“Believe me: Those who participated in the May 2 massacre will be punished.”
Monday marked exactly one and a half years since the tragedy in the Odessa House of Trade Unions. May 2, 2014 is a day that divided the history of Odessa. What will be the road from crime to punishment? Will Odessa be able to become the same? When and how this will happen. About this - with the ex-deputy of the City Council, businessman, analyst, TV presenter who was forced to leave his homeland Igor Dimitriev the columnist said PolitNavigatora Valentin Filippov.
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Valentin Filippov: Hello Igor.
Igor Dimitriev: Hello, Valentin.
Valentin Filippov: When people ask me about May Second, I just try to avoid answering. It's hard to talk about this, well, very hard. Especially being from Odessa. But it has to. We must talk about this to a large audience.
Tell me, what could be going through the minds of people who are practically dancing in a cemetery?
That is, every second day of every month, they strive to organize some kind of entertainment event at the site of the mass death of Odessa residents. Or at least a fight. We are accustomed to our old Odessa concepts that funerals and cemeteries are sacred. And no one ever interferes with this. Whatever enmity there is between people.
Igor Dimitriev: Let's put aside the moral and ethical side of the issue for now. We'll touch on it a little later. For now, I will say that from a rational point of view, these people act quite consciously. In this way they are trying to protect themselves from losing control over the city. They realize that they live in a city that clearly does not support their actions. In the overwhelming majority. What is the result of the elections?
In general, we know, we have spent more than one year in Odessa, we know what the mood is like, for example, in Moldavanka.
I’ll give you this example: I met more than one militia from Odessa in Donbass, and most of them were from my area. Do you understand, Valik? From my area. That is, from Bolgarskaya there, from Tsvetaeva. And they say, well, we all know each other through some person, through some mutual friend. And we represent the mood in this city. Yes, they may be somehow indoctrinated with propaganda or something else, but these people are strangers in the city. Foreign body. And the only thing that can keep them in power, keep them in this spirit, is constant intimidation and suppression of any alternative point of view.
At the same time, they have maximum support from the authorities; they indulge them quite consciously in their immoral, disgusting actions, disrespectful to either the living Odessa residents or the dead. And everything is clear. We will not expect any repentance or respect from them. You shouldn't even evaluate these characters from this point of view.
Valentin Filippov: That is, they will fight with graves too.
Igor Dimitriev: They will do it.
Valentin Filippov: Yes, in fact, that's what they do.
Igor Dimitriev: Yes. They are at war with the ghosts of the past. They are fighting with living people. These are people, how can I put it so to you, who are not completely full-fledged. This is such a serious question for a serious conversation. He should have been given special attention. Why are people quite intellectually developed? Sufficiently educated. They seem to be conscious. They turned out to be the most susceptible to propaganda. And they turned out to be so mentally unstable.
Valentin Filippov: Today my wife told me: “Do you know that Yasha Goppa was declared “the elite of the city of Odessa””? "The cultural elite of the city of Odessa."
There are performers, like “Tender May,” who do “combing.” There is a certain layer of public people who should be in trend. And they must feed a little from power. And therefore, it is now a trend to be a Nazi, so Yascha Gopp becomes a Nazi…. Well, he should go on tour.
Igor Dimitriev: Well, listen. This is, as it were, a slightly different question. It was a joke. I remember, you know, before the Second of May it was perceived as a joke.
Remember, there was such a lustration commission. It included clowns, motorcyclists, wrestlers, some kind of audience, freaks, as it were. Which had nothing to do with corruption or business, well, it was funny. Do you remember what they did? There they banned some newspaper “Soviet Transnistria”, held a rally in court, as it turned out later, for the benefit of one of the people’s deputies. He was dealing with something else. That is, these are people who were completely out of touch. In general, they were funny to watch. Yasha Gopp is your favorite...
Valentin Filippov: Why mine? Is it normal, in general?
