Recently my friend — he’s the younger brother of my friend and former classmate — now a student of one of the regional technical College offered to enlist in the armed forces. Upon graduation, to go to the Junior lieutenants. Promised a salary of 60 thousand rubles and an apartment there, which will be sent to serve.
It’s funny that this is exactly the career that at the time, 35 years ago I decided to make my dad. And University is the same. Only state that he was called to defend, since then, has significantly decreased in size and is now named differently.
I missed the moment when my parent made this choice, since then I have, according to the popular expression, “was not in the project.” That is, I haven’t seen how it started. But I was already quite conscious age — 7 years — to see how it ended.
Moving, always moving. Loaded the belongings into the truck and go. As I was later told, one time, I had not then appeared, the younger brother, had to live in an apartment with no heating, frost on the inside of the wall in winter. Pushed around the military garrisons of the Central, the most “non-black”, always scant and gloomy Russia, having acquired during these trials and tribulations, his wife and two children, a young officer of the Soviet Army donkey finally in a small military town. Here, surrounded by woods, stood only five two-story, but at the same tenements, inhabited by officers ‘ families.
Fathers stood watch in the military where there were missiles, I do not know which, nuclear or not, and tracking systems of air defense, if I understand correctly. Once, when I misbehaved, I was led to his place of work. In the trailer of a truck with no Windows it was glowing orange a lot of round screens, one of which sat the Pope. You have to understand, these monitors have been informed about everything happening at definitely the area of Soviet airspace. Apparently, in order not to miss the appearance of a NATO aircraft of the Korean “Boeing” or the frivolous air of a bully from behind the Iron curtain Mathias rust. My father solemnly said that after the orange screen he can follow all of my antics. I do not remember exactly if I believe it or not. It seems that attitude still skeptical. Perhaps intuition worked, as I think now. If they rust, “he yawned,”…
We lived relatively well. “Relatively” being the key word. I was still nothing in it, of course, didn’t understand, but later I was told that in such small military camps was a “good supply”. Oh, these words in the Soviet Union talked about a lot! This meant that in our store was products that were not available in other, “normal” towns. It was another cafe where I liked to drink tomato juice…
Here is the truth to go to kindergarten and school had to the district center, the second largest city in the region. In the morning the bus brought us there, and in the evening were taken. But all around was forest, and also had the opportunity to collect shells from under the spent rounds and coins-banknotes GDR and other countries of the “socialist camp”, which brought with them those of our fathers who are lucky enough to serve on the territory of the States of the Warsaw Pact. One-bedroom apartment. And limited green space with a fence of a military camp with a population of several hundred people… at that age, me and this little, tight little world seemed vast and exciting. Besides, this exclusion had its advantages: forest, mushrooms and some kind of military romance.
It was the first years of my conscious life and at the same time — the last years of the Soviet Union and its mighty, gigantic army. My father was a small element of the military machine, and hence the fate of our entire family (and this is four) depended on the army, which in turn was “tied” to all this geopolitical edifice, which, in the words of one writer, “stretched from the Brandenburg gate in Berlin to the Bering Strait, which is visible to Alaska.”
The next thing I, figuratively speaking, remember — parents talk about that here, of all these cantonments time on the Lam. It was the 1990-th year. All already understand what is moving the huge machine of the red banner of the Soviet Union with all its institutions, of which the largest was the Armed forces. The father convinced the mother that it soon bent and broke, the town will come to desolation, need to quit this “kopeck piece” in the forest with missiles and military communication centers, and be saved.
That and the following years was the year of mass migration. Families frustrated and in different directions crossing the space of the unraveling of the Empire to move there, where there was more chance to survive. Our family was one of them. We were lucky that the homeland was sent to serve that particular officer is not some Central Asia or the far North. The collapse of the Empire caught us in the RSFSR, and not in an unfriendly “near abroad.” The obligations of the state and the defense in front of their servants ceased to have effect. No housing, no money. Then started another story. The story of ordeal and survival in the 1990s.
The cold war and the rivalry in the arms race ended with the Soviet Union just ruptured from excessive attempts to keep up with the “decadent West.” The country has to spend some insanely huge part of GDP on the military and arms contained millions and millions of soldiers and officers, dispersed in giant spaces. And here in “almost real time” everything is shattered, and the masses of people who have linked their destinies, life plans and hopes with this, as expressed by another writer, “mega-machines” turned out to be nothing.
But what we see after a quarter-century? The country, though lost considerably in size, again takes up the old. Already allocated 500 billion euros on upgrading. Arms race-2? And that’s just at the moment when the Russian economy for the first time in 15 years “went negative” — the recession began. Despite the fact that there is a significant difference with the previous attempt, then, at least, was not cuts, kickbacks and outright theft by government contracts, especially defense. Again massively recruiting graduates-the”techies” in the Junior lieutenants.
Again trying to suck the thumb of some kind of ideological incompatibility with the developed world. Only if earlier it was a powerful leftist utopia, managed at some point to seduce even the number perorangan of the world’s cultural and intellectual elite (Aragon, Sartre, Roland), now — parody-right conservatism, reminiscent of a provincial reactionary regimes of Latin America of the XX century. Homophobia, as the main “spiritual scrapie”, almost a semi-official basis of the identity of the “Third Rome” and its a stumbling block with the “decadent West.” It’s pathetic, which side do not look. Donosilos to mice. And now overtures for a small victorious war with Ukraine.
On the cycle, the frequency of Russian history, that there is nothing really does not change, only spinning in a circle, without me had said and written more than enough. It’s bad infinity. The Empire doesn’t learn. In the last century, she twice sank, as the Titanic crashed into the iceberg. But crippled, through some time came to himself and, somehow, hastily collected herself together, again took up the old. Here is just size each time decreased. Coke urine starts again. Again, twenty-five. Same rake, same place waiting for the next repetition of the loop.
It’s like a bubble that inflates, inflates, getting bigger, it takes time… but in the end it inevitably bursts. A country whose economy rests on the export of hydrocarbons in the “sunset country”, which she now set herself to oppose, may afford to maintain a large army. Some time. But certainly not always. I think we are dealing rather with simulation of the “Cold war 2”, the more that its literal repetition in the same format in the new environment seems impossible. We don’t know now how far it will go. But you can with great certainty expect that it will end not less inglorious than the last time. And, it seems, faster. Because the current attempt is obviously much less serious and convincing.
There is a parallel with the cinema. We like to show the sequel to Empire. “The great power” “Great power-2”, “a Great power-3″… “Great power comes back.” That’s just the opposite of a genre film, where the hero at the end of each of a series of films wins, here it is the opposite of defeated.
So I will advise my young friend, pondering habitation, it is better not to tie his career, the fate and well-being with such a dubious enterprise.
Yes, a fifth year student not to try the straps, I can advise. It is a pity that the Homeland here is not advise. She does not listen to advice. But if it were possible, I would briefly and simply. Not worth it, homeland. It is not necessary. Better not even start.
Author
Dmitry Ursula
Journalist, cultural commentator.
