When Toma became pregnant, Nazim was happy.
At least, this is the emotion he showed her on Skype.
The good news arrived, of course, much earlier than they planned: the big wedding was to take place at the end of spring, in Baku, for all their Azerbaijani relatives (Tomka herself was from there), and the pregnancy turned out already, in winter.
It happens. Nazim once again flew to St. Petersburg for the weekend, and a month later Toma realized that the festivities would have to be postponed.
In the end, people are modern, relatives will understand that it’s not up to noisy weddings yet.

But we decided it was time to leave. Toma had been living in St. Petersburg for six years, and Nazim had been planning to move from Baku for a long time.
Well, the truth is, a year and a half to fly back and forth to meetings, as much as possible!
We talked. Nazim said: it's decided, I'm moving in two weeks! Accurately for the New Year.

Two weeks have passed. Nazim did not go, although he said on the phone that he was about to.
On a festive night, he hastily congratulated me on Skype. And he disappeared for three days. And in the early days, a self-confident dark-haired girl found Tomka on the social network, introduced herself as his bride, and asked Tomka a very strange question: who is she to Nazim?
It turned out that this bride, although very recent, had been together for three weeks; However, they have already met their parents.
Tomka then looked: on the dark-haired page there were about a dozen photos from New Year's Eve. In an embrace with Nazim, of course.

I didn't have time to digest the news. Nazim himself called her on Skype. He hugged this bride by the shoulders and, looking at the bride’s pouting lips and offended face, told Tomka that he didn’t know her, the child, of course, was not his, and if she decides to blackmail him with her pregnancy, then let him blame himself.
He said firmly, like a man.
The bride smiled in victory.

Tom didn't make a fuss. And what is there to say? She just passed out.
An hour later Nazim called her again. He was already alone.
No, he did not call at all in order to explain something.
He, as if nothing had happened, broke into a benevolent smile and said that since everything was over between them, then ... why shouldn't Tomka send him a camera in Baku?
Which he gave Tomka for her birthday three months ago.
So what?
Tomka will not want, in fact, after everything that has happened, to keep his gifts! Throw it out, anyway!
And if so, then return it, the thing is good, dear, it will come in handy ...

This was told to me by my Masha, who has been working table-to-table with Tomka for more than a year now.
The camera remained in St. Petersburg, of course.

* * * * *
Take away rings, chains and teddy bears.
They demand back perfume and blouses.

The client told how he took the car from his mistress. She, his mistress, was with him for six years. In the second year, he gave her some kind of Mazdochka, even then, by the way, a used one, he issued it to her.
He said there was love, the eclipse found.
Four years later, when love has passed, Mazda demanded back. Like, nope.
When the mistress did not want to give it away so easily, he came with a friend, the same ghoul, they intimidated him.
He told with pride - they say, how am I, Katya, what a man! I was able to get mine back! - how this Mazda was re-registered.
Didn't understand why I was at it So look.

A friend of mine had a man enduring a dressing table.
He himself made, as a gift, narrow, non-standard, to fit between the closet and the bed, he was a furniture maker.
When they quarreled, he did it: he had his own bag with shorts and socks on his shoulder (well, you understand, when people meet for half a year, some of the necessary things inevitably migrate); in both hands, in front of him - a dressing table.
Can you imagine what it is to sling a dressing table alone? Eighty meters high, bedside table, mirror ...
He could. In one go, without disassembling. How he kicked out - it is not clear, he barely went through the door.
A friend says that at the same time he was so pathetic and puffed so hard that he instantly crossed out all the remnants of self-respect.
They did not reconcile, and therefore the question, what the hell is a dressing table for him, and even a non-standard one, forever remained open.

* * * * *
Against the background of all this, the story that a former colleague in the shop, Olka, told me yesterday, is somehow even lost ...
My colleague is one of those who have quit, for three years already, no one knows about her past, she works quietly for herself - you won’t believe it! - an accountant.
And now she drew one stroke at work, a client of their company.
At first, he carried some documents back and forth for half a year, then he began to ask for tea. With a very clear purpose.
He so directly voiced this goal, they say, he is married, but I will not refuse my mistress.
True, it turned out to be atypical - he didn’t immediately drag him to bed. Justified: it is necessary to start to know each other better.
I discussed the conditions in advance, well, as usual, that he would not leave his wife for anything, but be ready as a bed friend. When, of course, they take a closer look at each other (what an esthete, damn it!).

