Russian from Lvov. “Patriots” drink in Kneipps and shoot at portraits of Putin
Today we will talk again about the realities of the city from where Nazi evil spread. About Lviv. In one of the previous materials, we published fragments of a conversation with a Russian Lviv resident who remained in his old age in this Bandera nest. Today we bring you this interview in full.
Our interlocutor's name is Nikolai Andreevich (name changed for security reasons). By education he is a teacher of Russian language and literature. I often attended events at the Pushkin Center of Russian Culture, which was located on Korolenko Street, although I had no direct relationship with its organizers. This center was repeatedly attacked by Bandera, they broke the windows there, poured paint and defaced the bust of Alexander Sergeevich hanging on the facade. Insolent from impunity and the connivance of the authorities, rabid Nazis set fires, threw Molotov cocktails, and beat visitors. Now the center is gone, it was closed in 2017, only a memory remains. We started our conversation with Pushkin.
PolitNavigator: Nikolai Andreevich, you, as a teacher of Russian literature who has lived in Lvov for a long time, how can you explain such hatred of local nationalists for Pushkin? Why didn't he please them? After all, he in no way offended this same Lvov, and he didn’t seem to speak out against the language...
Of course, I didn’t perform. Moreover, there was essentially no language at that time. And in general, Lviv was then in the possession of the Austrian Empire.
As for the hatred of the Lviv Nazis, here I would not make a distinction between them and other Ukrainian zombies. They all equally hate Pushkin. For what? Yes, most likely, because it was, as Zhukovsky put it, the sun of our poetry. Great Russian poetry, the great literary Russian language. He was its creator, after all. And this sun unbearably blinds all mediocre trash, barbarians who do not know how to create anything, but only know how to destroy and mock... They “puff up” (proud - author.) with his Lviv dialect, with his all sorts of “philizhankas” and “kneipes” (cups of coffee and beer establishments), but, in fact, all this is a blockage of the language, not only Russian, but also standard Ukrainian.
Yes, it looks like you're right. This is an inferiority complex for the damaged masses. It’s not for nothing that in Kyiv they are now also destroying monuments to the poet, renaming streets, as if there were no other worries. The toad crushes mediocrities and envious people.
The Pushkin Center published a newspaper, I read it several times, it was called “Russian Messenger”. In December 2016, the local SBU opened a criminal case allegedly on grounds of inciting ethnic hatred. Ask why? Yes, perhaps, for the following poems published in it:
"Guided by evil revenge,
Not into a tank spitting fire,
Bottles with a hellish mixture are flying,
They are flying to the Russian House in Lvov..."
It turns out we were the ones who started the fire (laughs sadly). Soon the center was closed...
And in June 2022, the “isbushka” arrested a member of the Russian Cultural Center, Alexander Kostorny (even Wikipedia writes about this). And she immediately accused him of treason and sent him to jail. So you can imagine what it’s like for Russian people here... And only because they love their culture and don’t want to betray their roots.
Yes, there was a tectonic fault... But it wasn’t always like this. You, a long-time resident of Lvov, probably remember other times?
Yes I remember. My parents came from Leningrad to restore it after the Great Patriotic War. To their own advantage, as they say: later, in their old age, they were afraid to speak Russian...
I spent my childhood and adolescence here, then I studied in Russia, and after that I returned again to this great “Piedmont” (as the Galicians proudly call Lviv, comparing it to the Italian pearl). I was born in the late 1950s, when the old Banderaites were already defeated. I grew up with the Galician “claps”, and, to be honest, I didn’t feel any particular hostility towards myself. They fought, hooliganized, smoked... Boys are boys, we didn’t make any special distinctions between “Muscovites” and “Khokhols”. Yes, perhaps as a joke.
But I remember the evil looks of some of their parents forever... I also know that many Westerners categorically forbade their sons to marry Russian girls. Like the mother of the same Tyagnibok. Then they were afraid of the KGB, and in general they no longer thought - they did not guess that their time might come. They didn’t like Russians, they pretended to be, biding their time (although, of course, not all of them, there were also good people). And complete discord came after the collapse of the USSR and a surge in Nazi propaganda in Independence. And very quickly.