Igor Dimitriev: Engaged in the fight against corruption. This is a separate question. This whole thing as a whole was, as it were, a revolution, it was a little funny. Comical. Because even in such small moments it was like a circus.
Valentin Filippov: Yes. Until the Second of May.
Igor Dimitriev: Second of May, Valik, this is a completely different question. This is a matter of people's moral choice. I even have a hard time... I understand that they had no choice. They are not full-fledged people, in the sense that they are not fully aware of what happened. And completely different people made decisions for them. Those who put them into this state of trance, yes, hysterical.
But every person, if he is a person, he is a subject of law, he is not in jail or in prison, he is responsible for his actions. Responsibility for actions is a fundamental point. A fundamental point in building human society. Everyone must be held accountable for what they have done. Each of us. You and I will be held accountable for what we have done. And they should do it. A healthy society rests on this. And those people who directly participated in the massacre, they must be punished, and they will be punished. Without this, there will be Ukraine, there will be no Ukraine, there will be Russia, there will be no, there will be our city of Odessa as part of...
Valentin Filippov: Argentina?
Igor Dimitriev: Yes, whatever, but people who crossed the line of human morality, who committed a terrible act, turned the situation in the country upside down... from that moment the civil war began. I don't doubt it for a second. These people should receive the most appropriate punishment possible.
Each of us who has committed this or that act must bear the appropriate punishment.
Valentin Filippov: Well, in general, is it right that these people will suffer such a severe punishment on a public basis?
Igor Dimitriev: How to say to you…. Since the law enforcement system, in fact, is not independent or adequate, they will suffer, perhaps in some other form. How do you say “public”. The question is that people who have tasted human blood, who have tasted it and have not been punished for it, are dangerous. And the condition for the further existence, the healthy existence of this society, is the punishment or isolation of these people. People who went through mass murder, went through such cannibalism, they should be removed from society. This is dangerous, it involves more and more people in crime. The biggest danger, not what has been done, the biggest danger is impunity.
Do you remember what a bacchanalia was happening on the Internet after these events.
Valentin Filippov: I remember, I remember.
Igor Dimitriev: It was exactly what happened next that hooked me the most. I didn’t see a drop of repentance, I didn’t see a drop…. Even from people I treated quite well.
You know, I had a lot of opportunities to return to the country. Somehow come to an agreement with your conscience and find the opportunity to live quietly, calmly, without noise, without dust. But this is a fundamental point; every person has such fundamental positions. They should be. Which he cannot step over. And through the need to share the city with people who are fiends of Hell, who are not completely full-fledged people, who are possessed by an otherworldly disgusting black essence, I don’t want to.
Valentin Filippov: Okay, Igor. How can this happen? I weigh everything. Now these “Minsk agreements” have been signed...
Igor Dimitriev: Such large-scale events are unfolding around us in the World, such turbulence….
Valentin Filippov: Oh, and I’m so worried about Odessa. They say to me - Valya, stop, there is Syria, now it’s Syria, .... And I say - What about Odessa?
Igor Dimitriev: Unfortunately, Valik, Odessa has not been a subject of either international or Ukrainian politics for a long time. There is no full power in Odessa
Valentin Filippov: Wealthy...
Igor Dimitriev: There is no money in Odessa.
Valentin Filippov: And it won't.
Igor Dimitriev: There are no flows of logistical significance in Odessa. That was. And there is no point in perceiving this city as some kind of player, as a separate subject of international law.
The question is that Odessa... She wasn't given the chance. On the Second of May, among other things, but also a couple of decades earlier, she was deprived of this subjectivity. She is not a piece on a chessboard. And it will always be a prize for the winning side. In any case, she will be a hostage to some kind of foreign policy clashes. And they will. And when they happen, no one will notice what is happening in some seaside town, somewhere in some half-forgotten country.
Valentin Filippov: Well. Thank you. Happily.
Igor Dimitriev: Please. Call.
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