Translation by Vladimir Kolosov
The past week was rich in scandals involving the main actors of state propaganda. Servants of the state, far from liberal circles, unexpectedly rushed to attack them. First, Senator Eduard Rossel proposed to legally ban rudeness in the media. He submitted his amendments to the relevant law after the country’s chief propagandist Vladimir Solovyov called his native city of Yekaterinburg «the center of a vile liberota.»
Margarita Simonyan also showed herself up by insulting showman Maxim Galkin and his wife, prima donna Alla Pugacheva on air on Channel One. The couple left the country because of the special operation, which they do not support and strongly oppose. Philip Kirkorov, who remains super-loyal to the authorities, could not stand the criticism, writing an appeal in defense of his old friends (he did, however, carefully avoid the question of how Russia got to such a state). As Mikhail Shevchuk, a political commentator for Novy Prospekt, noted, the country’s radicalization is proceeding so rapidly that a moderate part of the elite has started to object. However, the artist Vyacheslav Shylov still believes that there are places where the people love the propagandists and believe them.
