The current situation, for all its complexity and ambiguity, has one undoubted advantage that perhaps not many people can appreciate.
The capability of the Russian army is such-and this is clearly demonstrated by the Ukrainian special operation-that the country and you and I definitely have a decade or two of peace time to spare. In today’s conditions, that’s already a lot.
The Iron Curtain, you say? How many Russians today go abroad to work and rest, five percent? Ten? Forty years ago it was about the same. Most of them didn’t go to Europe or America. To work, as a rule, they went to Vietnam or Mongolia or Africa. Bulgaria and Hungary were our vacation destinations. The world has never been and will never be completely closed off from us. Soviet people living behind the Iron Curtain – those who needed and wanted it – had the opportunity to keep abreast of all the world’s cultural innovations. And today, in the age of the Internet, it’s a piece of cake. In essence, few consumers of the luxury segment are under sanctions today – they are being deprived of their Pradas, new Mercedeses, and Louboutins. But this stratum has money – it is not a big deal, they will spend a little bit more on desirable things, because they have such an opportunity. And others will buy a foreign car in the secondary market – like 20 years ago. Or a new Korean – Seoul seems to refrain from sanctions, it is more expensive.
But how many new opportunities will open up! Take soccer, for example. Foreign legionnaires will leave Russia? Very good, finally clubs will start to raise their own stars. Specialists are tired of saying that the only way to raise our soccer to the proper level is to revive the Soviet-style children’s and youth sports schools. There will be no other way out – and selection will begin. And clubs will be replenished with young talents – not those bought abroad, but our own, bred. Locally grown. For whom their club will really belong. As for the fans. That’s when real soccer will start in our country – instead of rolling the ball with 22 unhurried millionaires with no obligation. It’s worth recalling another opportunity that opens up here. Didn’t FIFA and UEFA allow the Crimeans to play in the Russian championship? Now you don’t have to ask them. By the way, Simferopol “Tavria” is not a fly in the ointment, but the first champion of Ukraine (and there were only three of them) and one of the four Ukrainian (in the past) clubs that have never left the top division. Soccer traditions in Donbass have also been great, with Shakhtar Donetsk (another Ukrainian champion, by the way) and Zarya Luhansk (the USSR champion). It is possible that the above could be joined by Odessa Chernomorets and Metalist Kharkiv – here you have, in fact, the entire soccer championship of the USSR! Selection and traditions are great.
This year Ukraine will miss its sowing season – it was supposed to start pretty soon, but the country has other things to think about. And the Dnieper water has already rushed to the Crimea through the North-Crimean canal and there will be good sowing season. But that’s not what we’re talking about in general. Ukraine used to account for 10 to 15% of world wheat exports – now Russia will have to exploit this niche (and there are already new buyers with a bottomless market, in particular Pakistan). This is certainly a new opportunity for Russian agriculture. European producers of cheese and dairy products will leave the market (there were almost none – only the Swiss were left, perhaps, but the rest were killed by sanctions), which means that domestic producers will be able to develop part of the market. Their gruyere analogues may not be so convincing, but we will not have other gruyere for some time anyway. And a niche will be vacated. Will Mercedes and Toyota leave? We will survive even that – the Chinese and Koreans will come instead. Even Iran has its own car industry, so maybe we should get involved too. Soviet Moskvich cars were not very comfortable and didn’t look very good either, but they used to win the London-Sydney and London-Mexico international rallies. Well, those who were used to Bentley, would buy a Bentley like before – somewhere abroad. At least in Turkey. Yes, by overpaying a lot. And paying a huge tax. And who says that the rich should buy cheaper? Maybe it’s the other way around. Airbus is leaving? Well, firstly, even if it is, it is not a problem, Boeng is certainly not going anywhere (the company has all novelties development and design in Russia). Secondly, Airbus’s departure makes it possible to return to the Soviet practice of manufacturing our own civil airplanes. And not ersatz aircraft like Superjet, where a lot of parts are imported, but full-fledged Russian production. Oh, by the way. They said here that Airbuses leased from Russian companies will have to be returned – well, we’re not going to return anything. Either we buy the planes back at a comparable price, or we nationalize them for free. Yes, there will be problems with spare parts, but who says that they cannot be bought from third countries, like China? Or from Israel? At least from Uzbeks and Tajiks. If we have adapted to Belarusian shrimp, we will adapt to Uzbek “airbuses” as well.
