BBC: Russia spends $1.4m on pro-war concerts
NewsThe BBC Russian service reports:
In April – early May, a marathon “For Russia” was held in the Russian regions. The authorities spent a record amount on it – almost 100 million rubles. The artists earned large fees at patriotic concerts, and they were invited by the Expert Institute for Social Research close to the Kremlin. The most expensive – 10.5 million rubles – cost the budget a group of Sergei Galanin, who said that the state should help only “patriotic cultural figures.”
More here.
Pictured: Putin-supporting bass singer Vasily Gerello
The term ‘patriotic’ has acquired a meaning today entirely different from the description in the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Instead of indicating a genuine love for one’s nation, it has now become a fig leaf to cover-up paranoia and violent crime.
After the implosion of the Soviet Union, a happening entirely due to its own flaws, Russia had to find herself again and rightly sought her genuine identity in pre-revolutionary times. But it seems that this nostalgia has taken the country back to the darkest hours of totalitarianism, terrorism and frightening explorations of the rabbit hole, and – taking its examples from the nazis – now recrutes culture to hide behind a veneer of respectability.
It is deeply disturbing to see a great nation with a great culture sinking that low.
Only a tiny correction : Vasily Gerello is (at least he was) baritone, not bass.