My feelings toward state television flip-flopped several times between Friday evening and Sunday morning — running the gamut from disgust to something nearing fondness for this peculiarly Russian phenomenon. This spate of emotions was prompted by huge explosions at a military depot in Ulyanovsk on Friday.
News anchors harped officiously about how “President Medvedev ordered a thorough review of the causes for the explosions at the munitions facility in Ulyanovsk.” “Aren’t his ministers supposed to do this anyway without a presidential reminder in prime-time evening news?” I thought to myself, growing annoyed.
I was visiting some well-known journalist friends on Friday, and we were flipping through the channels as we talked. We happened across live coverage of the Ulyanovsk blast on Vesti-24, the state’s 24-hour news channel. A videoconference was in progress between Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev and the head of the rescue team in Ulyanovsk. The signal between them was apparently weak because the sound wavered and the screen occasionally went black. “It’s disgraceful to go on the air with such lousy quality,” one of my friends said, criticizing the state channel. I couldn’t resist responding, “You’re all democrats, and you’re always complaining that we don’t have enough live TV in Russia. Well, here it is. Now what are you unhappy about?”
“It’s their own fault,” one friend shot back with a bitter reproach aimed at the authorities. “They are the ones who got us accustomed to technically perfect images on the screen.”
Hearing that, I had the reactionary thought: “Thank you, Putin, for eliminating such criticisms from the airwaves. Television content is too serious a matter to allow ‘democrats’ to voice their hang-ups to the whole country.”
On Saturday evening, I watched the Russian football team play Slovenia for a chance to enter the World Cup finals. Our team played well, making two excellent goals, but Slovenia did manage to get one past our goalie near the end of the game.
When I woke up Sunday morning and turned on the news, I heard the following report: “President Dmitry Medvedev noted that our team will have a tough task when it plays the rematch in Slovenia but was confident they would meet the challenge.” “Well, thank you for that brilliant and insightful commentary Mr. President,” I thought, immediately thrown into a dark mood. Then I imagined that the “democratic” journalists might have reported the same event something like this: “Despite the millions of dollars sunk into preparing our team and the fact that they were playing on their home turf, they barely managed to beat the much weaker Slovenia team. But that is not their fault, much less the fault of their great Western coach. We can never hope to achieve athletic victories as long as the current authoritarian and bloodthirsty regime remains in power.”
This led me to feel a certain appreciation for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. And for the rest of the day I brooded over the question: Which is better, Medvedev’s Brezhnev-like twaddle or the caustic and obsessive “democratic” point of view? The problem is, we have nothing in the middle.
And then I remembered that, of the entire crowd of spectators shown at Saturday’s game, I had noticed only two people wearing sanitary masks — and this despite a massive propaganda campaign to prevent a swine flu epidemic and despite the fact that a free mask had been placed on every seat. The average anarchical Russian simply does not allow himself to be manipulated — even when it’s for his own good.
Alexei Pankin is the editor of IFRA-GIPP Magazine for publishing business professionals.
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