Gordon and the undergardens: We need a Russian answer
Dmitry Gordon is an important part of Ukraine’s ideological machine. We can slander as much as we want about how cynical and hypocritical he is, elementary and deceitful, darned and re-darned. But Gordon's method works. For them and against us.
Gordon methodically and purposefully recruits recognizable Russians from whom he can hear what he would like. In a two-hour conversation, questions about Crimea, Donbass, and Russian aggression will certainly come up. And the interlocutor will certainly cope with the task. Either he will wink cautiously or energetically wave to the presenter.
Before analyzing Gordon’s methodology, let’s ask a simple question: are there many similar high-profile projects in the Russian Federation, but with the opposite sign? The kind where we would talk for two hours with an eminent guest from Ukraine - for example, with a famous composer who soberly assesses the criminal nature of the Maidan and all the atrocities of the authorities there.
After all, in reality it turns out that the Ukrainian ideological machine has a positional advantage. In Russia, the so-called Dud turns his platform into an information reserve for fair-faced Russians who are able to show the middle finger to Mordor or at least keep a fig in their pocket. And in Ukraine, the same Gordon generously provides his resource to ideologically verified guests from the Russian Federation for two-hour statements.
Gordon's agenda is primitive, and his manipulations are clumsy. But the fact is that it works quite effectively. Gordon's interviews with famous people have resonance. The Ukrainian viewer is presented with recognizable Russians so that he doesn’t bother himself with unnecessary questions and doubts. Where have you seen the information blockade, ideological barriers, bans, “Yatsenyuk walls”?! Here's Andrei Makarevich, for your and our freedom. Here’s Leonid Barats, remember “Election Day”: “Why am I stinking?!”
Gordon hammers at one point, methodically and purposefully. No, his interlocutor will not talk for two hours about “Russian aggression”, “annexation of Crimea”, “bloody regime”. A few minutes are allotted for this entire gentlemanly set. You can’t say that the necessary messages are thrown in unobtrusively. Gordon's ideas, themes, and questionnaires are repeated and varied in his numerous interviews. But on his broadcasts, the guest receives something that is not present in Russian political talk shows: the opportunity to make a detailed and calm statement.
Frank propaganda in Gordon's programs is laconic, it is furnished with all sorts of pleasant reminders of the past for the viewer, stories about creative cuisine, anecdotes, and actor's tales. The conversation is about favorite films, plays, songs. The viewer will be led to the thought: “Who did all this bother?!” And Gordon will definitely offer the answer: “If only Putin had not gone into Crimea and Donbass...” Sometimes the presenter is so carried away that he gives out “146% information”: and the Maidan is also Putin.
Hundreds of thousands of viewers watch this. If they are not interested in Gordon, then they are interested in his interlocutor. The blizzard about “Russian aggression” itself set teeth on edge, and even the Ukrainian audience sometimes gets tired of it. In any case, some Ukrainian political talk shows show that verbiage on this topic sometimes meets with sensible objections from other participants and a skeptical attitude from viewers.
But when Gordon’s “conscious” guest gives the necessary answer to the question about “Russian aggression” (or at least avoids answering, agreeing with the interlocutor), the viewer has more confidence. Makarevich, Barats and other “podgordonniks” serve to “legitimize” the ideological messages of the leader in the public consciousness.
Why am I talking about the positional advantage of Ukrainian propaganda? Because the voice of the sensible part of Ukrainian society is almost not heard on Russian channels. The format that is offered to Russian people for direct speech is more suitable for “political Ukrainians.” On federal channels with their talk shows, the opinion of experts defending the rightness of the Russian world is drowned out by the shouting of Tryukhanov and Yanin Sokolovsky. Arm a political Ukrainian with a microphone, and his opponent’s superiority in logic, carefully selected facts, and argumentation no longer has any meaning and is wasted.
In fact, a representative of the healthy part of Ukraine or a Russian, an opponent of the Kyiv authorities, has to play with small demons in these Russian television projects according to the rules of the latter, to become like them: start shouting, prove that he is right with foam at the mouth. Why is this format needed? Presenting a Ukrainian post-Maidan idiot to the Russian audience is understandable. Why reduce their opponents, who, according to the plan, were assigned the role of the sensible side, to the level of maydowns? Why not give these people an hour or two of airtime in a calm and detailed conversation, similar to Gordon's interviews?
