Morning, May 1st, the weather blooms. I approach the main square, where all local action usually takes place.  KPRF-ofzcy  ("ofzcy" means sheep in Russian; KPRF -- the Russian acronym for Communist Party of the Russian Federation) are already bunching up and getting ready (hanging up banners, etc) around the Lenin statue. Slightly  off to the side, our valiant FSB (contemporary KGB) stands, 4 snouts in total. Somewhat more than 10 representatives of OGF (Obyedenyonniy Grazhdanskiy Front | United Citizens' Front) show up soon. Spirits are high, song are already being sung... slight confusion occurs during the song (?) Varshavka when someone from the KPRF rolled up to the mic and re-yell his own words over the actual song's "March, march forward working people," which he altered to "Soviet people." The young were a tad outraged. More people are gathering at this point, the elderly making up most of the contingent, with a young person here or there becoming the recipients of a copy of the Situazciya newspaper.

The first rays of festivities begin with the on-stage  appearance of some "comrade" who periodically pontificates that the real culprit is the Jewish mafia headed by so-n-so-this-or-that. Someone asks: "Would you be so kind as to annunciate your views?" "Ah, figures, you're Reds!" -- the weirdo answers his own question. He's follwed by a granny who can barely contain her enthusiasm as she spews some crap about how, supposedly, 100 skinheads came to our town to take back local land that was sold to some Chinese. The origin of such fables remains a mystery to us.

The rally beings... some puffed-up provincial persona from the KPRF takes center stage. He spoke at length, profusely and tediously, while reading off a page, pummeling the pentioners's ears with an abundance of highbrow jargon, something along the lines of: "the consolidation of consolidating consolidants..." On top of this the songlike speech often soared in it's  appeals to God Almighty. Well, here we go, what can be more classic than pimping God to gain the trust of sincere old grannies. He called on them not to avoid the Elections and to vot for....? For them ofcourse, "since this is the only way we can win!" Later on he urged the crowd not to forget that to the side of the speakers, on the table next to the newspapers, there's a collection box to fund flyers and newspapers. One can imagine how all of this looked from the side.

The folling bunch of speeches consisted of shitflinging at United Russia, paper-pushers and the "Gov't," praise for the KPRF, calls for the seizure of power in all local areas, and regrets that there are too few among us that resemble Lenin and Stalin. Miraculously, they even mentioned a tiny portion of the history of May Day only they forgot to mention that the workers in Chicago fought against authority,  not for totalitarianism or some slave system. At this pont we're quite sick of this ol' song'n'dance.

Somehow one of us managed to get on the official list of speakers. The appearance turned out to be quite the masterpiece...  Only a few phrases sufficed, stuff along the lines of: "You guys've talked a lot today about how bad United Russia is and how good KPRF is, but essentially they're both the same thing! Neither has accomplished anything substantial for ordinary people and they're both against the people. How long have the KPRF delegates been sitting in the Duma (federal Parliament), for what kind of salary?  Nothing's come of it!" Noises of disapproval came from the forward echelons of the most dedicated henchmen of the "red-reich." Some started to throw rubbish at the speaker. In the end, the speaker's microphone was  turned off and ripped out of his hands. Next came accusations to the tune of "How much were you paid?" How amusing! Shortly after we ended up leaving the event, watching this circus got too tiresome. In the end, who's really to be pitied?    

 

No Gods! No Masters!

 

AD-Primorye