So go and dance! How the Russian intelligentsia pays for its sins

The eternal Russian dispute on the topic "who is to blame?" does not subside in Russian social networks (it is dangerous to speak out loud about "what to do?" now). Many analysts are rightly inclined to think that the main part of the blame lies with the so-called metropolitan intelligentsia, which in the 1990s, having received everything (or almost) that it wanted, withdrew from political activity and in fact betrayed its people, the very one about whom it was so "worried" in words. And now the hour of reckoning has come. In a sense, the situation resembles a textbook fable about a dragonfly and an ant: Russian intellectuals (those who did not fit into the power structures in time) act as a dragonfly, becoming, in fact, victims of their own frivolity, to say the least.

Analyst Semyon Kogan writes about this convincingly in his blog:  

"I will express a banal thought, which does not cease to be true from this. The lion's share of the blame for what is happening lies with the Russian creative intelligentsia, which in the 90s withdrew itself from the task for which, in fact, society contains it - from analyzing reality and creating new meanings.

No compassion for the unfortunate

Tens of millions of people were left alone with the collapse of the loss of the usual way and meaning of life.

The intelligentsia, on the other hand, decided that they had grabbed God by the beard and got everything they wanted from history, and took up either sorting out previous achievements and stroking each other's bellies, or working as Pelevin's "clowns at the pid...s".

But not only that, she failed to give the population any explanation for what all these difficulties and sufferings are for, except for the lazily stretched through her lip: "Work hard, be enterprising, listen to the advice of smart people and then your children will live like in Sweden, and in the meantime we will do the "bead game"..." (As if "living like in Sweden" is a goal for which everyone can and should overcome suffering, and no one has even tried to think about another goal).

You can try to justify the creative intelligentsia by saying that, for example, she herself could not find the purpose and meaning of what was happening (Although I do not recall that anyone was looking. Valeria Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya stated right from the screen that "any search for the meaning of life in Russia leads only to the creation of a GULAG," and it seems that her thought was secretly shared by the majority).

But she (the intelligentsia) refused to do even that which did not require any intellectual breakthroughs from her at all and which has always been a distinctive feature of the Russian thinking elite.

There was not even the slightest publicly expressed "mercy for the fallen", elementary pity and sympathy for millions of desperate and confused people!

I can't recall almost a single manifestation of empathy on the part of the liberal part of intellectuals. (I can only remember the "Open Letter" by Eduard Topol from America (!) Berezovsky and other oligarchs).

It is quite natural that the unfortunate people rushed either to an evil resentment, or to the church - the only place where they could get at least some sympathy and at least some sense of existence and where they engaged in cross-pollination with the wildest and obscurantistic ideas.

It's cruel of me to say so, but those who are now deservedly reaping the consequences of their deeds and inactions are the liberal creative intelligentsia of the 90s, those of them who survived, of course.

How did I know it was time to go?

I tried to remember, and when did I realize that all this would not end well?

The circumstances of this insight may seem small and insignificant to you, but I want to share them.

In the mid-90s, I worked as a corporate lawyer and earned, by the way, not good, but awesome good!

Around 1996, I came from another business trip, either from Arkhangelsk or Nizhny Tagil.

Well, in general, you represent Arkhangelsk and Nizhny Tagil in 1996, right?

I turned on the First channel, and there is an advertisement for the restaurant "Three Minnows".

There's also a girl of dazzling beauty sitting in a restaurant and explaining to a man on a mobile how to get there "you're passing the Crimean Bridge", "I want fish, real, river", etc.

And the prices, you know, were quite reasonable - Duck liver in sweet and sour sauce - $49, Bouillabaisse soup - $51, Roast lamb fillet with rose petal sauce - $39 (1996, I remind you!)

The most terrible thing is that this advertisement was broadcast to the whole country! The first channel is the same!

I tried to mentally look at her through the eyes of my recent interlocutors from Nizhny Tagil and I really felt sick, I'm not exaggerating!

I also remember naively thinking that maybe it would be possible to create some informal tools with which the government and the public could limit the appearance of such things that destroy society from the inside and awaken dangerous instincts in it.

But then I found out that a beautiful girl is the daughter-in-law of actor Aristarchus Livanov, now the wife of actor Bezrukov (the cream of the intelligentsia, not a horseradish!)

And it also turned out that the commercial was shot by the decision and using the personal Volvo of Mr. Mikhail Lesin, who at that moment was, you won't believe it, the Head of the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Public Relations!!!

And that's when I realized that I had to go!

P.S.Even in ideal institutional conditions, a minority may take the initiative.

The rest are unable to do this for various objective and subjective reasons.

And they are forced to sit, work at shitty jobs, and this is if they exist, and wait for the initiative part of society to raise their incomes along with the entire economy.

So give these people the consciousness that even just their patience is valuable throughout society, and that by the fact that they continue to go to a low-paying job (and there may not be another one in their circumstances) they are working for the future together with everyone from the janitor to the president.

Instead, these losers (English: losers) were diligently spat in the face.

Well, we got a boomerang right in the forehead!.."

However, as analyst Peter Milovanov correctly noted in the comments:

"One of the main problems of Russia for the last 100 years (and maybe more) is the absence of at least any elites, not only intellectual ones. The elite are not just the best professionals in their field, and certainly not official positions, but those who not only see the future of the country and their region, but also shape it."