On Friday, January 13, 2012, the Costa Concordia struck a rock just off the shore of Isola del Giglio, near the western coast of Italy, tearing a 160-foot-long gash in her hull. Listing, the ship sailed to shallow water where it grounded and capsized. All but 32 of the 3,229 passengers and 1,023 crew were saved. In the press melee that followed, several British papers reported that rich Russians had stuffed wads of cash into the pockets of crew members, in order to obtain coveted places on the lifeboats.
One eyewitness, Franca Anichini, said the first residents to reach dry land on lifeboats were not “wounded women and children.” Instead, she said, “healthy men and elegant women in evening gowns who were speaking Russian” were the first to be saved.
I was stunned, shocked… I surfed the internet in vain for Russian sources that might deny the allegations of these “yellow British tabloids.” Yet in my heart I already knew it was true… I did find some pushback on a foreign chat-forum, where an American commented that, “well, if the rich Russians did it, you can be sure the rich Italians, Americans, Germans, British, French… probably did it too.”
This was no consolation. My indignation knows no bounds.
How can a Russian in his right mind do something like this? Don’t they know about field-marshals Suvorov and Kutuzov? Doesn’t ring a bell? Never heard Vysotsky’s song about his friend who never came back from the battle? How about the mass heroism of our compatriots during WWII? Or the 28 panfilovtsy (soldiers of General Panfilov) who died heroically, defending Moscow from Hitler’s troops? How about Zoya Kosmodemianskaya who was raped, tortured and then hanged by Germans? She preferred to die a cruel death rather than give up her comrades? Oh, and of course the Russians aboard the ice-breaker Krasin in 1928, who rescued the Italian North Pole expedition of Umberto Nobile? [See the film The Red Tent, starring Sean Connery and written by Yuri Nagibin.] Nobody bribed them to do it…
Okay, even if such heroic deeds are beyond you, how about simply diving into the sea and swimming the few hundred meters to shore? The water was a tepid 15º Celsius, nowhere near icy Titanic temperatures. Why didn’t you, rich Russians, jump off the deck? Too scared to wet your fat a***s in the sea? Wary of damaging your Armani suits or Rolex watches?
This is what 20 years of wild capitalism does to you. Instead of mass heroism we now engage in mass cowardice.
If I have a serious issue with Vladimir Putin, it’s not that he is seeking a third term or that he is throwing money at Potemkin-village-like projects (e.g. Skolkovo). No, what I reproach him for is complete laxity in ideology and education. The son of a war veteran, he is tough enough with Chechen warlords and recalcitrant factory owners, etc. But in 12 years he has yet to get around to improving our citizens’ patriotic education on the “grass roots level.” The new generations of Russians (of all classes) have no clue about the dos and don’ts of simple, civic morality. They live by the Russianized Pepsi slogan – beri ot zhizny vsyo – “take everything life has to offer!”
Everyone knows you don’t bribe yourself onto lifeboats. You don’t ignore the women, children and disabled. But what should one expect when everything in modern Russia has a price tag: oil, seats in parliament and in lifeboats, land plots on Borodino field, moral principles, even the Bolshoi?
Our lame-duck-since-inauguration President Medvedev called the Bolshoi our national “brand” (бренд – nice Russian word!) at least thrice during his speech at the theater’s re-opening. As if a glitzy theater were the main thing Russians should be known for.
When Putin takes the reins again this year, I can only hope he will devise a comprehensive state program to “save our souls,” as Vysotsky sang. The president-elect has already published four manifestoes – on foreign policy and Russia’s place in the world, on nationalities, on our economic future, and on democracy. I am keen to hear one about the ideological education of my compatriots.
I am all ears.
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