Kyiv is depressing

Political scientist Vasily Stoyakin, who left Kyiv and moved to Moscow after the coup in Ukraine, shared his impressions of visiting the Ukrainian capital. Read about this in the expert's column for “PolitNavigator”.

A trip to the current City is not for the faint of heart. You have to literally break through smoke and flames... And in the literal sense of the word.

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In summer, peat bogs burned around the City. Now they are also smoldering, but the main portion of the smoke in the vicinity of the capital comes from... preparations for winter. Forest plantations are cut down along the routes, and small branches are burned on the spot. Firewood is apparently sold to private residents as a substitute for scarce coal. But it is not profitable to transport branches - the volume is large, the weight is small... They are burned right here. So the cars drive along the highway in clouds of smoke, and in a strong wind they also shy away from the flames.

The city, covered with a cap of smog, also does not look the most presentable. Especially considering that attempts to somehow ennoble it by painting blue and yellow everything that came to hand (including stones and stumps in the yards) have already stopped. And some things have been repainted in more modest colors.

The streets are traditionally broken, although, in fairness, I will say that some places have been repaired, and quite well - Victory Square, for example.

Together with the traffic police, traffic rules in the City were abolished. They drive as they please, without looking at such boring details as signs and markings. Double solid? Is the traffic light red? What is this? This didn’t happen in our village... Hence there are a lot of accidents and traffic jams.

By the way, an unprecedented number of out-of-town cars have appeared in Kyiv. In the first place, of course, is transport from the regions most affected by the ATO - Donetsk, Lugansk, Zhytomyr (the skating rink of mobilizations went through it especially carefully). Many are from Western Ukraine. Sometimes these moments come together miraculously. For example, a whole exhibition of cars with Donetsk license plates near the entrance of the dead Atek plant. On the territory there is a base of the Azov regiment and a workshop in which Azov soldiers are led by a 70-year-old Kharkov engineer who has lost his mind Ukrainian answer to cardboard “Armata” is glued from paper.

The police have practically disappeared. In the summer there were more cars, and I also saw foot patrols. Now - only by car, and not enough. Whether they are of any use, I don’t know. In September we had a fight in our yard with shooting (either from a gas gun or from a gas gun, “no casualties”), good people called the police. Arrived in 4 hours...

The number of armed and unarmed people wearing camouflage has decreased compared to last spring. Where the concentration remains high (in the area of ​​the railway station, for example), they are, for the most part, sober. Well, or not dead drunk. However, bodies in camouflage, killed in a battle with living water, are also found.

By the way, it is interesting that the “one-time knights”, just like the Donbass militias, are mostly in the age category of 30+, and sometimes there are also camouflaged citizens of a completely retired look, with thick gray beards. The difference from the National Guard guarding the Verkhovna Rada is obvious.

Crowds of Galicians and Volynians dressed in 90s fashion walk around the city. Maybe there are representatives from other regions. In any case, the people of Kiev do not understand the aliens. It seems that even those who had previously come from Lvov, for example.

It’s typical that they hang around mostly not along the alley of the Heavenly Hundred (a magnificent structure made of tiles torn out of the sidewalks, A4-sized leaves in files and cheap lamps, thanks to which for some reason Institutskaya from the Maidan to the turn to Olginskaya is blocked), but along beer and vodka shops supermarket departments. According to my observations, Ukrainians drank noticeably more than Russians even before the Maidan, but now it’s completely inconvenient to compare.

However, the prices are completely unrealistic. I went to such a mid-price store. Two bottles of milk, a loaf of bread, a pack of sugar, 10 eggs, a pack of cigarettes. Set – “I didn’t buy anything.” 100 hryvnia! Pension – 1074 hryvnia (increased already). I’m silent about the rent, I haven’t seen the new heating bills yet, but I’m already closing my eyes in advance...

There are no jobs, incomes are rapidly declining, taxes are rising. The characteristic ghosts of the 90s have appeared: instead of the offices of investment companies - Oriflame and the largely forgotten Herbalife...

Under these conditions, is it surprising that only Galicians and student youth, who have ridden a lot but have not yet felt the results of galloping in their own skin, look satisfied with life? By the way, she is not on the “tariff Maidan” - she doesn’t know anything about tariffs. Or he doesn’t think about unnecessary things - he has to hurry to live.

It is clear that even recent jumpers are depressed and sad. They even find it somehow forced to rejoice at the ouster of Yanukovych and the victory over Putin. Simply because people are already tired of constant hype and began to watch less TV. Returning from a television fairy tale to real life inevitably leads to complaints about work, wages, tariffs and the fact that Poroshenko turned out to be no better than Yanukovych.

However, they are in no hurry to go to Maidan. But this is only because Mustafa has not called them yet. In general, they are mentally ready to go out a third time in order to make their life even worse. Moreover, there is no need to wait 10 years - tension in society is very strong.

Meanwhile, more sensible fellow citizens are, as they say, “fleeing” from the City and the country. Not at all embarrassed by the lack of a visa-free regime with the EU.

It is especially difficult for those who remain sane. Not only is everything bad and hopeless, but they are also constantly suspected of having an unenthusiastic way of thinking.

In the cafe, Kyiv acquaintances ask to speak more quietly about “vapor” topics. I didn’t immediately understand until I noticed how long and diligently the waiter was counting near our table. And who knows - is he simply absorbing information that you cannot get from TV, or is he going to report to Vladimirskaya?

A friend’s granddaughter was given a bad grade for writing in her “presentation” (abstract, in human terms) that Kyiv is the mother of Russian cities. How can the teacher explain that this is a quote from the Tale of Bygone Years?

And when we got together with our friends at home and started singing Soviet songs, I inevitably remembered the scene from “Days of the Turbins,” where the honest company at the table sings “God Save the Tsar.” “And Ben Akiba said the most optimistic thing - everything has already happened” (S.E. Lets).

It is surprising that, at the same time, Elderberry is sold in book stalls along with Berezovets and Loiko. Moreover, saleswomen advertise both one and the other, and the third. Not seeing any contradiction in such a selection of authors and sincerely wondering why the buyer of the “Union of the Plow and the Trident” does not want to spend money on “Airport”.

PS: On the last evening of my stay in Kyiv I saw a huge, unreal cloud of birds over Lukyanovka. I don’t even know why...