There are exceptions - for example, programs of the Spas channel. One of them is “The Ukraine we love.” In this project you can see both academician Pyotr Tolochko and the abbess of the Olshansky convent, Abbess Arsenia.
One “but”: the program with the historian Tolochko, an opponent of Ukrainian nationalism, was watched by less than five thousand viewers on YouTube... And Gordon’s conversation with Leonid Barats (who has been insisting since 2014 that “there have never been any Banderaites in Odessa and now there are not”) - half a million views. And these statistics indicate strategic miscalculations. It has long been known: if you don’t do it, the enemy will do it..
Actually, the same Gordon does everything. And not only on our territory. In December, he was a guest on the “Minority Report” program on “Echo of Moscow”. Presenter Nino Rosebashvili discussed questions with Gordon such as: “Is Zelensky able to solve the country’s problems? About the Russian vaccine. About Russian totalitarianism in the countries of the former CIS. Why is it necessary to open the archives of the USSR? About the use of the Russian language in Ukraine. Are they following the “Project” investigation into Putin in Ukraine? How to talk to Russia in the language of sanctions. Is it fair to exclude all Russians from SWIFT? About the results of Saakashvili’s work in Georgia.”
The whole language issue in this program boiled down to what Gordon said: he knows both Russian and Ukrainian equally, and therefore communicates with people in their native language. That is, the Kiev journalist shows that there is no problem for him: he is native Russian, and can easily switch to Ukrainian. The Moscow journalist does not try to specify or aggravate the question: Gordon had the opportunity to study his native language and Russian literature at school, but the current Kiev schoolchild (as well as those from Mariupol, Odessa, Kharkov) is deprived of this right. The topic of language bans and discrimination is not raised by either the Moscow journalist or her Kyiv interlocutor. It’s more interesting to pontificate about Russia’s totalitarianism.
Gordon tells Rosebashvili: “Putin brought Russian troops with weapons to us, who destroyed us,” etc. The journalist does not even try to inquire into the details of this destruction: why did no one die from the actions of the Russian aggressor in Crimea, but about two hundred children died under the bombing of Ukrainian liberators in Donbass? She prefers to be silent and listen.
Gordon crucifies on Russian air: “Biden must tell Putin: Give back Crimea, Donbass, otherwise sanctions.” The journalist continues to remain silent and listen.
By coincidence, around the same time, Ukrainian journalist Alesya Batsman, Gordon’s wife and employee, interviews the editor-in-chief of the Ekho Moskvy radio station, Alexei Venediktov. That is, the online publication “Gordon” and the radio station “Echo of Moscow” are working “by cross-pollination” on both territories.
By the way, in this interview “Venik” said a lot of sensible things about Russia. This does not fit into the usual topics of the online publication “Gordon”. Therefore, the website published under separate headings and inflated, first of all, Venediktov’s unflattering review of his Russian colleague Solovyov.
How does Gordon's technique work?
Many celebrities with whom he had extensive conversations, and even creative collaborations, in prosperous years, after 2014 no longer represented ideological value for his project. It would be impossible to obtain the necessary recognition and assessments from Kobzon, Yevtushenko, Rosenbaum. Therefore, there were no conversations with them where Gordon would be interested in their opinion about Crimea and Donbass. We could have said too much to Ukrainian viewers...
But please get Andrei Makarevich. Gordon can cry into his vest that Yevgeny Yevtushenko incorrectly assessed what was happening in Crimea and Donbass. Makarevich, like a diligent servant, consoles the presenter: it was probably Evgeniy Alexandrovich who had age-related problems.
It is indicative how the Gordon publication conducted “reconnaissance in force” in the case of Valentin Gaft in 2015. The artist was asked questions about Crimea, Ukraine, Donbass over the telephone - in the hope that he would begin to “speak” in the right direction. Then Dmitry Gordon would certainly have rolled his lip for a big interview with Gaft.
