I was really grateful & glad today to read the poet Lev Rubinshteyn's account of the ongoing moscow madness. there's an english translation, which I'm not sure but I think maybe LR made himsef, but I didn't like it so I'm gonna make one too. enyoy.
We're Just Getting Started
by Lev Rubinshteyn
First of all, here's what I saw, beginning from the moment I found myself amid a river of acquaintances and strangers being nudged and kneaded forward, the rude fists of "cosmonauts" at our backs. They were barking like the cops in a soviet war movie: "keep it moving!", "no stopping!" Hard to say whether you were in one of those movies or caught in an anxiety dream.
At some point, one of the cosmonauts, apparently someone high-ranking, silently pointed at me. Immediately one of his junior officers approached me without a word, grabbed my arm just above the elbow, and started dragging me to a paddy wagon. As luck had it, this was all happening in full view of a group of reporters, and within a couple minutes -- before we had made it to the jail bus -- my phone burst into unrelenting ringing.
To be completely fair, the guy who dragged me off wasn't some savage teenager. He was a middle-aged guy who, while pulling me along, managed to ask, "So, you're supposed to be some kind of a writer, is that right?" "Yeah," I replied. "You could say that." "So what do you write?" "You know, books." "Books -- nice," he said, not too convincingly. Then he added, "I'm glad you're not resisting. I've got a broken arm -- look, you people did this yesterday." "We people?" I asked. "And who are 'we people'?" "Well, these people, the demonstrators*." "Hm, do you think maybe there was no need for you to disperse these non-violent people?" I asked. "We have our orders," he replied, "and we follow them."
I have to say, he seemed basically to be a pretty decent guy. (I tried to be nice too.) But our nearly friendly conversation dwindled as we reached the goal of our brief, but significant, travels. Just as we got there, I remembered that I had a press pass in my pocket. "Here," I said, "my credentials. I would very much like to know on what grounds and for what reason I am being detained." Having checked out my media pass, my interlocutor said nothing, just indistinctly waved one arm while releasing me from the other. Suddenly, I realized, I was free.
My phone in the meantime had kept on ringing continually. I managed to get the word out that I was OK. I found out news of my arrest had made several radio and internet broadcasts, some of which had seasoned the report with a story of my being savagely beaten. Luckily, that news hadn't found its way to the eyes and ears of my family. I felt a little bit like that one Chekhov character who falls under the horse and briefly becomes, as we might put it today, a newsmaker.
I'm completely OK, thank god. But a lot of other people, grabbed and tossed into wagons with outright rudeness, cruelty, even barbarity -- a lot of them are completely not OK.
People of every age and gender grabbed and thrown into police cars without rhyme or reason.
These "cosmonauts" seemed in the truest sense to be nothing but zombies -- their eyes empty & unpitying, they moved like robots programmed to do exactly two things: grab things, and drag them off.
In the streets yesterday, and at Bolotnaya the day before, the powers that be once again made unmistakably crystal clear, to their citizens and the whole world, what has been more or less apparent all along. They, the authorities, have tipped their hand: they're aware of their own illegitimacy. Indeed, no legitimate authority could be capable of carrying on with such cowardice, such cruelty, such cynicism toward the law-abiding citizens of its own country.
While people whose only crime was a considered sense of their own responsibility for the fate of their own country were being held in the squares and on the sidewalks, while they were being crammed into paddy wagons and lovingly stroked in the ribs by billy clubs, over there, across the toothed palisade that marks off the jail they're turning our country into, a syndicate of thugs was busy dropping a crown on the head of its ignominious godfather. But we don't have the right to forget: like the rest of them, he's not just unbound by the law -- he's completely outside it. Because they're not even thieves. Just bitches. In every sense but literally -- I personally have a lot of respect for dogs of either sex.
Watching this play out unreally all you can think of are those old newsreels where you see Warsaw in '39, or Paris in the 40's, or Prague in '68. You want to cry from the feeling of historic hopelessness.
That's just how it is. But looking at all the faces around you, young and not so young, seeing their total fearlessness and refusal to back down, even in the face of dully swinging nightsticks, you get overcome by a completely different feeling. Even a certainty: this is all just the beginning.
*maybe interesting: the cop's word for protestor is митингующие, mitingujushchie, the present active participle of the verb митинговать, mitingovat', which in turn is the verb form of the russian adoption of the english word meeting, митинг. but unlike english meeting, russian miting specifically suggests a political demonstration. also, whereas the ng in english is a diphthong indicating a velar nasal consonant, in russian нг is pronounced as two consecutive consonants. russian for shanghai is шаньхай, shan'khaj, where the ng sound of the chinese is pronounced in russian as a palatal n (ñ).
We're Just Getting Started
by Lev Rubinshteyn
First of all, here's what I saw, beginning from the moment I found myself amid a river of acquaintances and strangers being nudged and kneaded forward, the rude fists of "cosmonauts" at our backs. They were barking like the cops in a soviet war movie: "keep it moving!", "no stopping!" Hard to say whether you were in one of those movies or caught in an anxiety dream.
