Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 27 -- Russian companies are now flooding the marketplace with toy weapons of all kinds so that youngsters will learn about war early and grow up to be the soldiers Vladimir Putin wants to fight his wars, Russian say; but so far, these same firms haven’t begun to produce toy corpses which are an inevitable part of those conflicts.
This is just one of the anecdotes Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova offers in her latest collection of the stories and sayings Russians are offering one another today (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/47898/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:
· Russians are quoting Polish poet Jerzy Lec’s observation that “if small dwarfs cast long shadows, it means that you are living at the time of decline in an empire.”
· When food shortages become really serious, those who had previously fed on others become food themselves.
· Soldiers in other armies get varying amounts of food; Russians get varying amounts of advice on how to do without.
· With all the talk about raising taxes to support the war, Russians wonder when corvee will be reintroduced in their country.
· Navalny’s family was turned down by many churches as sites to bid farewell to the murdered opposition leader because in Russia today, the church doesn’t serve God but instead slavishly obeys the Kremlin.
· Optimism is the last refuge of the pessimist, but the main thing is not to turn from an optimist to an idiot as idiots radiate doses of optimism that are lethal to those around them.
· Russia can’t produce anything useful; it can only put out daily messages about arrests and engage in ever more violence.
· On their return home, criminals whom Putin pardoned to get them to fight for him are engaging in murder, rape and other crimes; but that is to be expected: the Kremlin leader that these people must become the new national elite – and that elite just like the old one will punish, torture, and reduce the population of the country.
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