Saturday, December 2, 2023

Moscow May Ban Nutcracker Ballet Because Even Talking about Killing a Rat King is Dangerous in Putin’s Russia, Some Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 1 – Some Russians say that the Kremlin may pan the popular Nutcracker ballet because even talking about killing the Rat King appears to carry an allegorical meaning and thus is extremely dangerous in Russia where people are being sent to prison and the camps for much less.

            That is just one of the anecdotes now circulating in Russia that have been collected by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/47251/-). Among the best of the rest in her latest collection are the following:

·       Russian soldiers in Ukraine are happy that Moscow continues to supply food for the full complement of units even though so many have died. After all, in one case, as a result, they get food for 84 when there are only seven left.

·       Putin says people shouldn’t have problems if they have seven or eight children and their apartments become crowded. All they have to do is to move the pool table from the living room to the library and the tennis table from the second children’s room to the landing.

·       Because there are so many Putin doubles, Russians are confident that they will live and die only under Putin.

·       Russians are prepared to vote as they are directed unless it is for Kadyrov’s much-decorated son.

·       Now that Moscow had declared the LGBTs a movement and begun to punish its members, Russians are asking what kind of an organization that is and whether they should give up rainbow umbrellas. They are also asking what other categories of people will be declared organizations and then punished.

·       More than half of Russians tell pollsters that they are confident about the future and that it won’t be worse than now. The other half think the country has not yet reached bottom.

·       Those who report the cases of killers who get pardoned for service in Ukraine will get longer sentences than the killers did originally.

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