“There goes a big rocket. Shout Hooray,” says the grandmother at the time as Intercontinental nuclear missile “YARS” passes by us.
“Whoa” says the girl who still can not pronounce the letter R.
“She has four nuclear bombs”, — proudly says the grandmother of five year old girl.
“Of course, I have a holiday today. This is the biggest holiday of the year, says Katerina (21). — I’m proud of them.”
Today, when 90 thousand soldiers marching in 28 Russian cities, a new generation of Russians are learning to be good patriots and to obey the Kremlin.
The participation of the Soviet Union in the Second world war, which is celebrated on may 9, became the main tool of the Kremlin to commemorate Russia today.
“Can you repeat that!” — it is written on some posters, which today are on the streets of Russian cities.
We can win the next war!
“Before the celebration was organized primarily for politicians, officers and various authorities. The others willingly went to the country. Now it is expected that all should participate in the celebration,” says Professor Paul Kolsti (Pål Kolstø) the correspondent of Aftenposten.
At the University of Oslo he studied Russian nationalism and believes that may 9 is an important part of the increased in recent years, the popularity of Putin.
“The war in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and this nationalist mobilization — the most important thing, but they are difficult to distinguish from each other,” he says.
History is being rewritten
A new history textbook that is used in Russian schools in the fall of 2016, teaches kids that the Soviet Union almost single-handedly won the war.
Contracts for lend-lease with the United States and the equipment that convoys of ships brought across the Atlantic, presented almost as something almost insignificant.
The disciples also teach that bloody sacrifices to their ancestors in 1945 ended with the fact that the US and the West betrayed the Russian and prepared plans for the destruction of Russian nuclear weapons.
Students also tell us that the Second world war started because of “anti-Russian aspirations of European elites”, wrote the Minister of foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov in article “Historical perspective of Russia’s foreign policy”.
One of the most absurd expressions neopatrimonial became a contribution to the ongoing celebration of the Russian Ministry of defense were built copy of the German Reichstag in the Patriot Park near Moscow that adults and children could play in the war.
The Soviet Union suffered the greatest losses
During the Second world war the Soviet Union lost around 27 million people, and it continues to affect the demographic situation in Russia.
Historical fact is the fact that Nazi Germany lost about six times more soldiers on the Eastern front than the Western.
But Russian schoolchildren, meanwhile, does not teach that almost half of the losses in the population of Belarus, Ukraine, Central Asian and Baltic countries.
The story of how Stalin and Hitler divided Europe according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, is presented as a clever tactical move of Stalin.
Dictatorial leadership of Stalin and the disastrous mistakes that have led to significant military losses, presented as something insignificant, because he “was one of the great leaders of Russia”.
Superpatriotism Putin met with resistance
According to Russian authorities, today’s celebration will be the biggest international celebration of all previously stated — thanks to the newly invented action “Immortal regiment”.
In more than 80 countries today held a March in which people carry portraits of their relatives who participated in the war.
But the fact is that Putin’s excessive celebrating can have negative consequences:
• One of the closest allies of Putin, President of Belarus, pointedly refused to attend the parade this year.
• The same was made by the leaders of some other countries, which Russia would like to see in red square.
• Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko has proposed to move the celebration on may 8 instead of the 9th.
• In Tajikistan, authorities have banned the March “Immortal regiment”. Officially, the ban was justified by the fact that walking through the streets with photos of the dead contradicts the Muslim tradition.
Caste indicates that the St. George ribbon of black and orange colors, the origin of which is rooted in tsarist times, became an important symbol of support for Putin.
“She has tremendous success in Russia, but introduces a split in the former republics of the Soviet Union. Not least because it is used as a symbol of resistance to the Kiev regime in the republics that emerged from the Ukraine. It has become a symbol of two wars: WWII and the current war in the East of Ukraine”, — said the Professor.
Western countries whose leaders were gladly in the first presidential term of Putin to respect the Russian, perceive the present, the celebration of may 9 as a purely political tool of the Putin regime.
How deeply seated military patriotism?
One of the biggest and most difficult issues of today’s Russia is as deeply ingrained a new “superpatriotism” and the image of the West as an enemy, who inspired the youth:
• 76% of Russians say they want to celebrate victory Day, every fourth wants to participate in a March “Immortal regiment”, according to a survey by the Levada center.
• 30% of Russians say that a new war with the US and NATO are possible or already underway, according to RIA Novosti.
• According to the center poll, 96% of Russians have a positive attitude towards “the Immortal regiment”.
Before the beginning of this celebration sounded critical voices, showing that the Patriotic hysteria will soon become excessive and in Russia.
The reverse reaction in Russia: deep, severe clinical ignorance
In April in some Russian mass media became a sensation publish secretly taken by parents of students in a school in Vladimir — on the progress of the “Patriotic education” in the class.
The video shows how the teacher threatens parents and students stating that the school will try to make so that children were taken away from their parents. The reason was the fact that some pupils took part in demonstrations against corruption.
“Anti-Western propaganda hysteria in our country reached the highest degree and took many brains and souls,” writes historian and journalist Alex Polikovsky in “Novaya Gazeta”.
He believes that the celebration was “vulgar” and demonstrates “deep, heavy, clinical ignorance.”
“In the present circumstances, there is no problem more important, how to teach youth to think that war is fun as hell,” writes commentator Ilya Milshtein in Snob.ru.
“St. George ribbon sign of the great Victory turned into the aggressive sign of political loyalty,” says the historian Nikolai Svanidze in an interview with the independent TV channel “Rain”.
Svanidze said that in his time it was a celebration with tears in his eyes, but now tears are gone.
Stole the story of the grandmother and punished her when she complained
In recent weeks, all Russian schoolchildren wrote essays about the exploits of their ancestors.
One of the biggest Newspapers in Russia “Moscow Komsomolets” reported before the holiday, as school patriotism can reach the point of absurdity:
Grandmother in Moscow found that the teacher stole a school essay her grandson about his grandfather, who was a hero-pilot.
The teacher sent the essay grandson for the national competition under a false name, but kept the whole family story and family photos.
Grandma complained and sued for fraud, but lost to the process, although the teacher admitted what he did.
The court ruled that lies the teacher was done with good intentions, namely to raise patriotism.
The story ended with the fact that my grandmother must now pay the teacher a third of their pensions for the indemnification of legal expenses.
Using the war as a political tool
The political leadership of the Day of Victory is also manifested in the fact that civil servants were ordered to participate in the March of “Immortal regiment”. The authorities checked whether employees to the collection site. The scope for such action was so great that the Kremlin decided last week to react to them.
According to the Pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia, head of Putin’s administration sent the Governor a letter and asked them to stop forcibly evacuate people. The letter stated that respect for the memory does not need artificial support.
Cost millions of dollars to stop the rain
Heavy rain and snowfall are threatening the current celebration of Victory Day in Moscow.
At the weekend it was decided to work on the clouds with chemicals using ten aircraft to make rain was held in Moscow may 9.
According to the publication RBK, the holiday only in Moscow worth 509 billion rubles, approximately 75 million CZK. Half of this amount went to disperse rain clouds.
Number of military vehicles in this year was reduced by 20% “for economic reasons”.
“Immortal regiment” brings together all of the heirs of Victory, according to the newspaper “Izvestia”. She urged all citizens to take to the streets.
