Imperial ambitions are an invention of the elite, which tries to justify their dominance over the fate of the country
“Rosbalt” back to started in an interview with the Deputy of Legislative Assembly of Leningrad region Vladimir Petrov discussion of why the “Imperial vector of development” Petersburg is again today on the agenda. Talking about why such rhetoric became relevant again, what it means to be a politician in Russia and which is indispensable to the development of the city on the Neva river and the whole in the country as a whole, continues the journalist, the Deputy of Legislative Assembly of Vladimir region Maxim Shevchenko.
— In the Northern capital on the backdrop of the campaign, a discussion on the possible directions of development of the metropolis. In particular, not so long ago in Smolny voiced the idea that “the Imperial ambitions of St. Petersburg in need of satisfaction.” In your opinion, such rhetoric is still relevant to the city on the Neva?
Imperial ambitions is an absolute fiction of the Putin elite who are trying to justify their dominance over the fate of the country’s economy, as well as some special mission. That’s just this mission provides neither justice nor development and security, though their people are demanding from the state.
To ensure these requirements, the Russian leadership is not, therefore, comes up with some mythical Empire that allegedly continuing Russian history and has some meaning.
But this is all nonsense. We are talking about usurpers and impostors who seized power and forced to search for such formats, which to them would justify the injustice in which they live. Please note, almost none of them former dissidents. They are an item, who gave all what they have been taught from an early age.
No Empire, of course, does not exist today. Russia is just a Corporation, where the collaborationist bureaucracy provides proxy control of the territory. Its main task is to prevent the revival of something really serious, similar to the Soviet project, which would include the will, the lives and hopes of hundreds of millions of people.
So this concept of elections for St. Petersburg offensive, as all lies are. By the way, you will not find any of the Russian classics, which would honor his Imperial component. Pushkin in “the bronze horseman” cursed Petersburg, Gogol “Nevsky prospect” literally mocked him. “Crime and punishment” by Dostoevsky — it’s basically the verdict of the city and its Imperial system.
Therefore, all such statements contradict the very essence of St. Petersburg and the spirit of Russian culture. To “push” the city on the Neva in format occupying domination, called Empire, is just a crime.
— That is here the question is not even about a kind of phantom pain and the nostalgia for the Imperial past…
— As I said, we are talking about cynical governorship, nothing more. In polit-technological robots can’t be anguish or doubt. They act like herd animals that announce the hunt for prey, drive it and then divide in pieces. And Petersburg, in particular, is now in this role. All this is not about the temptation of imperialism, but about the deception.
— How the victim can resist?
— If you don’t fight our fate and the fate of our children will be maimed and chewed. But the resistance must be primarily spiritual, since the policy is the result of internal positions. No matter whether you call yourself left or right. Indeed, one justice for all. If there is no such position, then the policy turns into a business. But the real politics in Russia is death, penal servitude, revolution.
Very few developers are willing to make that sacrifice…
— Why? Orkhan Jemal and his comrades, killed in the CAR, was ready. Sergei Udaltsov is ready. The examples are long.
In fact, people willing to go to prison for the truth, a lot. We just don’t see another life. But in 1937, the majority did not notice a parallel reality that was happening in the state. On the night the craters weren’t announced on the radio.
— What role, in your opinion, St. Petersburg plays in the life of the country?
Petersburg is in many ways the quintessence of the whole of Russia. Although until 1918 it was the city that was opposed to the country.
Today, on the contrary. Now Moscow is not Russia, but the political, pseudoinverse center, where people come in search of money. And St. Petersburg — the real capital, a mirror reflecting all the Russian troubles and sorrows, where the human soul comes from all over the country to touch something elusive. The main value of the city on the Neva river — a huge number of thoughts that were born here, images that appeared here, and stories that have been prescribed.
— However, many just complain that in recent years Petersburg “provincialise”…
In principle, the whole Russia is a vast province, and its capital. Because the province is something that tries to imitate the capital, its manners, customs, architecture, device, etc. Moscow, Russia hates, and as the province of imitating Western Europe. Hence the love for French wines, German cars… Even the churches were built in the European manner.
In this sense, the city on the Neva is the quintessence of a desire to be something European. In fact, it is quite charming provincial Russian trait. That is why Saint Petersburg is a true capital of the huge province called Russia.
And Moscow is just the centre of the colonial administration.
— I wonder what Vladimir, Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of which you are, too, for nearly one hundred and fifty years was the capital city.
— That’s another story, another country, another planet, which we now even can’t imagine. Vladimir became the capital, because it was the concentration of power in the period of the war with Kiev, Yuri Dolgoruky and his son Andrey Bogolyubsky in the end, literally raped and burned. Just as Peter I in due time destroyed Moscow and “cut off” her head. In Russia in General has always been a war between two centers.
— Even now?
— Not now. Happened too much degradation. The twentieth century in many ways undermined the Russian fate. And it is foolish to blame here Soviet power. Over the past century the meaning had been exhausted. The people wanted the Kingdom of God on earth, and proved that the Kingdom of God — the lorry in the Khrushchev and twenty-two sausage. It turned out that it was for this was penal servitude, revolution, civil war…
New meanings had not yet appeared and only born. But we will definitely forward. Let the government not think that took everyone in suspended animation.
— That is, the diagnosis is not final?
— Of course not. Russia is always a possibility, and it is always pregnant with Pugachev. People just a few left.
– If the allegations about the Imperial status of St. Petersburg are not true, then it might be worth to turn to the example of the “free” cities?
No free cities, like the Hanseatic League, today is also impossible. No one will allow St. Petersburg to trade the way he might wish. Greedy, cheeky elite takes all and hinders development.
Freedom is indeed different. St. Petersburg should become the city where argue, agree, disagree, do, like, develop. Otherwise, why was Akhmatova, Gumilyov, Mandelstam, Blok? In order to Asgardia beat people, and Beglov was Governor?.
It is this freedom should become a brand of St. Petersburg. This is the only opportunity for the development of the city. As Russia as a whole.
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