Is the experience of interethnic friendship of the

  Is the experience of interethnic friendship of the Soviet Union applicable today? 

But there’s another union – and it’s for it I fight –
Unfeigned and living!
Nations, unfeigned, it does unite.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko


     Just another several pages of history – and anyone with a heart and eyes will understand the nothingness and ugliness of these “great and watershed years”. With political regime and time, the values themselves change.
     Where do they lead Russia? Towards prosperity or collapse? For now, we can only impotently watch its destruction, the degradation of its nation and the decay of the system. Nobody will change anything. Nobody can and nobody wants. Everybody is self-consumed. Just like at the beginning of the 90s our parents were watching the collapse of the USSR, silently and almost indifferently, the modern generation is losing Russia.
     The country is falling apart, the nation is getting dumber. There are catastrophically few people worried about that, and most of them want to move to Western countries. If things do not change, it is not likely that we will be able to speak about social fairness in the future. The rich will get richer, the poor – poorer.
     And against this background, interethnic conflicts will only multiply, solicitously aggravated by “caring” media.
Is the experience of interethnic friendship of the Soviet Union applicable today? It is not just applicable – it’s obligatory for application!
     After Khrushchev entered the office, we had a wonderful country in spiritual sense of the word, in which nations did not blend like American mix, but each of them kept its language and culture. At the domestic level, universal human ideals were advocated. The State was interested in unity and peace on its territory, that’s why they did not aggravate interethnic conflicts, but tried to soothe them; joint residence and interaction were built upon the principles of “national cohesion” – such a model was implemented on all levels: from educational to political.
     And then, the Government, the regime, and after that, the values as well – to be more correct, not the principles and ideals themselves, but their propaganda - changed. And the schoolchildren, sitting side by side at the desks and writing “We do not need war” only yesterday, became ready to jump down each other’s throats at the instigation of “leaders” of all stripes and nations.
     We, common people, can change very little on the national level. But we are capable of sticking to the principle of “national cohesion” in our own lives. Of being wiser and superior to ethnic discord, and, that means, of not yielding to anti-State, anti-Russian propaganda. Of judging people not on the basis of their nation or confession, but for what they are. To remember that the most important thing is the individuality of a person.
     As they say, there are no bad nations – there are bad people, but even if for a hundred of bad people there is one good man, it’s not the reason to call everyone bad. For it is better, if I undeservingly forgive ninety nine people, than undeservingly offend this one.
     I am against the Dulles' plan.
     I do not need country with the slogan “if you are so clever, then why are you so poor?”, where the prestige value of a profession is determined by the wages and not by its social significance; where on TV they speak with importance and seriousness about some “society hostess” buying a diamond diadem for her dog, while thousands of people do not have enough money for medical treatment; I do not need propaganda and justification of debauch and perversion under the guise of “protection of human rights and freedoms”, I need no hamburgers or Coca-Cola.
     I want to watch movies calling for the good and high ideals – not soap operas and commercials cultivating animal instincts.
     I want to have rest on sandy beaches of the Crimea, drink mineral waters in Kislovodsk, ski in the vicinity of the Mt. Elbrus, drink milk from Kuban, eat oranges from Baku, drink Saperavi and lay flowers near Brest Fortress.
     And I want thousands of people with common Motherland: the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Georgians, the Dagestani, the Ossetians, the Armenians, the Tadjiks, the Uzbeks etc. – to walk along Red square without the risk of being killed by subhumans, whose great-grandfathers died together with their ones, liberating Europe from the fascism.
     And looking at decently dressed, well-disposed, smiling people, I want to think with pride: “This is my country”.
     No, I do not stand for communism. I stand for democracy WITH A HUMAN FACE. But the Russians are not strong enough to build it on their own. Will you help them?