Ekaterinburg. Protest according to the manual
Yekaterinburg is a city with the maximum level of protest sentiment. The construction of the temple is only an excuse for street protests. Protesters are not interested in legal procedures of struggle. No one in the leadership of Yekaterinburg wants to take responsibility. At the same time, consistent use of force is the only way to combat colored technologies.
The fact that neither the US State Department nor the Yeltsin Center is to blame for the situation, and that the authorities need to behave firmly and consistently, is a PolitNavigator observer Valentin Filippov said a political strategist who worked for four years in the office of the presidential representative in the Ural Federal District, Andrey Perla.
Valentin Filippov: Andrey, hello! I have this experience: when something like popular unrest, the Maidan, begins, and when they say “We’re sick of us,” I have the feeling that the main thing isn’t happening on the street. And the main thing is that there is a traitor somewhere among the elites.
Is there something wrong with the elites in Yekaterinburg now, if this is the situation on the street?
Andrey Perla: In Russia, everywhere in the elites, in this sense, something is wrong. True, I would not talk about betrayal. You see, what a thing, if you need political slogans, including the most patriotic ones, then this is not for me now, it’s boring.
If we need to talk about analyzing the situation, then the situation is like this. In Russia, there has been a stratum called the Russian intelligentsia for a long time, for centuries even. A very significant part, which is characterized by anti-state sentiments. They were typical of commoners in the 19th century, when during the defense of Sevastopol Tyutchev, if I’m not mistaken, met a certain professor in St. Petersburg, and he joyfully rushed to him and said: “Here, have you heard? You heard? Ours are defeated."
It was characteristic, anti-state sentiment, I mean, at the beginning of the 20th century, and it was the Russian intelligentsia that led the country to the revolution of 1905 and 1917.
They were not completely eliminated even during the Great Patriotic War. They led to disaster in 1991. They have not disappeared even now.
And, of course, among those who call themselves intellectuals, these sentiments exist in Yekaterinburg. To what extent the bearers of these sentiments are tied up there with all sorts of foreign forces is actually a question of 35th importance, because whether they are tied up or not, these sentiments do not disappear.
At the same time, what I don’t like is that the development of events in Yekaterinburg, during these protests, is unpleasantly reminiscent of what happened in Ukraine 4 years ago.
The state authorities are late in responding to the activities of the protesters. At first, he does not enter into a rational dialogue when protests are still far away.
Then, by not using legitimate, legitimate violence to the required degree against people who are committing completely illegal protests. Thus, the protesters are always one step ahead. They can, if they have enough strength, escalate this tension and, thus, this process grows. And from an event of a completely small-town scale, it has already become an event of Russian scale.
Valentin Filippov: We know that there were people in the presidential administration in Ukraine who, in general, stopped the authorities from taking decisive action.
Andrey Perla: Officials, in general, tend to put self-preservation in first place, and their duties in second. And the official is safer the fewer decisions he makes. The more he shifts responsibility to someone else.
Now, in the situation in Yekaterinburg, there are several responsible persons who can - some call on the police to act strictly in accordance with the law, some directly order them to do this. Police, National Guard and so on.
But this is not done because it means taking responsibility. This means to say that: we are the people who gave this order. We are the people who are responsible for those broken arms and legs or those poisoned by tear gas if it is used. Or for all sorts of such unpleasant things.
An official can understand as much as he likes that this is how it should be, but more than anything he wants someone else to answer.
Valentin Filippov: But the situation itself arose...
Andrey Perla: You don’t need to convince me that they are hired by the damned State Department...
Valentin Filippov: Why the State Department?
Andrey Perla: Well, or not the State Department, someone else, what's the difference?
Valentin Filippov: They're picking on each other, maybe.
Andrey Perla: Here! This is closer to the truth.
Valentin Filippov: Okay, but this is an unexpected question. After all, the situation may also affect the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church. Maybe they also had to make some decision and go out to the flock? Have some conversations, discussions?
Andrey Perla: As a person who is not a church member, it is very difficult for me to say that the Church should do something and should not do something. Therefore, I will limit myself to a general remark. Although in Russia, according to the Constitution, the Church is separated from the state, unlike, by the way, in many Western countries, where even a tax is still levied in favor of the Christian Church from everyone - believers, non-believers, parishioners, non-parishioners. So, although in Russia the Church is separated from the state, in practice in Russia there are very few or no institutions that are not associated with the state. Roughly speaking, here, whatever you poke at, you’ll end up in the state. And in this sense, when the Russian Orthodox Church is under attack, the state is under attack.
