Vladimir Ilyich has not changed anything in the past three decades and, by all accounts, his permanence is assured. Vladimir Putin does not give up symbols of the Soviet past lightly, so the discussion about closing or moving Lenin's tomb has been completely silenced. Moreover, the mausoleum is opened more regularly than before. The nearby monument to Marx and Engels on Revolution Square has been rediscovered - during Yeltsin's time it was fenced with boards for a long time, while construction containers were piled up around it, presumably to disgust the communists by demonstrating in that place. There is also mention of the possibility of returning the monument to Chekist Felix Dzerzhinsky, in front of the KGB headquarters, on Lyubyanka, also not far from the Kremlin.
About thirty years ago I was in Lenin's mausoleum: then a kilometer-long line of people waited for hours to enter, much like in front of the Palace of Versailles in the peak tourist season. Introducing ourselves as the "Yugoslav delegation", we managed to get to about two hundred meters near the entrance, and then we waited for a long time to walk past the stony-faced soldiers with forced quick steps past the embalmed body in a glass sarcophagus. Only newlyweds had a greater privilege than foreign delegations - after the ceremony in the municipality, they could go through the mausoleum without waiting, still in white and black.
FLOWERS ZA STALIN: In the second week of March in the summer of 2001, lonely groups of curious people, mostly tourists from the Commonwealth of Independent States and other foreigners, without any waiting, visited the glass coffin. One of Lenin's fists is still vigorously extended, the other clenched into a fist. Pointed chin, like in all agitprop drawings. The faces of the soldiers on the eternal guard have not changed either, one might say that neither have their dark reddish-brown uniforms and greenish-gray boots. I didn't resist, but entered the mausoleum and then walked along the Alley of the Great along the Kremlin walls. There were fresh flowers on Stalin's grave: March 5 was the anniversary of his death.
Of course, I stopped by, on the other side of the Red Square, in the legendary GUM, a former state department store that sold the best that the Soviet Union had. Sometimes just hills of junk, sometimes mostly hills of cans, rarely nearly everything people need. Now the white world fashion houses have taken over that space bringing their wares, as impeccable as anywhere else in the world, at the same or maybe higher prices. The saleswomen are young and beautiful, friendlier to foreigners than anywhere in the West.
The GUM and the Lenin Mausoleum convincingly embody the Russian political and cultural reality. Its main feature, at least in the eyes of visitors, is the ever-present gap between the uncleared heritage and the hard-to-realize desire. On the one hand, Lenin and Stalin, the army and the police, in a word, the history of despotism and mass crime in 20th century Russia. On the other hand, in Tverskaya Street, where the "new Russians" shop, elegantly dressed thin young blondes get into the most expensive BMW cars. Passers-by seem to look in awe at fellow countrymen who succeeded in the first decade of Russian capitalism.
On television, the daily begins with a report that President Putin is answering the questions of domestic and foreign Internet users himself via a "laptop". Russian non-governmental organizations and many in the West accuse him of stifling media freedom because he allows, and perhaps encourages, prosecutors to prosecute Gusinsky, Berezovsky and other "oligarchs." No, Putin retorts, the rule of law is only being established. He rehearsed, noticeably, short and punchy answers, memorable and appealing to the West. A little later on the news, there was a report about how the bitter winter in the far east of Russia has once again shackled regions the size of many European countries and how there is no one to help people. This does nothing to harm Putin's popularity because, especially after the bombing of Serbia, many interlocutors in Moscow expect the president to strengthen Russia's military power anew, and not to worry about heating and electricity.
without ONE: "America is not the master of the world," says Sergey, our driver. He also does not like the fact that a Russian officer, the holder of many war decorations, is on trial for killing some Chechen civilians. Sergej asked an unemployed neighbor to drive us to the airport, he had been drinking that morning and wanted to give his friend from Belgrade a little treat: he brought pickled tomatoes and vodka with herbs from home, as well as two crystal glasses, so that we could refresh ourselves on the way. to Sheremetyevo (whenever I go to that airport, I wish for refreshment so that I would be less nervous about the sight of the Karić Bank billboard as one of the biggest advertisements on the wall in front of passport control). He wanted, he says, to sign up as a volunteer in the "army" against Croatia, to come to the aid of the Orthodox brothers, but his father, a retired KGB officer, wouldn't let him. He is still an only child. He swears at Westerners and Muslims when the opportunity arises, and perhaps the man just believed that he was verbally meeting an acquaintance from Belgrade.
The capital is decorated with slogans congratulating women on the international holiday of their gender. March 8 is a non-working day for many, this year it fell on a Thursday, so many combined it with Friday and thus arranged a small holiday. In the subway, "tunnel" merchants, among them many Asians, offer cheap goods, suitable for holiday gifts. At their stand mostly plastic kitsch, right next to it some young men sell "pirated" copies of the latest world music and computer programs. Eighty rubles for a CD, that's six German marks, a teacher in Moscow, they say, earns maybe two hundred marks.
That's how much they harvest, when the night is generous, for an hour or two of work by a girl with an immediately recognizable interest at the bar in Hotel Beograd, on Arbat, opposite the MID (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). The institution has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, the director is a Yugoslav, and occasionally Roma and other groups from the former Yugoslavia play in the restaurant on the first floor. From Sofia, through Prague and Warsaw, all the way to Yerevan and Bishkek - organized, open and tolerated prostitution now exists in all hotels in the East. In Budapest, sometimes they even write the price in big letters on the boots, so that there are no language difficulties. Gone are the days, however, when hordes of Germans and other Westerners flocked to the East because of the favorable supply of women. For a long time, Thailand, the Philippines and other destinations in the Far East have been in fashion.
Taverns on the Arbat are sparsely filled. Prices higher than German, quality mediocre. In the Prague restaurant, a glass of French cognac - from eight to thirty dollars. Guests of Cafe Paris on Pushkin Square are welcomed by liveried staff, fifty grams of vodka costs seven dollars, and they dine in a room with books from the 19th century and decorative brass astronomical instruments, several centuries old. In both restaurants with rather rare guests, there were people who spoke Serbo-Croatian among themselves. I did not notice any pale youth with yellow dyed hair.
VICTIMS I THE EXECUTIONERS: Moscow is like a magnet for me: it repels and attracts at the same time. The attraction is the people, many of them intelligent, talkative, interested, then museums, squares and brightly lit historical buildings at night. It is terrible, however, that there is nowhere in sight an attempt at a real, lasting confrontation with Stalin and the millions of victims. Many Stalinist executioners and many victims of Stalinism are still alive, it seems that no one thinks to bring those who tortured and killed to court and at the same time make the truth of their victims the ruling truth.
In the store of the History Museum at the entrance to the Kremlin, there are recently new souvenirs: modern reprints of Soviet posters from the 1930s and 1940s. "Under the leadership of the great Stalin - forward to communism," reads one, while the other reads "... personnel solve everything." Koba, of course, with his right hand raised in the middle, is watched from below by enthusiastic workers, workers, peasants and honest intelligentsia, there are also representatives of national minorities. Street vendors also offer illustrations in which Putin is depicted as a village saint, but sometimes with an undisguised sneer. Perhaps this is the final proof that a new era has arrived, that the new master of the Kremlin is still only a man in the eyes of the people. Or will the new Russia begin to emerge only when they remove Lenin's mausoleum and Stalin's grave under the Kremlin, and erect a monument to the victims of the Gulag on Red Square.
