(Prints size 84x110 cm)
Less than a month has passed since the «Kherson region made the right choice», and the newly minted Kherson Russians learned their first lesson of "How to be a Russian": when TV set tells you that everything is under control and there is no panic, it's time for panic.
The first question I had after Russians announced the evacuation was “why 60,000”? After all, the Kherson region made the “right choice” almost unanimously. Then the question arose: “Where will they find 60,000?” I believe in 5000 at maximum if they manage to collect all 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 who wanted to live in Russia or in the USSR, which at the moment is the same thing, will live in Russia and the USSR. With “Plombir” ice cream, pseudo-tasty sausages and victory parades on May 9th. 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 has 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. War of generations, war between the past and the 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, they are the best people. But the free and independent adults needed to create an innovative product or service are dangerous for it. The evacuation of collaborators is better than catching and holding them in prisons. The flow of the author's thoughts is suddenly interrupted by a scene on one of the streets of the city. Attention clings to the empty pedestals of monuments, passing cars, road workers patching the roadway, two yellow buses for the evacuation of the “population”. One of them stalled. A crowd of soldiers falls out of the buses. Questions about 60,000 and authors reflections are losing their relevance. Another question comes to the surface: “Patching the roadway? Are you seriously?"
The first question I had after Russians announced the evacuation was “why 60,000”? After all, the Kherson region made the “right choice” almost unanimously. Then the question arose: “Where will they find 60,000?” I believe in 5000 at maximum if they manage to collect all 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 who wanted to live in Russia or in the USSR, which at the moment is the same thing, will live in Russia and the USSR. With “Plombir” ice cream, pseudo-tasty sausages and victory parades on May 9th. 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 has 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. War of generations, war between the past and the 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, they are the best people. But the free and independent adults needed to create an innovative product or service are dangerous for it. The evacuation of collaborators is better than catching and holding them in prisons. The flow of the author's thoughts is suddenly interrupted by a scene on one of the streets of the city. Attention clings to the empty pedestals of monuments, passing cars, road workers patching the roadway, two yellow buses for the evacuation of the “population”. One of them stalled. A crowd of soldiers falls out of the buses. Questions about 60,000 and authors reflections are losing their relevance. Another question comes to the surface: “Patching the roadway? Are you seriously?"