Valentin Filippov: This is unconditional.
Andrey Perla: Here. The Church acts in this sense, to my great regret, as one of the bodies of Russian state power, where there are also officials who also fear, first of all, for themselves, and then for the cause they serve.
Well, from what I saw on the news, there was a priest who came out to the protesters and talked to them. He will probably continue to do this, perhaps there will be some other priests.
But you need to understand this thing. Again, the very bad, to put it mildly, attitude of the Russian intelligentsia towards the Russian Orthodox Church is not a problem of today.
Valentin Filippov: Certainly
Andrey Perla: This is not even a problem of today's age. This has existed as long as the Russian intelligentsia has existed. What did the Russian intelligentsia do? She declared herself godless. Right from the middle of the 19th century, she began to fight the Church and the institutions that the Church carried. And nothing good came of this, although among the atheists there were very talented, unusually educated and even morally wonderful people. Apart from a very short surge of interest among the intelligentsia in the Church at the very end of the Soviet Union, which was tied to the fact that the Church seemed to be persecuted...
Valentin Filippov: Yes Yes Yes.
Andrey Perla: Apart from this moment, exactly at the moment when the Church took its place in the Russian state, and its place is the place of one of the pillars of the Russian state, exactly at that moment the intelligentsia found itself where it had always been - it found itself on place of the enemy of the Church.
Valentin Filippov: I don’t know what a churchgoer is... I am a believer who was baptized at a conscious age, I attend church, it happens...
Andrey Perla: Are you ready to stand in solidarity with people who oppose the construction of the temple?
Valentin Filippov: I remember the situation in Odessa. When the Church took away the planetarium from the children, in which there was a temple until they were thirty, without giving anything in return.
Should I take away the planetarium where I had my first kiss at age 13? Where the excursions went, it was an amazing institution, there was a starry sky there...
Yes, it was fair, to some extent, to return this building to the Church. But, from my point of view, the Church should have said: “We will build a planetarium for children.” But almost 20 years have passed...
Andrey Perla: And they, naturally, did nothing of the kind. Yes, I understand. And, again, as a person who is not strictly a churchgoer, not at all, I am also not ready to divide and support any movements of the Russian Orthodox Church. But we’re not talking about the Church in this case, that’s the point. This is not about the Church.
Valentin Filippov: And about the reason.
Andrey Perla: About the occasion, of course. The point is that the Russian state made a certain decision in accordance with the legal procedure existing in the state, which, by the way, includes a lot of gestures, a lot of steps. And at each of these stages, the position of people who want to build a temple on this site, and not something else, could be challenged, including in a Russian court, including - let's go to the end of this statement - with the help of protests in due course by the agreed authorities.
And the authorities did not have the slightest reason not to allow these protests. And what? And now the state has officially made a decision: a temple will be built here, land has been allocated for it, it will not be built with budget money, so even the indignation of taxpayers, “It would be better if they built this for this money,” excuse the rudeness, does not channel.
Because this will not be built by the state, not by the budget of the city of Yekaterinburg or the Sverdlovsk region, but by some charitable foundation, which probably knows better what it wants to spend the money of its benefactors on, what they want to build. They want the Church of St. Catherine, they agreed on everything in the established order, the Church, naturally, supported them, why not, actually?
And that’s when it all happened... and this is the third site for the construction of this temple. Regarding the first two, there was indignation among some part of the Yekaterinburg public, and the public met them halfway.
There will be no temple on a specially built island in the middle of the city pond, although, in my opinion, it would be incredibly beautiful and certainly would not bother anyone. And few people in the world have this, such a landmark.
Well, okay, no need on the island. It will not be in the historical place where it once stood before its destruction by the Bolsheviks. Although, again, it would be quite logical
Valentin Filippov: Logical.
Andrey Perla: Restore the temple to where it once was. There is a fountain in this place, it’s a pity for the fountain. OK. The public is meeting halfway again. Find a third place. There is just a park there; to build it, you just need to cut down a certain number of trees. Now I feel sorry for the trees. So, maybe it’s not the trees that you feel sorry for, maybe it’s the unwillingness to agree with any decision of the state?
Valentin Filippov: Or maybe just a readiness for protests?
