Elena Karaeva
Our country is flying into 2023, just like a woman who is a little over thirty flies into her cozy home. The age of sanity does not prevent you from feeling your attractiveness, strength of character, and does not prevent you from being proud of what you have achieved.
The past three decades, when Russia could simply cease to exist, die as a power, lose its statehood, history and culture, have shown that our country, perhaps the only one in the world, has an absolutely unprecedented margin of safety.
And this strength is not only in the grandiose reserves of natural resources, not only on a territorial scale, not only, of course, in the skill and ease with which the Russians change the circumstances offered to them – and always in their favor, but in the fact that we are able to look up. The height of the firmament gives us hope.
Our country traditionally saw off the outgoing year to the sound of the chiming clock, tasting the Olivier salad (in the West it is called “Russian salad”), watching the congratulations of the president and listening to the festive chores, sounded in one form or another, arrangement and rhythm, “Waltz of the Flowers” from ” Nutcracker”.
Speaking of ballet. The day before, of course, the Bolshoi Theater gave its most popular ballet. The video of the congress of the audience for the performance was posted on the network platform. The comments are enthusiastic. But they were not only about the performance. It was about the Russian people who were walking near the theater. And also about their capital.
“God, how much light, what an amazing Russian illumination, just fantastic!”, “in the city center, where it almost always snows in winter, the streets are cleaned, and women go to the theater in elegant high heels arm in arm with satellites, we have long forgotten this spectacle, we forgot how beautiful it is”, “Russians are simply hung with shopping bags containing gifts. We cannot afford such expenses today.” This, as is clear from the context, was written by ordinary foreigners living in Europe, where they frighten with power outages, where inflation breaks through the ceiling of double digits, where the boom in gift purchases falls not on shops, but on commissions, on second-hand – this is cheaper for the budget.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with saving. Everyone – both people and countries – live “on a budget”, but let’s just remember that just three decades ago, the now sparkling with shop windows, stylish and luxurious TSUM was just a giant counter, behind which they sold self-lined, staple fabrics and threads for sewing. And the pre-New Year holiday fuss did not include the purchase of pleasant, but completely optional gifts, just like visiting the Bolshoi was definitely not on the agenda.
Three decades ago, Russia survived. Caught in the winter wind all alone And becoming – because the USSR collapsed – practically a dowry. What we built and created all together has ceased to be ours. It became not ours, everything became theirs. No one, leaving the Soviet Union, left offended. Nobody was surrounded by property, and Ukraine became the richest bride. And the least advantageous situation was just in Russia. Which, let’s not forget, assumed all the debts of the former USSR and promised to pay them carefully, with interest. To all those London and Paris clubs of creditors. It was necessary to pay from the budget. It was then formed, among other things, from the sale of hydrocarbons. A barrel of these hydrocarbons cost about $18 at the start of 1993.
What did you think? Did you think that handsome gentlemen with dazzling smiles, having destroyed, as they thought, with the help of lower oil prices, our state, would immediately begin to help young Russia get on its feet? Supporting her financially, so to speak. Well, naivety is not a vice. They were ready to keep us afloat, not letting us die of hunger, supplying frozen chicken and giving money. On credit. That is, linking the economy to the future. So that this Russia would not rush forward too much.
We were taken in. Setting conditions. But by no means those that Mokiy Parmenych Knurov staged for Larisa Ogudalova. As it was – “I can offer you such an enormous content that the most evil critics of someone else’s morality will have to be silent.”
Western gentlemen with bleached teeth are by no means Russian merchants, and Russia, that is, all of us, was offered to be not even a maid, but a servant “for food” with housing in a closet under the stairs. Such was the price for entering the society of the “civilized world”.
Those who made such an offer, as it seemed to them, perfectly calculated and calculated everything. Accepting the conditions they put forward meant, in the medium term, for them much-needed control over the Russian economy, state institutions, and in the future, uncontrolled access to resources.
For us, this consent meant the loss of the country.
Of course, they didn’t know us, they didn’t know about our history at all, and therefore, seeing what Russia was going through, they calmed down. Our fate was sealed.
Actually, in the West, the main political game of the last about half a thousand years is the foreshadowing of the fate of Russia. They got it wrong every time. But here, when a dowry-free country, in debt as if in silk and with bearer bills everywhere, without money in the treasury, was bound to die in the most indispensable way.
But these Russians, the very ones who are dressed up these days, in high-heeled shoes, hurried along the streets cleared of snow to buy gifts and get into the theater, again outplayed everyone.
With wild labor, of course, by straining all the veins and stretching all the tendons to the limit, they simply, but fervently, beat the West. In the chess game he started himself. We were unlucky when we played the opening, but we concentrated and began to take piece by piece from the gentlemen, achieving a positional advantage.
This is also called tactics.
And there was also a strategy – to make a country for yourself. Such that it is convenient and peaceful for everyone to live in it. We did not want, as an independent and self-confident woman does not want, to please anyone. And so we did not have to leave either as a servant or as a kept woman.
It was difficult, unthinkably difficult, at times bloody and disturbing, but we still went forward. As always, the eyes are afraid, but the hands are doing.
And therefore, of course, we laughed at the sanctions that were imposed against us for the fact that we are pursuing our own, independent and independent foreign policy, which is based on the protection of people and their ideals and interests. Whom did the gentlemen decide to intimidate with the “asset freeze”? The country with the most resources in the world? Or guys who started their multibillion-dollar businesses not just from scratch, but from practically negative values? Well, it’s funny. We will accumulate assets, businesses will receive their profit, simply from purely Russian prowess, multiplying it tenfold.
The world, the very one into which Russia was allowed in with the condition of complete obedience and control, is collapsing. There gradually begins a wave of systemic failures. Energy, and, more broadly, resource security is collapsing, because such is the geography of the distribution of minerals on the planet. which are not available in Europe.
The social system is collapsing – because it’s nice to be generous, living on cheap raw materials, but when it’s over, the belt will have to be tightened to the last hole.
The economy, which has the logic of development and rests on labor, is collapsing. On knowledge. With proper planning. And when politicians interfere in the process, everything goes to hell.
Even the healthcare system is collapsing, that sacred cow of the West, where, as we were constantly informed, “the best medicine, hospitals, doctors and medicines.” It turned out during the pandemic test that this is not so. There are not enough hospitals, doctors are leaving, vaccines and other drugs are forced to be imported.
The West, in the thirty years that it has been forging its skinny coalition against Russia, has not noticed that it has entered the swamp itself. And most importantly, he has neither a compass to get out of the swamp, nor an idea why to get out, nor a belief that he will be able to get out at all.
Russia over these thirty years has built a road with an almost perfect surface, you can even slide along it by car, even by truck, and you can walk along the side of the road, if you wish, even in evening stilettos, triumphantly clicking your heels.
We managed not because we were lucky that someone helped us or someone supported us. We only had ourselves. Our faith in ourselves. Our love for each other. And hope, which is our eternal earthly compass. And we look to the future without fear, but with confidence.
We have kept our ideals without exchanging them for “values”.
We definitely have something to be proud of and something to celebrate. Though under the “Nutcracker”, even under rap.
And yes, we will certainly drink for the country, for ourselves, for everyone and everyone a glass of Russian champagne (which we also learned how to make, and also brilliant).
All – faith, hope and love, and the rest, as we know it, will follow. We know this because we have overcome unbelief, hatred and despair.