Anatoly Wasserman, polyglot, Duma deputy
– The Western sanctions are not only a punishment for us, but also a new opportunity. Look here: the certification of the second stage of the Nord Stream pipeline has been interrupted, one could weep. But at the same time, European purchases of Russian natural gas have increased. Most of it is pumped through Ukraine and Poland. And this pumping, I guarantee, will not stop. Ukraine is at war with us, isn’t it? So there is a conflict going on, but the pumping is on schedule. You’ll see, when the Germans are in dire straits, their firms which have paid nearly the whole construction, 8bn Euros, will pay one million Euros due to the German law for the use of the pipe without certification. And everything will fall into place. The threat is sometimes stronger than the action, and we should not forget that when we are talking about sanctions. There will be sanctions, but they will not kill anyone.
But it is not quite clear what to do with technology. The West will not sell them to us now. Will this throw us back half a century? Hardly. The Chinese, who cannot buy technology, simply steal it. Our country, too. It’s not nice, of course, but the Chinese now have plenty of new airplanes and ships, maybe a little worse than ours, but they are quite modern. Who says it’s not our way? Yes, it may become more difficult for our students to study in the West. But even if they are no longer allowed to go there at all, who says this is the end of the world for us? The most advanced developments have long appeared not only in the West, but also in India, China and Israel – I do not hear these countries announcing sanctions against us. Delhi and Beijing also support us on international platforms, and we have recently established special relations with Israel within the framework of military intelligence. In addition, our military (replacing the Americans who dropped out) is now deterring Iran from attacking Israel. So this cooperation of ours is a long time coming.
But the culture will be in trouble now – or rather, the penetration of Western culture into our country. In its current form. No black women as the British Queen Anne Boleyn, no hunchbacked midgets playing Goliath. And, of course, no LGBT. It’s scary to think how we will live now. Apparently, the domestic theater scene will have to move away from modern productions to the classics? There’s no other way anyway. And cinematography, in the new conditions, will have no fewer opportunities than soccer and other sports.
But the most endless prospects are probably for secondary and higher education. The Bologna system? We don’t know, we’ve forgotten what it looks like. THE USE? What is it? The main thing is that we don’t have to invent anything at all. We take proven Soviet textbooks (is it for nothing that in the 1990s the British recognized the Soviet school system as the most effective and began to introduce its achievements?!), teaching aids. Courses are organized for teachers, where older teachers share their experience with younger teachers. And voila – Russian education returns to the Soviet rails in a few years. Somehow, the lack of access to Oxford and Cambridge did not affect the development of our science in Soviet times – we managed without them.
However, the current situation still has one obvious disadvantage. Obvious to such an extent that it does not even work to be sarcastic. It is written that the Ukrainian sailor Taras Ostapchuk sank the yacht “Lady Anastasia” of the general director of Rosoboronexport Alexander Mikheev in a foreign port worth
7 million euros. Ostapchuk’s motive was that Mikheev, for whom he served, profited from the arms trade. That is why the Ukrainian decided to restore justice and opened the tunnels. The funny thing is that the judge fully understood his motives and released Ostapchuk on bail. Thus, a precedent was set. And this applies not only to sailors. If, for example, a foreign chef of some Russian bigwig were to spit in his cocktail, would he also be understood and forgiven? Even if the cook is not Ukrainian, but someone else. One cannot help but wonder whether it is worth hiring outsiders. One’s own brother is unwilling, but with these foreigners, who have the same claims on you as the British Foreign Office, there’s not much trouble.