Olya thought about it and agreed. Why not take a closer look at the person?
Firstly, the girl is free, not tense, and secondly, the guy is not poor, if anything, and will help financially.
Well, what, I thought correctly: for the gift of it, perhaps, to satisfy a married man? For the love of art?
There are no prospects with him. And women need either prospects or something in return.
And they began to quietly look at each other. He stopped by for tea, brought buns, however, he brought only twice and only at the request. But Olya attributed this to male slow-wittedness in matters of the heart.

And once again he came and boasted, they say, he bought a handbag for his wife, for five thousand. And on the website of the store even showed.
Olya liked the bag. What did she say out loud? And she even complained, they say, she would also take one, but so far it’s a bit tight with money.
-Do you want the same? he lit up. - So what's the problem! Let me lend you five thousand. Will you be fine for two weeks?

It was then that Olya got sick. After this phrase, she, firstly, mentally instantly deleted him from the list of potential lovers, and secondly, she decided to brainwash him a little. Well, for the future, so that you don’t mess with others later. And then suddenly he doesn't understand...
And she explained to him intelligibly, aloud, that since a married gentleman wants to have a free lady in the evenings, then lending her handbags is not at all comme il faut.
-What is it? He sincerely did not understand. - Money loves an account. I always collect checks...

After that, Olya only had to mentally thank Providence, who guessed so well in time, for the fact that no love happened to them.
Otherwise, he could pay, pay, and then, just a little, calculate the expenses, and demand back ...
________

© Ekaterina Bezymyannaya

All the holidays, almost until adulthood, I spent in the village with my grandmother. Most of my childhood memories are from there, although I went to school in the city. My grandmother is the sweetest creature, it’s scary to imagine what she had to go through in her life, and despite this, she never allowed herself to break into her brother and me, even though we did everything. The village itself is a pure Middle Ages, a toilet on the street, water from a pump, a stove was heated with coal.
Then I left for a "better share". I rarely saw my grandmother when I came home. It was difficult to talk on the phone, for my grandmother, just calling a neighboring village is already a whole event, and calling another country is some kind of fantasy. It always seemed to her that it was wildly expensive, that I was busy with something, the conversations turned out to be crumpled and about nothing. Yes, and I confess sometimes dropped, then forgot to call back ... My grandmother perceived my move as a huge tragedy. Every time I asked, well, what are you doing there for good? Can you come back? I wanted to scream at her - YES WHY GO BACK TO? FOR WHAT? TO SHIT IN MINUS 40 ON THE STREET??? But of course I held back. How to explain to a person who has lived all his life in the 14th century that somewhere far away there still exists the 21st century...
And all the same, I really missed my grandmother, for her special dialect, for gingerbread and pies, for gossip about neighbors. Everything seemed to be still time, I will bring my great-granddaughter to show, we will sit down at the table and talk for a long time, drinking tea from a porcelain service, which was taken out only on major holidays. But last year, my grandmother died suddenly. She was not particularly sick, she was in a cheerful mood. She just suddenly died. The doctors could not say why ... A few months later, her grandfather followed her. All their lives they cursed, hated each other, almost fought. But they couldn't live separately. Somehow it happened abruptly, I was completely unprepared ...

Now our neighbor Galya lives in our village house. She is 3 years older than me, I remember as a child she taught me to read cards. After college, Galya went to work in the zone. There, she mastered the Fenya to perfection and fouled up with the reclined prisoner. Now they are hosting in my grandmother's house, trampling into the ground, everything that was dear to me. The father says that it is better this way, because otherwise the house will simply be plundered and demolished. True, soon Galya and blue may be dumped if: "they don't bring coal and there will be nothing to heat with in the winter." Who and why should bring it or not bring it is a mystery to me ... Having lived in Europe for more than 10 years, I cannot believe that this is actually happening there with living people in 2018.

In short, what is all this ... Let it be wildly banal, but I will say. Appreciate your family and friends! Appreciate while they are alive.

