(Prints size 84x110 cm)
Less than a month has passed since “Kherson region made the right choice”, and the newly minted Kherson Russians learned their first lesson of “How to be a Russian”: when the TV set tells you that everything is under control and there is no panic, it's time to panic.
The first question I had after the Russians announced the evacuation was “why 60,000”? After all, Kherson Region made the “right choice” almost unanimously. Then the question arose: “Where will they find 60,000?” I believe 5,000 at most if they manage to collect all the pensioners and collaborators. They spread panic, scare people with shelling and street fighting, but citizens still don’t go to the Russian Federation or Crimea because evacuation is a one-way ticket. There could not have been a better solution to this problem. Everyone here will get what they wanted: whoever wanted to live in Europe and a free Ukraine will live in Europe and a free Ukraine. And whoever wanted to live in Russia or the USSR, which at the moment is the same thing, will live in Russia and the USSR. With “Plombir” ice creams, pseudo-tasty sausages, and victory parades on May 9. But without their children and grandchildren. They traded them for warm memories from the past, for things that are simple and understandable to the psyche without disturbing and complex technologies, completely forgetting that Russia is not only ice cream, sausage, and parades, but meaningless deaths, corpses, broken destinies, and violence, which the residents of Donbass and Crimea have already seen. What things happening now have not happened many times in the past, in the history of the Russian Empire and the USSR?
This is not a war between the Russian and Ukrainian people, this is a war of values. A war of generations, a war between past and future. And what goes to Russia is what it rests on, its basis and electorate: budget ballast, children, totally dependent on the government, who will do what they are told. For the raw material economy of the totalitarian regime, these are the best people. But the free and independent adults needed to create an innovative product or service are dangerous to it. The evacuation of collaborators is better than catching them and holding them in prisons. The flow of the author's thoughts is suddenly interrupted by a scene on one of the city streets. Attention clings to the empty pedestals of monuments, passing cars, road workers patching up the roadway, two yellow buses for the evacuation of the “population”. One of them stalls. A crowd of soldiers tumbles out of the buses. Questions about 60,000 and authors’ reflections are losing their relevance. Another question comes to the surface: “Patching the roadway? Seriously?”
The first question I had after the Russians announced the evacuation was “why 60,000”? After all, Kherson Region made the “right choice” almost unanimously. Then the question arose: “Where will they find 60,000?” I believe 5,000 at most if they manage to collect all the pensioners and collaborators. They spread panic, scare people with shelling and street fighting, but citizens still don’t go to the Russian Federation or Crimea because evacuation is a one-way ticket. There could not have been a better solution to this problem. Everyone here will get what they wanted: whoever wanted to live in Europe and a free Ukraine will live in Europe and a free Ukraine. And whoever wanted to live in Russia or the USSR, which at the moment is the same thing, will live in Russia and the USSR. With “Plombir” ice creams, pseudo-tasty sausages, and victory parades on May 9. But without their children and grandchildren. They traded them for warm memories from the past, for things that are simple and understandable to the psyche without disturbing and complex technologies, completely forgetting that Russia is not only ice cream, sausage, and parades, but meaningless deaths, corpses, broken destinies, and violence, which the residents of Donbass and Crimea have already seen. What things happening now have not happened many times in the past, in the history of the Russian Empire and the USSR?
This is not a war between the Russian and Ukrainian people, this is a war of values. A war of generations, a war between past and future. And what goes to Russia is what it rests on, its basis and electorate: budget ballast, children, totally dependent on the government, who will do what they are told. For the raw material economy of the totalitarian regime, these are the best people. But the free and independent adults needed to create an innovative product or service are dangerous to it. The evacuation of collaborators is better than catching them and holding them in prisons. The flow of the author's thoughts is suddenly interrupted by a scene on one of the city streets. Attention clings to the empty pedestals of monuments, passing cars, road workers patching up the roadway, two yellow buses for the evacuation of the “population”. One of them stalls. A crowd of soldiers tumbles out of the buses. Questions about 60,000 and authors’ reflections are losing their relevance. Another question comes to the surface: “Patching the roadway? Seriously?”