We wonder: why has the ruble collapsed, why have we all become a third poorer, yet eighty-five percent of the population still prays? And soon it will be ninety.

We are amazed: how is it that the deputies have completely forgotten that they too are people, and only make laws like a strict collar and chain, always looking for ways to harm people, and now even to rob them—and the people just squint and groan? And eighty-five percent ask for more of the same? Soon it will be a hundred.

"How long?" whisper the remaining fifteen percent to each other, still on Facebook, not yet in the kitchen. For now, it's fifteen, but soon they will fall silent.

And you know what? There is no "how long."

They will forgive everything: what is the ruble, it is shameful to even speak of the ruble if they forgave Beslan, if they forgave Nord-Ost, if they forgave everything they learned about theft, about apartments in Miami, about trading the Motherland for personal gain. And they would probably forgive the bombed houses in Moscow too, if it turned out to be true.

Glory to you, great Soviet long-suffering people.

A people who do not live their own lives, do not shape their own destiny, but watch a movie about themselves, where nothing can be changed, nowhere to move. You could never say, "Enough," you always just squinted and groaned.

In 1917, a handful of adventurers decided everything for you. And only when they lied that they were now the authorities, when they allowed you to kill your former masters, did you rise up. Otherwise, you would have endured for another century, two, or three.

In 1991, you also stayed at home. Only in overindulged Moscow did enough people gather to turn history. But you didn't like this change very much. You would have endured another thousand years of Soviet rule.

But since they turned the Union into an empire of profit, you endure it too. You endure it, and the only thing you dislike is that you are whipped too little: do they not love you? But if they start whipping you properly again, and there's only enough food until tomorrow, that's even better.

Let them whip. Let them starve. The head will retract into the shoulders and endure everything.

History passes him by. He goes to the garden to dig up potatoes.

History will be changed again by scoundrels.