The story, in a poster-like way, is visually, although a little caricatured, going backwards in the literal sense

02.05.2014

Repetition, perhaps, is the mother of learning. But when history, like a record, keeps spinning like a farce, then like a tragedy, then again like a farce, then again like a tragedy, when history returns like a boomerang, repetition becomes the mother of ignorance. In a land of unlearned lessons.

Sometimes history, like a poster, clearly, although a little caricatured, goes backwards in the literal sense: in the days of “historical materialism”, May Day demonstrations went past the mausoleum towards the Moskva River, now, on the contrary, from Vasilyevsky Spusk towards Tverskaya.

To enhance the effect of time travel, exactly on May Day, the Gold Stars of the Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation were restored. And they handed it over almost according to the principle of class balance in the model “either an academician, then a hero, then a navigator, then a carpenter.” That is, an oil and gas master, the head of a historical and cultural reserve, a farmer with a collective farm biographical background, a school teacher and a sports coach.

To complete the picture, where all nostalgic images are mixed up, if, of course, the somewhat stout leader of completely “free” trade unions Mikhail Shmakov is a symbol of nostalgia, it remains only to add some analogue of “appeals of the Central Committee of the CPSU for May 1”. For example, "the mantras of the General Council of the EP by May 1." True, they will now differ from the Soviet ones for the worse. For example, the calls for May 1, 1954, said: "Long live the friendship of the peoples of England, the United States and the Soviet Union in their struggle to ease international tension, to prevent war and ensure lasting peace throughout the world!"

The well-tempered political procession on May 1, 2014 against the backdrop of the mausoleum, which at the same time contributed to raising the “Crimean spirit”, supporting the June primaries to the Moscow City Duma and promising “fair wages”, evoked not only the May Day demonstrations of the Soviet era. Plastic artificiality historically appealed to the tragic May Day 21 years ago. In 1993, on May 1, there were violent clashes between the participants in the procession of the "right-left opposition", from the Anpilovites to the "National Salvation Front" (under red and imperial flags), with OMON. These are not “prisoners of the Bolotnaya” for you. The demonstrators got behind the wheel of police trucks that blocked Leninsky Prospekt near Gagarin Square, crushed riot police, and one was crushed to death. Today, the trade unions could go either under the red or under the imperial flags - all for Putin and for the Crimea. And, of course, for a "fair salary." Soviet and Putin's political symbolic discourses have merged. The opposition now is not those who crushed the riot police with their own trucks, but those who are simply trying to evade these embraces.

You will say that "consolidation" that replaced "stability" is better than confrontation. But in the "consolidation", and even presented so rudely in a PR way, as it was done on May 1, 2014, there is not just a confrontation, but a split of the nation. The course on which was taken in those days when Poklonnaya Gora was deliberately opposed for the first time to Bolotnaya Square.

... Ekaterina Strizhenova, who commented on the May Day on TV, told her colleague Pyotr Tolstoy: they say, I want to go there, to those walking along Red Square. That's right - the psychology of the crowd. That's right - it's safer. And then, you see, they will ask: “Who is walking right there?” And they will be held accountable.

In connection with the death of a serviceman in Crimea, military units stationed on the peninsula are allowed to use weapons. This is stated in the message on the website of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Earlier, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported that a Ukrainian military unit was being stormed in Simferopol. And/a "Kryminform" with reference to a source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Crimea: as a result of a sniper shooting in Simferopol, one self-defense fighter was killed, two more were wounded. The law enforcement department does not rule out that the shooting was a planned provocation. During sniper shooting or assault?! Is it ... WAR or "maneuvers" ??? :(((

Andrey ZUBOV, historian, MGIMO, the one who almost got fired for comparing Putinism and Hitlerism on annexation issues. The professor, in particular, wrote: We are on the verge of complete destruction of the system of international treaties, economic chaos and political dictatorship", spent direct analogies between the actions of Russia in the Crimea and the Anschluss of Austria in 1938: "Sometimes the thought comes to me, did I do the right thing? But every time I tell myself that if I had not said what I thought in this situation, I would have ceased to respect myself. I would stop thinking that I am an honest person. I would consider myself just a skin sold to the authorities at a time when it was necessary to defend the honor of Russia. And in this sense, I do not regret at all that I did so. You saw how many people went to the rally last Saturday. Of course, not all of them are ready to fight personally. But still, tens of thousands of people took to the streets. There is an old principle: if not you, then who? I acted according to this principle. And I can say that I received a huge number of letters of support. Literally thousands of people from all over Russia and all over the world wrote that they were in solidarity with me and were ready to act just as decisively "().

