The New Kind of the Russian Patriotism

Russian protesters burn American dollars, 2/3 of Russian people live below the poverty line

The Moscow department of the party Unified Russia managed to gather 80 thousand Muscovites for a meeting that took place on Wednesday. It was planned to gather 100 thousand people there, but 80 thousand were enough in order to set out the protest to Americans regarding the incident with the convoy of Russian diplomats in Iraq. Everyone remained alive, thank God. The participants of the meeting did not talk about the reason why such a large number of Russian diplomats had to stay in Iraq for so long during bombardments, and why they were evacuated on a most critical moment. It seemed like it did not matter, for the anti-war protest was far more important at the meeting, especially after the war was basically over. There is an impression that there is nothing else to think of. The Vechernyaya Kazan newspaper wrote, someone even called Baghdad Stalingrad.

Well, here is a short list of some of the problems to think of. Twenty-two schoolchildren died in the fire in the republic of Yakutia, because there was no money in the budget for a new school building or for a group of firemen. Yet, no one of those people, who came for the mentioned meeting in Moscow, asked Russian corporations to share their extra profit for such purposes.

As someone at the meeting said, each flag for protesters cost "only 12 dollars." The number of those flags could allow to change old electric wires in several provincial schools. Eighty thousand clerks, students, officials did not work in the middle of the week. Someone came for the meeting by buses, others came on foot to scold the American administration. Meanwhile, Russian deputies worked on amendments to the Law "About the Federal Housing Policy." The reform of the Russian housing and public utilities system, which was initiated by centrist factions, by Unified Russia in particular, will worsen elderly people’s social position. There was a small group of Yabloko faction activists at the Wednesday meeting, though, to protest against the  predatory reform.

It is disgusting to see young men (who are definitely not hungry at all) burning American dollars, expressing their despise against the United States. Two-third of those men's country-fellows live below the poverty line. It is disgusting to realize that it is possible to make people take flags in their hands, make them go out for  meetings - there were a few people, who volunteered to participate in the action of protest. It is disgusting to realize that envy and hatred against another country became the essence of the Russian modern patriotism.

Twenty-eight students of a boarding school for deaf children died as a result of the fire in the republic of Dagestan, about a hundred children were hospitalized. Probably, the school did not have enough money to repair the electric wiring either.

The United States has lost 100 servicemen over three weeks of the war in Iraq. Fifty schoolchildren have died in fires in Russia over a week.