A wide anniversary in a narrow circle. How officials celebrate the 800th anniversary of Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod activist Gera Knyazev is outraged in his blog by the way the anniversary celebrations are held in his hometown:

“After the day before yesterday's grandiose symphony concert, it turns out to be in honor of the next 800th anniversary of Alexander Nevsky, with the Temple and fireworks colored with lasers, we can finally conclude: all this does not seem to us, their holiday will be.

Has anyone heard the announcements of this cultural event? Which of the ordinary mortals, besides a narrow circle, celebrating the third month, has been there?

The entire grandiose holiday under the symbol # 800 years "now this city" , from the very beginning, takes place according to a scenario that has long been worked out at other Russian anniversaries: from all regions at the expense of the budget, officials and their faithful assistants, secretaries and close "volunteers" gather in the city of the anniversary at conferences, festivals, symposia, festive openings of monuments, interchanges, laid tiles, painted facades.

The budget pays for this celebrating crowd with tickets, hotel rooms, buffets, gala dinners, fireworks and keepsakes.

Just open and look at the rich plan of anniversary events, which has been going on like this for the third month, and answer your question:

- And what have I got to do with it, actually Nizhny Novgorod?

How many of you felt a surge of festive energy from the millions spent on the congress of travel industry workers, during the period of general tourist collapse, at which delegations from specialized departments of almost all Russian regions and a pretty federal boss with a mandatory selfie on Instagram noted?

Who needed the grandiose five-day holiday "Student Spring" at the stadium in May, during the sessions and the pandemic, except for officials from all over Russia from education departments and brought together activists of student committees, active assistants in rigging the next elections?

Who attended the international festival of crafts "Okna", except for a handful of bureaucrats from the twin cities and our local brothers?

What do you know about the cost of participation of the Nizhny Novgorod delegation in the Innoprom exhibition, which is also recorded in the holiday notebooks of officials?

Who was encouraged by the last conference "CIPR-2021", which was declared, nothing less than: "the first conference in Russia for global dialogue and cooperation between the state and business on the development of the digital economy, digital transformation of industry." That is, everyone was waiting for the 800th anniversary of Nizhny Novgorod to come here, check into the rooms of the five-star Sheraton hotel, have breakfast there for 1.5 thousand rubles per person and finally decide:

- Yes, it is necessary to globally change competencies and switch to digital, otherwise somehow it doesn’t fit anymore ...

The very organization of the concert stage of the main festive events taking place from June 12 on the narrow embankment, where on one side the fences of the fountain under construction still stand, and the traffic is closed each time for the whole day in order to arrange a corral for filtering several hundred chosen ones who fall in a small area in front of the stage, such a plan itself, if there are spaces in the city of Minin Square or a square in front of the Fair, if there is a 40,000-seat stadium, this whole poor and ill-conceived plan speaks of the locality of the holiday in the “competence of those who are competent”.

And yet, yes, their motto "to be, not to seem" was embodied in glory:

- It will not seem a little to us, they will leave when they celebrate in full ... "

Knyazev's compatriots testify:

- I totally agree. The feeling is not a holiday, but some kind of fiction.

- Everyone imitates in different ways. Someone orgasm, and someone anniversary

- Therefore, all this orgy at the expense of the people is disgusting. The show is solid.

Even at a distance, disgusting. Leave parks and nature alone, tidy up roads and sidewalks once and for many years, and really get into culture, architecture, health care and education. Otherwise, everything is complete fiction and devastation. But where else to cut the next - they have one thought, it seems

- I was just going to ask: where does the information about all this orgy come from?

I can only hear bang, bang! - means, fireworks!

- I also asked myself a question today: how are admission tickets to such events distributed, can the apparently non-transparent system of sales and distribution of invitations be considered corrupt? An expensive concert was discharged from the northern capital for a budget or sponsorship account, who and how was among the happy participants in the open secret show?