Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 9 – Some Russians are taking it as a positive sign for their country that three FSB officers have been arrested for taking a bribe of five billion rubles, not because this shows that the fight against corruption is effective but because corrupt officials are now ready accept bribes in rubles and not just in the currencies of enemy countries.
This is just one of the anecdotes Russians are currently telling each other that have been collected by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/47497/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:
· Two years ago, Belgorod residents glued the letter Z to their windows to show their support for Putin’s war in Ukraine. Now, they are gluing the letter X instead to prevent their windows from breaking when their city is attacked.
· After a long week off, there needs to be another day off to recover from the weekend.
· And Russians are now quoting George Orwell’s observation that “this war is fraudulent because it must last forever without victory. Its main goal is to preserve the existing system, destroying not only human lives, but also the fruits of human labor, since the general growth of well-being threatens the hierarchical society with death. If the vast mass of people becomes literate and learns to think for themselves, they will get rid of the privileged minority as unnecessary. War and famine help keep people, dulled by poverty, in a world of illusions.”
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