Paul Goble
Staunton, June 24 – Precisely because the story of the Prigozhin revolt is so murky, Russians have come up with anecdotes to try to make sense of things. Their words perhaps say as much about what has happened and, more important, what it means than any more scholarly investigation.
Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova has collected some of the stories Russians are now telling each other (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/46133/-). Among the most instructive of these are the following:
· In the person of Prigozhin, Russia attacked Moscow but then backed off.
· The government should be selling tickets to the Duma session rather than providing the legislature with additional guards given how absurd what the members are now saying, threatening the world but unable to protect themselves.
· Four out of five Russians trust Putin, but given how many doubles the Kremlin leader has, it is hard to know which Putin they support.
· What is the difference between Rwanda and Russia? In Rwanda, those who slaughtered their fellow citizens did not declare that God was with them, that they were following a special path and fighting the West and LGBTs. All the other differences were only technical details.
· There is such a profession: promising people a bright future.
· Russian pensioners are now demanding that their incomes be classified lest the figures please the country’s enemies in the West.
· Moscow is taking down Wagner PMC recruiting posters but storing them in a place from which they can easily be reclaimed.
· Prigozhin didn’t play his trump card and shout that the regime is rotten and must be overthrown. Had he done so, he might have won.
· After defeating the Prigozhin revolt, it is going to be far harder for the Kremlin to get people to fight in Ukraine than it was.
· Some are now asking whether they can loot the palaces of Putin’s rich yet, although those who do are saying that they want to know not for themselves but for a friend.
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