Very recommendable: The prominent Russian writer, Vladimir Sorokin - TopicsExpress

Very recommendable: The prominent Russian writer, Vladimir Sorokin reminisces in The New York Review of Books what happened in Ukraine in terms of confronting the Soviet past, and how it affects Russia. The huge iceberg Russia, frozen by the Putin regime, cracked after the events in Crimea; it has split from the European world, and sailed off into the unknown. No one knows what will happen to the country now, into which seas or swamps it will drift. At such times, it’s better to rely on intuition than common sense. My most perceptive compatriots feel that when Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, it bit off more than it will be able to chew or digest. The state’s teeth are not what they were, and for that matter, its stomach doesn’t work as it once did. Ukraine has taught Russia a lesson in loving freedom and refusing to tolerate a base, thieving regime. Ukraine found the strength to break away from the post-Soviet iceberg and sail toward Europe. Maidan—Independence Square—showed the world what a people can accomplish when it so desires. But when I watched the reports from Kiev, I could not imagine anything similar in today’s Moscow. It is difficult to imagine Muscovites fighting the OMON special forces day and night on Red Square and facing snipers’ bullets with wooden shields. For that to happen, something must change not only in the surrounding environment, but in people’s heads. Will it?