Syedyshev Oleg
Syedyshev Oleg

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Humorous Essays Based on students' memories

"All have died
except for those who are alive, and those whom we remember"Confucius

Essay 89. Guriev Porridge (or conversations in the kitchen)

"The judgment I deliver is to show the measure of my own sight,
and not of the things I express my opinion about."
(Epigraph)

For some reason it seems to me that it is not only me, but also my former fellow students and peers are familiar with the feeling of nostalgia for the Soviet Union. Maybe very subjectively, but everybody has reminiscences like: "And back then there used to be...". Somebody remembers that he had a sufficient income to meet his basic needs, and if he is in medicine, then he also enjoyed decent respect, and it must be admitted gifts, offerings as well as banal bribes (there was no private practice back then). Frankly speaking, it hurts me for the Sate! And not for the Soviet Union, but for Russia. Forgive me my pomposity, but it is really so. When on the eve of celebration of the twentieth anniversary of supposedly democratic development, and actually breakdown of everything Russia had been putting together by fragments for centuries, there is talk of a union, let it be economic one at the beginning, of the former constituents of the former strong and powerful Russia, I am happy.
I am ready to forgive Putin all his wrongdoings, though, generally speaking, I do not see any. I respect that he talks in a tough Russian-like way with the Yankees; when the others are lining up to give them a lick. And at the same time his KGB background makes him a diplomat. He made others respect him, and, if you please, be afraid of him. And how else will you explain the fact that literally in a couple of days after the announcement that V.V.Putin was going to be the President of Russia again, a Free Trade Zone Agreement was signed in the most of the former republics of the deceased Union.



Of course, creation of a Eurasian Economic Zone has a political component as well. It is clear to everybody that after V.V. Putin wrote about a Eurasian Union in "Izvestiya" and later gave his agreement to run for the presidency, he will strive for it by hook or by crook.

And the tempo with which the matter moved from the first words to the first practical steps concerning the formation of the Union demonstrates to what extent of seriousness his words are taken in abroad. Sure enough, this has to do not only with the near abroad, for which Russia is useful, and which is useful for Russia, but with the U.S. as well, which is famous for its feeling not well, when someone feels good. So they immediately command: "tally-ho!" to their Russian lackeys, who for some unknown reason are called democratic public.

So the public start in every way asking questions about Moldavian builders and about Tajik street cleaners, and about the Kirghiz, who, though do not come to Russia in that mass numbers, as the first ones, but also do not mind having a good life at Russia's expense. And the most amazing thing is that the "educated democratic public" calls all the abovementioned nationalities "non-whites", without who Russia would do much better.
However, they do not explain who would benefit without them; none of the representatives of that public has stated that a Tajik occupied a position of a street cleaner he has been waiting for for several months. That public does not care about, to put it mildly, a hopeless situation in Tajikistan. I have first-hand knowledge of that, I used to live in Tajikistan before the collapse of the Soviet Union. I know that even then Tajik families survived on pita bread with dried apricots and tea.

Luckily apricots grow in abundance there. Back then the state gave at least some pennies of benefits to families with many children, and now?.. Guest workers from Western Ukraine and Baltic States flooded their beloved Europe, where they are already fed up with their numbers. And where should guest workers from Central Asia go? Europe is far away, and positions of street cleaners are already occupied by the Balts and Western Ukrainians there. So they are going and will go to Russia by fair means or foul. There is no other place to earn for them. Though, after the statement of the "progressive public" some citizens of Russia have a desire to stay away from all adherents of a different faith.


With no intention to offend Russian manufacturers, only stating facts, I dare say that goods manufactured in Russia will be hardly bought in the West. However in the CIS countries, I believe, they will. People are used to that quality of manufactured goods for the decades if not to say centuries of living together. The market is shared, it should be solid and mutual. This will give a stimulus to science and industry.

Then any crises won't be dangerous. If all together are united, market demand will at the minimum double or even triple. This is the most powerful stimulus for manufacturing. Science and art will follow. As for the brains, the Russians are not without it.
Just remember how many industrial enterprises were built in Kighizia or Uzbekistan, and they are abandoned now. All this will return to life. Russian money will gladly flow to Central Asia, and this means jobs and reduction of the number of the "non-whites", who work as street cleaners in Russia. In sum, may God give Putin energy to bring together everything that communists in person of Yeltsin (and he remained a communist till his very last day) so uselessly plundered. And there will be a new union in the world, the Eurasian one, and Putin will be pronounced a New Gatherer of the Russian Lands.

These are the thoughts I share with my Natalka during our sincere conversations in the kitchen, after she gives me an authentic Russian meal for lunch. Her last Guriev Porridge was a success, that was why I grew weak to write the stated above.

No wonder; the porridge was invented not by just an earl Dmitriy Guriev, but a Minister of Finance, a member of the State Council of Russia. So the thought were evoked.

5 December, 2011

© Copyright: Oleg Syedyshev, 2012
Publishing licence #21210010337

Translated by Viktoria Potykinato content ↑


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