Today, Russia seems to suffer from schizophrenia. A giant with the complexes of a dwarf. A state that endlessly pontificates about the future but cannot stop masturbating over its past. Twenty-three years after the collapse (or disintegration) of the USSR and the birth of the new Russia, we still cannot decide what exactly it was. Neither European nor Asian, neither global nor regional, neither national nor multicultural, neither religious nor secular, our country drifts in a timeless void and drowns in illusions.

At times, it is poised to become a reliable economic partner of the West; at others, it monastically rejects all material things, attempting to sew back on its long-dead imperial limbs. One moment, Russia is supposed to approach its dear European friends with slobbery Brezhnev kisses; the next, it frantically spits, pushing away those in Europe who were still somehow willing to embrace it, at least for a photo. Sometimes, it is meant to decide the world's fate alongside America, winking and playing footsie under the card table, only to suddenly flip the table over and angrily shout: "Cheater! Cheater!"

Russia lacks a development vector, a trajectory, a direction of movement. It does not move forward but convulsively jerks, flails, and rolls on the floor. Russia cannot reach a goal or overcome a path because it has no roadmap and no goal whatsoever.

Meanwhile, the people long for meaning, for a plan, for a vector. People are tired of being stuck in nowhere. Take Crimea: they were offered some sense of Russia's existence, a wave in some direction, and they immediately came to life, made noise, believed — we will restore the Union, a clear and simple thought.

In vain. No direction has been chosen.

In vain, Zakhar, in vain, Sergey, in vain, Alexander, you Russian folk. In vain you believed, and in vain you think you were believed. They're just spinning your heads. It's all according to the special services' manuals: provocation, disorientation, recruitment, special operations. But special services aren't trained to form strategies. They are services because, in normal states, they serve those who lead the country. Leaders.

We know clearly (because they keep drumming it into us on TV) that Russia is not satisfied with the place in the world that our opponents in the West try to assign it. These opponents are sadly and cynically called partners, yet we are not told what place would satisfy Russia. Russia is stuck nowhere because it is led nowhere.

Our leaders have no idea what Russia should be tomorrow or the day after. All these "Strategies 2020," five-year plans, and "Putin's Plans" are just mantras, mechanical mumblings for self-soothing, to fill the anxious void, precisely because there is no real plan. Because Putin is not a strategist, but a tactician. He plays Russia's future like ping-pong with the Americans and Chinese, returning their serves, while the rest of our leadership doesn't even try to look ahead of him out of tact and obsequiousness.

They never knew what to do with Russia — maybe because they became its rulers by chance and manage its fate to the best of their abilities. Maybe because they don't fully understand what an honor and responsibility it is to determine the fate of such a great country. Maybe because the scale of their personalities is not right — instead of leading a dying empire through the break of epochs, they manage it like a state corporation, appointed to steer it by nepotism. Maybe because they are not statesmen, but managers. The scale of their personalities is not right.

Caesar knew where he was leading Rome and why he was usurping power. Peter knew. Napoleon knew. Stalin, whom I hate for his cannibalism, knew. Lee Kuan Yew knew. Even Saakashvili knew. Any decent country deserves leaders who know what it should become. And a former superpower deserves it even more.

But those who steer Russia do not know. They call the people with anonymous FSO surveys — as if to consult, but the people have already watched enough TV to know what to say.

They have no goal other than to continue steering Russia until their quiet death, other than to bequeath Russia to their children. And this aimlessness, lack of direction, meaninglessness, indecision, inconsistency, this endless poking, floundering, and flailing — this is Russia's greatest tragedy.

No one wants to take responsibility for anything, so Russia and its people are left to their own devices. Russia is left to drift. It wasn't Putin who lifted the country from its knees, it wasn't Putin who fed it. Money just poured into Russia, and it accidentally got its fill. Now the flow will dry up — and we'll starve and weaken again. We bob on the waves, going nowhere. We paddle a bit for show, puff out our cheeks, and then lie on our backs to rest. Around us is nothing but ocean, and choosing a direction is too great a responsibility. And there's no one to row.

Businessmen invent ideologies. The Federal Security Service speaks for the people. Curators of the Lord God from the Fifth Directorate of the KGB speak on His behalf.

They fear reforms, fear great plans, fear century-long constructions, fear abrupt movements. They built democracy with reservations and caveats, hollowing it out to empty rituals. They restore the colossus of the empire, starting with clay feet. They bring in migrant workers and organize hunts on them. They invite former Soviet republics to join the CIS and terrorize them, igniting hot spots of the "Russian world" on their territories. They endlessly babble about investment attractiveness and oppress any business that isn't state-owned. They demand Americans play by the rules, yet want to play by Stalin-Hitler rules themselves. They build a welfare state by taking away people's pensions. They curse Western banks after borrowing money from them. They wage thieving, secret wars, sending bandits ahead and disguising combat officers as bandits. They rip insignia from soldiers, paint over stars on equipment, tear plaques from soldiers' graves. They lie everywhere. Everything is half-hearted, everything with a safety net, everything for both yours and ours.

And the FSO doesn't call the people to consult, but to find out what could drive them, the people, to madness, to revolution? Because they no longer really understand it themselves, because they've been in power for so long and have somehow forgotten.

They don't dare commit to one clear thing because they simply have no idea what they need to do with Russia. Don't expect Russia to become great with them, to rise from the ashes, to collapse, to burst into a nano-future, to turn into an oppressive obscurantist kingdom. Nothing will happen to it under them. It will continue to flounder in the murk. Stuck nowhere on the way to nowhere.

And let them publish history textbooks about themselves and write in them: under us, Russia became... No. Under them, Russia will become nothing. And, alas, it will become nothing under us with you.