Arkady BABCHENKO, military journalist writes: "... The main phrase in all of his<Путина>speeches, not even a phrase, but the two most important phrases, the two most important anchors that will now determine life in our country, were these six words - "a kind of fifth column" and "all sorts of national traitors". This is you and me. It is you and I now - national traitors, my friends. This was announced today from the rostrum in the Parliament by the President of our Motherland himself. It's me, a veteran of two wars started by my country, according to the President of this same country of mine, now I'm a national traitor. It's all of you, my dear friends and colleagues. Everyone who was on the March. Everyone who worked or still, by their omission, works in independent media. Anyone who doesn't want war. Who doesn't want a flood of coffins with their children. All those who are for free elections and expression of will. All who are against corruption and thieves. All who are simply banal - for freedom. All of you are national traitors. That's what Putin said today... The vector of domestic policy has been selected. I think that before the repressions - before the mass repressions, I mean - there is very little time left. They simply have no other choice. This is a one way road. Well, then everything is like in a textbook - purges, pogroms, war, then a civil war, after which - collapse and disintegration. I think this country is covered by a huge ass "().

YASNOPOLYANSKY MANIAC. "Moscow Vedomosti" July 10 (June 27), 1904. About Leo Tolstoy - the opponent of the war. "Count Tolstoy is now completely alien to Russia, and it is completely indifferent to him whether the Japanese will own Moscow, St. Petersburg and all of Russia, if only Russia would soon sign peace with Japan on any, even the most humiliating and shameful conditions. Not a single Russian person can feel, think and speak so vulgarly and vilely. Now he has published abroad a most outrageous pamphlet against Russia, with which he is finally cutting off all ties. If he still lives within the borders of Russia, then this is due only to the generosity of the Russian Government, honoring the former talented writer Leo Tolstoy, with whom the present old Yasnaya Polyana maniac and blasphemer has nothing in common except for his name. If the Government found it possible to tear the mask from c. Tolstoy and show him to the Russian people in all his ugly nakedness, then this would put an end to all our "Tolstoyism", and then ... it would be possible to leave the old madcap to live out his life in peace in his Yasnaya Polyana and bury his former glory there.(recalled A. Smolyaninov)

Artist Vasily Lozhkin... topical....

An artistic commentary, until his paintings, as blaspheming the Motherland, were banned, and the artist was not repressed ...

CROSSED THE BORDER... " In the Russia that was left behind, we hosted the Olympics, prepared to preside over the G8 and host the World Cup. In that Russia, they built an international financial center and Skolkovo. In that Russia, the phrase "attracting investment" was pronounced with a positive connotation. There was a "creative class", which for some reason was against Uralvagonzavod. There were also trials against the oppositionists and Pussy Riot, "Dima Yakovlev's law." That Russia was criticized for homophobia and human rights violations, but respected for its tough stance on Syria and the ability to negotiate on important matters. That Russia produced milon and mizulin for domestic consumption, and an advanced power of innovation for external ... There are more territories in today's Russia, but there are no guarantees, rules, international recognition. Today's Russia is not ruled by two-faced patriots who oppose a complete severance of relations with the West and the loss of a villa in Miami, but by missionaries with Ilyin in their heads. It is in yesterday's Russia that in response to the "Magnitsky act" they are producing the "Dima Yakovlev law", which seems to excite more Russians than Western adoptive parents.