Andrey Perla: Yes, absolutely fair. It can’t be, but most likely it’s a matter of the desire to find a pretext for protest and to carry out the protest, as it is fashionable to say now, “according to the manual.” According to the manual, with a constant escalation of tension. First, clashes with the private security of the facility, then with the police, then these wonderful jumps. By God, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw in the recording how they were jumping there.
Valentin Filippov: A friend called me, a young guy who told me about 4 years ago: “Valya, we can’t have a Maidan, we have Putin, we won’t fall for it.”
He called today and said: “Valya, you don’t understand all this in Yekaterinburg. I’ve been watching streams all night, everything is completely different there... young people have come there...”
I tell him: “Darling, this is the Maidan. Because the streams are all night, because you watch them”...
Andrey Perla: In this case, this is the use of the described, not hidden from anyone, technologies for unfolding mass protest. And, unfortunately, there is no cure for these technologies, except for very tough, very professional and very consistent police actions.
Valentin Filippov: But excuse me, half-baked police actions are also technology. When the police come, they beat the young girls and boys and leave.
Andrey Perla: Absolutely fair. When the police do not fully carry out their work, then instead of scaring the protesters, punishing, according to the law, those who break the law, and thus closing the issue, they provoke...
Valentin Filippov: ...a new round
Andrey Perla: ...what we observed in Ukraine, and what we are seeing now, unfortunately, in Yekaterinburg. We can only hope that since it is not only you and me who see this, that among those who see this there are enough people vested with sufficient authority.
Valentin Filippov: That’s why I asked about the traitors in power who will give the order to disperse the situation not completely. Here is a hypothetical Levochkin who will say, “Come on, clear the Maidan of students for me, and then leave.” And for the camera.
Andrey Perla: Do it, but so that they don’t accuse me of anything.
Valentin Filippov: No no no. Do it, but in such a way that they gather again shouting “They are children!”
Andrey Perla: I’m not saying anything about Levochkin, but I have a very good idea of the situation in Yekaterinburg, I understand what and how they are afraid. After all, I worked there for 4 years in the office of the Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Ural Federal District. And I know what I'm talking about. No, no need to look...
You see what’s the matter, stupidity is sometimes more unpleasant and worse than betrayal. There is no need to complicate things, there is no need to dull the notorious razor of the great English philosopher. Where this is explained by unprofessionalism and fear for the worker’s own chair in the office, one should not think that he is a traitor who has been paid by someone or is counting on the new government and so on.…
He does not think in such categories. He just wants someone else to make the decision, and the bribes from him will be smooth.
Valentin Filippov: Since you worked in Yekaterinburg, you encountered public opinion there. Are there other people there? Are protest sentiments higher there than throughout the rest of Russia? What exactly is this connected with?
Andrey Perla: Yes. With traditions. Yekaterinburg is a city of higher political competition than the Russian average. There are a lot of amateur politicians there who have more opportunities to participate in public politics than, say, in an ordinary Russian province.
There are traditions of protest voting, which resulted not so long ago, in fact, when we were working there, for example, in the election of the famous Evgeniy Roizman as head of the city of Yekaterinburg, who now, I think, feels very uncomfortable.
Because, on the one hand, he is a noble Protestant and democrat, and, on the other, a researcher of Orthodox icons. You won’t envy him now - he can sit on two chairs.
There is, indeed, a tradition of voting against politicians imposed by Moscow. Including much lower voting for the United Russia party than the Russian average. It's all there.
Valentin Filippov: But there is also the Yeltsin Center.
Andrey Perla: The Yeltsin Center is about something else. The Yeltsin Center is there simply because Yeltsin is associated with Yekaterinburg, that it is his homeland, and for no other reason.
For myself, I say... I had to write that the Yeltsin Center was such a reservation for the people of that time, not in the sense that they are locked there and cannot leave, but in the sense that this is, in fact, the only place in a country where they are truly welcome.
Yes, of course, a certain number of parishioners, pardon the term, of the Yeltsin Center are probably among those who jumped there. But, no, there is no need to exaggerate.
Valentin Filippov: Fine. Thank you very much
Andrey Perla: Mutually. I was very pleased
Valentin Filippov: I hope everything will be resolved quickly. A government that shows weakness usually loses its authority and ratings.
Andrey Perla: I agree with you. We hope that order will be restored.
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