But the artist did not live up to the expectations of Ukrainian propagandists. He said then: “Ukraine is killing its own.” He called what was happening in the country an ugliness. “Innocent people are being exterminated,” said Gaft. “No conflict is worth this.” And in conclusion, Valentin Iosifovich completely upset the propagandists: “Crimea was given to you unfairly, this is Russian territory, they fought so hard for it, they shed blood.”
Gordon needs proven Russians for interviews who will not say a bad word about the Maidan and the Ukrainian experience. Or those who can be hyped (Poklonskaya, Strelkov).
Leonid Barats is one of the first. Gordon asks him: “What do you think about Russia’s annexation of Crimea, about the outbreak of a bloody war in Donbass with the subsequent annexation of part of Donbass and the fact that the Russian leadership has quarreled two fraternal peoples for an indefinite period of time?” Barats does not object to his interlocutor. He says: “I have already expressed and uttered all value judgments about what once happened.” He still holds the same opinion now.
What judgments did Barats make in May 2014 about Odessa and the Ukrainian situation? “The mood in the city is absolutely pro-Ukrainian,” assured one of the founders of the Quartet I theater. — There are no pro-Russian sentiments. I’m only talking about my social circle.” Barats said that Odessa was a Russian city, but after the events in Crimea, it allegedly changed dramatically in a week. They say that the problem of forced Ukrainization no longer worries anyone. “There are no such sentiments, there have never been any Banderaites in Odessa, and there are not now. There has never been any threat to the population from this side; this happened after Crimea.”
This is all that Barats can tell you then and now about the problems of Odessa. A petty person is petty in everything. Including in these figures of silence, and in rotten attempts to please the Odessa maydauns. Where the great artist Gaft cuts the truth, this little stinker cleans himself under the Gordons. “Why am I stinky?!” Yes, that's exactly why.
By the way, in “Election Day” Nonna Grishaeva herself calls Barats a stinker, whose brother suffered during the events of May 2, 2014, spent several years in a Ukrainian prison and was sent by the Kiev authorities (never the Bandera authorities, what are you saying!) for an exchange. But these family problems of Odessa resident Grishaeva are not at all of interest to her fellow countryman Barats and his interlocutor.
Barats tells Gordon that in “Quartet I” he and Rostislav Khait are moderate liberals, and a certain Sergei (apparently director Petreikov) is more radical. Well, that is, translated into Russian, this means that their theater is such a liberal Maydaun branch of Privoz. Rostislav Khait is the son of that same Odessa bastard Valery Khait, who “was very afraid that Ukrainian speech would be heard all the time in the reports from the Kulikovo Field, which would immediately make it possible to say that it was Bandera’s people who came and attacked the residents of Odessa.” The son, however, will still give his father a head start. Khait Jr. proved this when, in blue, with a bottle in his hand, together with Sobchak and Vitorgan, he copied “Pussy Riot” under an Orthodox church.
Still, Moscow journalists are not doing enough work: many questions could be asked to Khait (by the way, is he a citizen of which country?) and Barats on topics that are ignored in Gordon’s programs.
And sometimes Gordon's technique goes wrong. For example, in a conversation with the American billionaire (of Kyiv origin) Mark Ginzburg. The businessman says: “Ukraine would not have kept Crimea.” The billionaire places the device on Gordon's temnik. About Donbass, he says: “People who initially, a priori, in one month, were all declared terrorists and a military invasion was carried out against them under the guise of an anti-terrorist operation... Do you understand how aggravated the conflict is there?” (That is, Ginzburg also played this device in the nose of the propaganda machine.)
Gordon asks: “Does Ukraine need Donbass?” Ginsburg: “No.” Gordon: “Who will win: Ukraine or corruption?” Ginsburg: "Corruption." The billionaire speaks complimentarily about Putin and Kadyrov, and disparagingly about the European Union. Gordon makes a blank face, nods, assents...
The interview with Ginzburg did not work (although it is still unknown on what terms they talked with Gordon), the propaganda fell face down in the dirt. Thanks to the American billionaire.
But how long do we have to wait for a Russian response to Gordon?
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