At some point, one of the cosmonauts, apparently someone high-ranking, silently pointed at me. Immediately one of his junior officers approached me without a word, grabbed my arm just above the elbow, and started dragging me to a paddy wagon. As luck had it, this was all happening in full view of a group of reporters, and within a couple minutes -- before we had made it to the jail bus -- my phone burst into unrelenting ringing.
To be completely fair, the guy who dragged me off wasn't some savage teenager. He was a middle-aged guy who, while pulling me along, managed to ask, "So, you're supposed to be some kind of a writer, is that right?" "Yeah," I replied. "You could say that." "So what do you write?" "You know, books." "Books -- nice," he said, not too convincingly. Then he added, "I'm glad you're not resisting. I've got a broken arm -- look, you people did this yesterday." "We people?" I asked. "And who are 'we people'?" "Well, these people, the demonstrators*." "Hm, do you think maybe there was no need for you to disperse these non-violent people?" I asked. "We have our orders," he replied, "and we follow them."
I have to say, he seemed basically to be a pretty decent guy. (I tried to be nice too.) But our nearly friendly conversation dwindled as we reached the goal of our brief, but significant, travels. Just as we got there, I remembered that I had a press pass in my pocket. "Here," I said, "my credentials. I would very much like to know on what grounds and for what reason I am being detained." Having checked out my media pass, my interlocutor said nothing, just indistinctly waved one arm while releasing me from the other. Suddenly, I realized, I was free.
My phone in the meantime had kept on ringing continually. I managed to get the word out that I was OK. I found out news of my arrest had made several radio and internet broadcasts, some of which had seasoned the report with a story of my being savagely beaten. Luckily, that news hadn't found its way to the eyes and ears of my family. I felt a little bit like that one Chekhov character who falls under the horse and briefly becomes, as we might put it today, a newsmaker.
I'm completely OK, thank god. But a lot of other people, grabbed and tossed into wagons with outright rudeness, cruelty, even barbarity -- a lot of them are completely not OK.
People of every age and gender grabbed and thrown into police cars without rhyme or reason.
These "cosmonauts" seemed in the truest sense to be nothing but zombies -- their eyes empty & unpitying, they moved like robots programmed to do exactly two things: grab things, and drag them off.
In the streets yesterday, and at Bolotnaya the day before, the powers that be once again made unmistakably crystal clear, to their citizens and the whole world, what has been more or less apparent all along. They, the authorities, have tipped their hand: they're aware of their own illegitimacy. Indeed, no legitimate authority could be capable of carrying on with such cowardice, such cruelty, such cynicism toward the law-abiding citizens of its own country.
While people whose only crime was a considered sense of their own responsibility for the fate of their own country were being held in the squares and on the sidewalks, while they were being crammed into paddy wagons and lovingly stroked in the ribs by billy clubs, over there, across the toothed palisade that marks off the jail they're turning our country into, a syndicate of thugs was busy dropping a crown on the head of its ignominious godfather. But we don't have the right to forget: like the rest of them, he's not just unbound by the law -- he's completely outside it. Because they're not even thieves. Just bitches. In every sense but literally -- I personally have a lot of respect for dogs of either sex.
Watching this play out unreally all you can think of are those old newsreels where you see Warsaw in '39, or Paris in the 40's, or Prague in '68. You want to cry from the feeling of historic hopelessness.
That's just how it is. But looking at all the faces around you, young and not so young, seeing their total fearlessness and refusal to back down, even in the face of dully swinging nightsticks, you get overcome by a completely different feeling. Even a certainty: this is all just the beginning.
*maybe interesting: the cop's word for protestor is митингующие, mitingujushchie, the present active participle of the verb митинговать, mitingovat', which in turn is the verb form of the russian adoption of the english word meeting, митинг. but unlike english meeting, russian miting specifically suggests a political demonstration. also, whereas the ng in english is a diphthong indicating a velar nasal consonant, in russian нг is pronounced as two consecutive consonants. russian for shanghai is шаньхай, shan'khaj, where the ng sound of the chinese is pronounced in russian as a palatal n (ñ).
the sign says, "really, letting those same goats -- back into the garden?"
"the vast majority of political prisoners in russia are muslims... fascism, anyone?"
(am I getting the tone of this right, russkies?)
"liberty is secured by public transparency"
"I'm not being paid off. I'm a citizen of Russia and I will defend my constitutional rights."
"All are equal before the law (the rest is blocked)"
"I (cock & balls downward) the 2011 elections."
"I detest this government, deceitful and vile."
the detested OMON, as in, among other things, V. Pelevin's Omon Ra.
please don't forget however that the actual cosmonauts, literal cosmonauts, are the heroes of the people.
"where's my voice?"
"we must have clean elections!"
The Constitution of the Russian Federation
interesting to see so much constitution talk. the words "constitutional tradition" don't conjure onion domes for most of us. what a beautiful thing. in russian they're called poppy domes, which is far sweeter. congratulations to russia!
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