46824/- and publizist.ru/blogs/107374/46847/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

 

·       The FSB has now detained a schoolchild for launching a paper drone.

·       Russians believed Ramzan Kadyrov was alive only when the media reported that he had objected to Medinsky’s Russian history textbook.

·       Russians should treat price rises with understanding, officials say; those who don’t show understanding should be sent to dig trenches in Ukraine.

·       Now, there is every prospect that each federal subject will be allowed to write its own history textbook, a prospect sure to generate problems for their neighbors and in Moscow.

·       A Russian doctor tells his patients that medicinal herbs work wonders: they’ve allowed him to buy a dacha for his son and finish a house for his daughter.

·       Russian pharmacies will soon start telling time because that is the only thing that truly heals.

·       Strelkov should have gone to the Hague rather than allowed himself to be arrested in Russia. After all, in the Netherlands, he’d be in a nice warm cell and certainly wouldn’t be beaten.

·       One day Diogenes was washing lentils to cook himself a stew. Aristipus, a student of Socrates, the king’s favorite, remarked with a grin: “If you had learned to flatter the king, you wouldn’t have to eat lentils.” “And if you learned to eat lentils, you wouldn’t have to flatter the king,” answered Diogenes.

·       Peskov says that Putin doesn’t know about the beating Kadyrov’s son gave Zhuravel because “it wasn’t possible to print the video.”

·       Putin is really greedy if he needs a salary, Russians say on hearing he’s boosted it.