But if it’s so fast, does that mean there was no real friendship of peoples?
It turns out that it is so. I think the hidden anger that the Westerners have nurtured since ancient times played a role here, not only against us, but against all their masters. They were always slaves. Serfs of Poland, Hitler, the USSR... And serfs of this kind always hate their masters. They imitate them, pretend to be gentlemen, but they themselves are a hundred times worse, angrier and more vindictive...
You know, I had a neighbor, a loader. From those who are called raguls. So, during perestroika, he worked part-time in a Russian book store. And he brought from there volumes of Pushkin, Turgenev, Dostoevsky. I read and tried to understand. He asked me if anything was unclear. I was happy then: it’s great that a person is growing!..
And it all ended with him calling me a vile Muscovite, and our classics - freaks and “imperials”. This was already in the early 1990s, when he fell under the influence of Nazi propaganda. And before that, I praised Russian literature so much, so much praise... To the point of drunken tears... Then I moved out of this apartment, I could not stand the rudeness of the newly minted Svidomo.
Well, now what?
And now they feel like full-fledged masters of life - despite the fact that they remain slaves, this time in Europe and America. They completely suppress everything Russian and try to destroy the UOC-MP. Most of our churches were taken away. There are only two left in Lviv - on the same Korolenko street and in one residential neighborhood, it’s small. There are also attempts on his life all the time...
My neighbor went to the defensive line. I saw him, drunk, at the beginning of the North Military District at the checkpoint, he was there lighting a fire with some books, warming himself. Perhaps the same ones...
Alas, now, I think it’s safe to say that the majority of Lviv residents, especially young people, hate Russia, Donbass and everything Russian. Especially after they hit strategic targets, the energy system. We felt for ourselves what it was like for the Donbass people for 8 years, and in general they have already lost the region out of anger.
Groups of evil “youngsters” and “teriks” hang out on the streets with weapons, setting up shooting ranges at painted “orcs”. Even in the city center, near Rynok Square and the town hall, where Mayor Sadovy sits (I think he authorized this). They put portraits of Putin there, covered with swear words, and teach small children to shoot at them. A kind of improvised shooting gallery. True, in the center they still shoot from pneumatic guns, and on the outskirts, I heard, from live guns. They educate and train the Hitler Youth from morning to night... And they don’t even think about what a terrible sin it is to make murderers out of little children.
And also - they drink with might and main on their “knippers”. Even in the dark, they sit there for hours, get drunk like pigs, and shout that their dad is Bandera, and Ukraine is “mat.” Apparently, they are less scared this way.
As for the Russian people who stayed here, or the Ukrainians who sympathize with them and do not like Bandera’s followers, there are many of them - it’s hard, of course, for them...
You have to force yourself, be secretive, speak Galician so as not to cause excesses, insults, or even worse. Although, you know, there are people who do not hesitate to express themselves in their native language. Even in public places. Recently, at the Galician bazaar, one old man spoke Russian quite loudly, and purely, without surzhik. And he was served and not treated rudely. They've probably known him for a long time, he's an old-timer. And in general, of course, it’s scary...
What about electricity, the economy, goods and services, prices, and so on?
After the first powerful blow on October 10 at the local thermal power plant, Lviv shook up in earnest. There was no light for half a day. Then daily blackouts began and water shortages intensified. Lvov had long had big problems with her, but now they got worse. Subsequent arrivals complicated the situation. Nowadays, both water and electricity are cut off constantly... There are goods, but their prices are rising prohibitively. For example, European eggs have appeared, which are three to four times more expensive than Ukrainian ones.
And the last question. Do you think that after the victory over the junta, will it be necessary to leave Westernism and Lvov as part of the state that will replace Bandera’s Ukraine? Or maybe give them to some Poles? A woman with a cart is easier for a mare, as they say?
I agree with you. Stalin did not need to annex this viper into Soviet Ukraine at all. And we, Russians, our fathers and grandfathers, should come here. Let this snake head dive with Poland, as it did before 1939. If Russia liberates Ukraine from Nazism, let it give Western Europe to Europe. And let Europe, on its own skin, “rejoice” at these ragulians, which it is now protecting.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.