Decay of the Empire and "Insurrection"

I really don't like living through a classic color revolution but there's no denying it.

This story is about the decay of today and the non-insurrection from a year ago.

An anecdote: A couple of days ago, I needed to accomplish a basic task, namely, call my bank. After an hour and a half of waiting for customer service, I gave up and hung up. The next day, I called again. “Due to the weather conditions (!!!) at one of the customer services centers, we are experiencing unusually long delays in customer service response time,” said the robot. After ten minutes or so, I decided to hang up again. Weather conditions. Okay.

So I walked to the branch using my two feet. “Due to New York vaccine orders, our branch is temporarily closed,” read the sign at the door. Vaccine orders? You mean the mandate?

This entire situation reminded of me how I visited my home town of Moscow some years ago, and one night I was at a restaurant— and for some reason, the restaurant employees decided to take a table, drag it into the middle of the room, and start sawing it in half with a saw. Why? Good question. It was strange and bizarre but there they were, sawing a table in half. At the time, it was filed in my mind under “That’s my country alright”—but chaotic events of this kind are no longer exclusive to Russia. We’ve arrived.

(To understand what I mean more fully, one needs to read “Heart of a Dog” by Bulgakov or watch the brilliant film based on his book. There is a particular dialogue where they talk about decay, maybe one day I will write about it but for now, here is a illustrative photo from last year that speaks a thousand words.)

And because tomorrow is an anniversary of the insurrection-not-insurrection, here is my post from last year that I completely stand by to this day.