In today's Russia, in response to "we, if anything, we will look for your accounts and assets," they answer in the spirit of "fuck you."“It was not without pride that I found myself on the list ...”, “This is such a political Oscar”, “Finally received international recognition” - a year and a half ago such comments could not have been made. Laws on gay propaganda, on rallies, on NGOs - foreign agents, pre-trial blocking of sites, the fight against the opposition - yesterday it was some kind of teasing and PR technology, today it is a political trend. Now only irrational, spiritual and patriotic, and not mercantile, monetary and flexible. Imperial ambitions, a sense of impunity (judging by the weak sanctions), on the one hand, and the younger brother complex being eliminated before our eyes (“why can’t we, if the United States can do this”), on the other. Instead of institutions, development, agreements, cooperation. China instead of Germany. Customs Union instead of the European one. And judging by the exaltation of Russian citizens and the rising rating of Putin personally, this is exactly the Russia that is understandable to the majority of the population. The authorities can use it in two ways: concrete this feeling, turning the patriotism of the majority into a formality, or still turn exaltation into enthusiasm, awakened pride - into a resource for the development of the country, while not forgetting about respect for both their own citizens and citizens of other countries "( )

FOM: half of Russians think that the country is already in an economic crisis or will wait for it soon. At the same time, as sociologists have found, instead of the reasons for the deterioration of the situation, Russians more often name its consequences: rising prices, low living standards, depreciation of the ruble. But several factors were identified: economic policy, events in Ukraine, expenses for the Olympics, corruption. Russians are generally pessimistic about the economic situation in the country. "Interfax". They believe that the country is already in a state of crisis (28%), or feel threatened by it (26%). At the same time, every fifth (22%) respondent speaks of a calm situation in the economy. Of the 26% of Russians who feel the threat of a crisis, 7% expect it in the period from six months to a year, 5% - in the period from three months to six months. These are the data survey Fund "Public Opinion" (FOM), held on March 9 among 1500 people in 43 subjects of the Russian Federation ( ). The new old ideology and Putin's search for spiritual bonds and a national idea led to the acquisition of the usual "role of Russia" as a "gendarme of Europe" and the world, in the yard 1914, and 2014, and last year 2013 can become 1913 for Russia ... Only crises now will take place differently, and the people are ready for them ... How much, the future will show ...

In the summer, when the West imposed sanctions against officials, deputies, as well as Putin's friends and organizations belonging to them, we rejoiced at the unexpected justice that fell on the heads of ideological enemies.

In the fall, when Russia hit itself in the face in a reciprocal swing, we began to suspect that we might fall under the distribution.

In the first month of winter, when the ruble flew into outer space, we realized that life had become worse, life had become poorer.

"Let's take it all back! Into the cozy, well-paid, hand-shaking ass of fighting Putin,” some of my friends are now saying. Others are just silent.
I really wanted to fly to Los Angeles for the New Year, but now I can't! - the colleague-journalist is indignant. I can not! But what did I do to deserve all this, these sanctions, this 70 euro?! The path will be all as it was, finally.

Seven years ago.
I deserved! - thought a provincial woman successfully clinging to a capital businessman or an aging wife intoxicated by the money that had fallen on her husband, with three classes of education, one read book and never managed to learn a single foreign language (and Russian, by the way, too) - It was I who deserved the dazzling brilliance diamonds, Birkin crocodile skin, oysters at Cap Ferrat and Botox in the face.

The world is mine, then fashionable Guetta sang, and these women sang along with him, creating a new wonderful world of glamor and easy oil money of their husbands. They opened restaurants, beauty salons, galleries and shops. 99% of this was unprofitable in advance, which means it never paid off. But oil at 120 well fed the bureaucratic and business class, which means that it was possible not to think about such trifles as the economy.

I deserved it, these women thought, and we looked at them with undisguised contempt, perfectly understanding who deserved what.
But several years have passed, and now we have fun at the opening and closing of the summer seasons in the Strelka of Alexander Mamut, who in March 2014 destroyed Lenta.ru, the cultural life of intellectual Moscow turned out to be unthinkable without the Garage and Roman Abramovich, who occasionally visited it, and the owners of shops and galleries now invited journalists from the opposition media to their parties.
Oil money is a muddy slurry that has spilled over all of us.

I deserve it! Five times a year to fly on vacation, on New Year's Eve to LA, to break away for a couple of days in Europe, some of my liberal journalist colleagues say in December 2014.

And from all this there are two news - good and bad. The bad news is that we are not 14% or even 3% of the creative minority that drives the state forward. We are good if three percent of three percent. The good news is that there are significantly more people accustomed to Putin's well-fed stability and dissatisfied with its loss.

The only question is what will we get instead of what we have been fighting so comfortably and safely in recent years.