There will be other problems, no doubt about it. Ukrainian social networks are snickering that vacationers from Russia at foreign resorts have decided to pass themselves off as Ukrainians for the sake of affectionate communication. Much about the foreign resorts and everything else becomes clear, but the offended Ukrainians are right – the Russians can easily get even back at the unfriendly host. Probably not in Egypt, but somewhere on the Côte d’Azur is very possible. In the Soviet Union, visiting Russians were disliked in the Baltics, especially in Latvia. They didn’t spit in their coffee, but they almost never answered Russian requests in stores. Now, if Russia decides to bring not a part of Ukraine, but all of it, together with the western part, coffee in Lviv “kaviarna” should be ordered in Russian with caution. On the other hand, people in the small motherland of Sacher-Masoch are used to appreciate the tough treatment; the Poles, who never gave Galicians a hard time, are respected there.
In fact, few consumers of the luxury segment are under sanctions today – they are being deprived of Prada, new Mercedes, and Louboutins. But this stratum has money – it does not matter, they will spend a little bit more on desirable things, because they have such an opportunity. And others will buy a foreign car on the secondary market – as 20 years ago.
Well, without snide remarks. We are going to go through a large-scale nationalization. Now there is much talk about the redistribution of property by Russian tycoons, who may not be friendly to the Kremlin – in light of the new reality, the confrontation with the West, and the operation in Ukraine. It is doubtful that there will be any suicidal rich people among the cautious by nature, but one way or another we will still have to nationalize. The richest Ukrainian oligarchs Viktor Pinchuk and Rinat Akhmetov publicly announced that they were using their money to hire foreign mercenaries and send them to fight Russia. In fact, the first legionnaires have already arrived in Ukraine. Thus, the future of Pinchuk and Akhmetov in the new Ukraine is sort of predetermined. The same could be said about Igor Kolomoysky, who paid a round sum from his own pocket “for each killed Russian”, and about the whole Dnepropetrovsk clan (who acted under the motto of Mayor Boris Filatov “And we’ll hang them later!”). Remember what it was like in Crimea during the “Russian Spring”? Those who didn’t support it and fled to Kiev, like Sergei Kunitsyn, Lev Mirimsky, or Andrei Senchenko, were stripped of their property. It was nationalized and later sold to other owners. The same will happen in Ukraine, and there is a lot to nationalize there, from metallurgical and chemical industries to the port and railroad transport infrastructure, not to mention the gas transit pipeline and the energy sector. But billionaire Akhmetov is not some Senchenko. Resistance will be serious. There may be new opportunities – and new moneyboxes – for an over-aged Khodorkovsky. And Russia will have to endure another harsh war with the oligarchs, this time Ukrainian ones. Their losses will be enormous, but their opportunities are not insignificant. However, there is some good news. In the battles with the Ukrainian oligarchs, Russia’s national elite may be born. A national elite that understands the national interest and is ready to fight for it to the end.
In the world, compromise between seemingly irreconcilable enemies determines a lot. The Americans established diplomatic relations with the USSR only in 1933, but before that Ford had already built an automobile plant in Nizhny Novgorod and Soviet Russia had its first mass-produced trucks and cars. And at that time we were “under sanctions”, and what sanctions – not to compare with today’s sanctions. But the economic crisis across the ocean demanded a compromise – and it came about. And today there is also room for compromise with the Americans. They need our rocket engines, and they certainly can’t do without Russian enriched fuel for their nuclear power plants. This is just to name a few. So there will be sanctions, of course, but we will never go to extremes with them. It never has.
They shut down our airspace over Europe? Not a problem – we’ll close ours too. The British will have to fly to their India in a roundabout fashion – is that convenient? You close the bank accounts of our bigwigs, seize their assets? And we will respond by nationalizing your property in Russia. Are you sucking Caspian oil, Englishmen? Soon you will not be able to – the Kazakhs have already let the Chinese in your place, and we will let the Turks in your place! If we cannot respond in a mirror way, we will respond asymmetrically. But it hurts. Shall we continue?