Moscow Court Declares Biblical Commandment ‘Do Not Kill’ a Violation of Russian Criminal Code, Some Russians are Saying

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 10 – According to an anecdote circulating in Moscow, a court in the Russian capital has declared that the sixth commandment – “Thou shalt not kill” – doesn’t correspond to the Russian criminal code and that all copies of Bibles containing those words must be seized and destroyed by October.

            While not true, at least not yet, the idea that a Russian court in the Putin era might do such a thing is sufficiently plausible for many Russians to make this claim the subject of a story people in that country are how telling one another as they struggle to make sese of the world around them.

            This particular anecdote is among the latest that Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova has assembled and posted online (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/46027/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       If the Chinese come to help Russia fight in Ukraine, who will liberate us from the Chinese?

·       Dmitry Medvedev has been declared a Hero of Russia for demolishing two Leopards in one evening. To be sure, these weren’t tanks but Polish vodka of that name.

·       Announcement on a Rublyovka wall: ‘Owing to problems with the law enforcement agencies, I’m selling a house on Rublyovskoye highway, a Putin-class Aurus car, a set of golden bathroom fixtures, and two Duma deputies, one from United Russia and the other from the KPRF.

·       Russia is entering its period of collapse just as the Roman one did: with all the official reports noting that everything is going according to plan.

·       The collapse of the USSR is a tragedy, but the declaration of Russian state sovereignty which killed off the USSR is a holiday. Don’t look for logic here: it hasn’t been in Russia for a long time.

·       A patient who had been a coma for three months tried to escape from the hospital because he couldn’t stand listening to state television which is never turned off in the wards.

·       The Duma is defending national traditions by preparing a law allowing the security forces to imprison the innocent. What kind of country would Russia be if its rulers can’t do that? If we lose such traditions, we will lose our identity; and if we lose that, we will lose Russia!

·       A sign of the times: one governor is wearing a green jacket, clearly imitating the Ukrainian president. If things get worse, others will join him first wearing camouflage and then embroidered shirts.