Alive

When I was at the Russian March, more as a curiosity seeker than as a sympathizer, I was surprised at how actively they promoted the idea of burying Lenin. A whole column of sympathizers and special ribbons (I took a ribbon and tie it around my cat’s neck in moments of emotional turmoil: a nice, tricolor one, with a crossed out portrait of the leader of the proletarians and a meaningful inscription “Down with the yoke of the dead!”; again, the cat is ridiculously resisted as opposition to the authorities), a whole column of sympathizers.

In general, the idea is in vogue: either the president’s administration throws the topic around, or an opposition activist suggests it… And there are always storms, arguments and battles about the unexcavated grave.

Orthodox activists even seem to suggest building a church on the site of a demonic temple. Sometimes also referred to as the Mausoleum.

And today I read that near Nizhny Novgorod, a previously convicted citizen, mistakenly dacha-ed into a private museum of the USSR (whatever that means). And he stole a plaster bust of Lenin, as well as the pioneer horns. For the total sum of six thousand and four hundred rubles.

Rascal caught, convicted, given four years. It’s true, for some reason it’s conditional. An unprecedented humanism for a Russian court. Of course, I have no desire to justify a crime planned in advance.

But still, in your mind, divide 6,400 by four. If it doesn’t work, I’ll tell you. That works out to 1,600. One year of conditional imprisonment that is, for each fifty dollars stolen.

And I think – as long as equations like these are being made, it’s too early to bury Lenin after all. His case, as was quite rightly written on every fence in my childhood, lives on.

Let it lie for now and remind us of who we are and where we are. We’ll bury them someday, if we’re lucky. If we live to see it. If there’s a reason.