Russia Was Ready to Celebrate a Glorious Past. The Present Intervened. - The New York T... - 0 views
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As the coronavirus began its silent but relentless march on Moscow in February, the names of the millions of Russian soldiers killed in the far deadlier horrors of World War II were already appearing, one by one, on state television, scrolling down the screen in a harrowing torrent.
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The Kremlin offered soothing words about the pandemic, saying that Russia would not suffer too badly. So, the names kept coming, day after day, mourning Russia’s wartime martyrs at a staggering rate of more than 6,000 a minute.
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And Russia awoke from its glorious, morbid memories of the Red Army’s defeat of Nazi Germany 75 years ago to confront an insidious enemy that kept getting closer and more menacing.
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The grand party has been canceled, but this becalmed, sometimes brutal yet still beguilingly beautiful city is all decked out for a big celebration. Copies of the red banner that was raised above the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945 fly on every silent street.
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In a country with a long history of legal nihilism, the mayor’s stay-at-home pleas were not expected to gain much traction. Russia is, after all, a land where, according to popular wisdom, “the severity of the law is compensated by the laxity of its enforcement” and “when something is not allowed but is greatly desired it can be done.”
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Most Muscovites, however, have more or less obeyed. That the threat was real, and not just another propaganda exercise to keep protesters off the streets or to gin up fury at the West, became clear in late March. That is when President Vladimir V. Putin shelved a referendum on constitutional changes that would allow him to stay in power until 2036.
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On the street near my apartment, an illuminated panel that at this time of year usually has a poster celebrating victory in 1945 now features a picture of the head doctor at Moscow’s main hospital for coronavirus patients. “Stay at home!” warns the doctor, who has himself tested positive. “This is the most dangerous place.”
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old ladies with mops were still cleaning the platforms. We wondered: How long can that all last?But it did — for years and years, through an armed rebellion against President Boris N. Yeltsin, through an economic collapse more severe than the Great Depression, through two wars in Chechnya and murderous terrorist attacks in Moscow. The old ladies kept cleaning.