Scarlet sails of covid: for whom Beglov's rynda tolls

Irina Mishina

Despite the unprecedented increase in the incidence of coronavirus, at least 40 thousand people took part in the alumni holiday. And this holiday began with a bad sign: in the hands of the governor the bell was cut off. She blurted out, and in the hand of Alexander Beglov there was a string, for which it is supposed to pull the tongue of the ritual bell. “Did you hear the bell? Has sounded. And this means that our holiday is officially open, ”the presenter Daria Alexandrova blurted out.

During the holiday of graduates in the city, travel along the central streets, the work of cafes and the sale of alcohol were restricted. The official part of "Alye Sails" began on Palace Square, where graduates were sent through special points where they checked the availability of protective equipment and temperature. The host of the ceremony, Ivan Urgant, even rejoiced at the "discipline" of the graduates. And TV cameras, meanwhile, mercilessly showed the satisfied faces of young people without masks. Graduates took them off immediately after passing through the checkpoints. The scene of action was the Palace Square and the Palace Embankment, they were open only to the participants of the festival and the press. But what, in fact, did these measures protect? The graduates stood in a dense wall, literally to each other, many in an embrace.

During each broadcast, the presenters Ivan Urgant and Daria Aleksandrova thanked the government of St. Petersburg, Channel Five and Rossiya Bank, which ensured the holding and financing of the event. The authorities of St. Petersburg alone allocated 34 million rubles from the budget for its implementation. "The city budget allocated 1.8 million rubles for the festive decoration of the city, 17 million rubles will be spent on organizing the holiday, 16.2 million rubles have been allocated for television broadcasting. All other expenses were covered by our sponsor, Bank Rossiya," said chapter Committee on Press and Interaction with Mass Media of the Administration of St. Petersburg Sergei Serezleev The full amount of expenses for the holiday of graduates has not been announced, one can only guess about it.

The expenses are certainly enchanting for the period of the pandemic and the third wave of coronavirus, when there is a catastrophic lack of covid beds and doctors, when clinics are experiencing a shortage of medicines, when intensive care units are clogged. I remember that not so long ago, at a meeting of the City Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, said that the city had actually exhausted the possibilities for further re-profiling of medical institutions for receiving patients with coronavirus. According to him, the healthcare system is overloaded, and it is no longer possible to re-equip other hospitals, because other diseases need to be treated ... What is the "Scarlet Sails" holiday in these conditions, if not madness?

But maybe this holiday had some special meaning, carried some important messages to young people? To be honest, I watched the live broadcast from start to finish. Carefully. The graduates chose the artists for the holiday themselves by voting on the Internet. The headliner was Svetlana Loboda, who portrayed "Tropicana-woman" in a gold swimsuit. Niletto entered the stage accompanied by snowboarders and surfers suspended from cables. CreamSoda sang about "no more parties", and young talent Vanya Dmitrienko - about the fact that the temperature of 36.6 is not an advantage if the girlfriend does not reciprocate. Then Alexander Nevsky arose out of the ground, but not alone, but with an army. With the power of his gaze, he stopped the Teutonic knights, who all as one fell into the murky waters of the Neva. By the way, in June on the Neva, ice came from somewhere, into which the foreigners fell. Then Pushkin came to life and the statues next to him. Pushkin sang something from the hits of the 90s and scattered pieces of paper, the statues sang along. Lomonosov tossed between the flasks to the song from "The Adventures of Electronics" "How much progress has come." Peter the Great left the painting on the wall altogether. And then they all sailed on a ship with sails, one of which was the color of the Russian flag. Nevsky, Peter the Great, Pushkin, Lomonosov and some other people stood on the ship and sang Shainsky's children's song "What is snow for me, what is hot for me, that it is pouring rain for me when my friends are with me." And then some young man, dressed up as Captain Gray (I suspect, an artist of the local Youth Theater) began to rush on the shore and started playing the anthem of Russia in Gazmanov's voice. He was picked up by Nevsky and his retinue, Pushkin with statues and Peter the Great with Lomonosov on the ship, as well as actors disguised as graduates in the front row on the embankment, who prevented graduates from taking selfies against the background of the frigate's scarlet sails. The surviving Teutonic knights also seem to have sang along.

How many contracts were concluded, with how many organizations, how many million-dollar contracts were signed with actors and TV presenters to hold this holiday in the midst of a pandemic, one can only guess. Why did these funds not go to support the business, which was actually paralyzed by quarantine restrictions, not to medicine, not to open new hospitals with resuscitation for coronavirus patients, not to save the sick and dying? Nobody will answer these questions for us. But some thoughts in connection with the celebration of this holiday are still gradually emerging. It is not difficult to assume that the incidence of covid among young people after this mass event in St. Petersburg will jump several times. And you guessed right: the basis for the need for total vaccination of young people will be laid. By the way, the other day on the air of the radio "Sputnik" professor, doctor of medical sciences, vaccinologist Mikhail Kostinov has already announced that the coronavirus "is looking for a loophole among children." And allegedly the World Health Organization has already released updated guidelines for vaccination against coronavirus, where for the first time it recognized that children can be vaccinated against Covid-19.

Well, and how the Scarlet Sails will end from the point of view of the epidemiological situation in St. Petersburg, we most likely will not know.

Candidate of Biological Sciences, analyst Alexey Kupriyanov said: "Unfortunately, the statistics of the interdepartmental city council of St. Petersburg on the fight against the pandemic indicating the number of cases and hospitalized in hospitals with COVID-19 are no longer published".

And that is true: why spoil the impression of the holiday.