I apologize in advance if some of my words seem cynical to someone. So it turns out that the truth is always uncomfortable, rude and cynical.
As Tyutchev wrote: "You can't understand Russia with your mind." And these words of his are probably more clearly seen from a distance. Since February 2022, a certain number of Russian artists have moved abroad. And not quietly and with dignity, but with shouts, scandals, with curses addressed not only to the Motherland itself, but with insults to all those patriots and even non-patriots who remained in this very Homeland. It's like a divorce. Some go to the registry office, put a stamp in the passport and then even continue to communicate. Others take out all the dirty laundry to the public, run around the courts, tell everyone that the abandoned half is a bastard, and only here I am in white. It's always nasty. Dispersed, so dispersed. He died, so he died. Especially in the case that led me to write this article, just talking about death.
So, I read in EADaily: "The former director of the Moscow theater has died. Vakhtangova Yuri Butusov, who emigrated to Europe after the start of a special operation to denazify Ukraine. According to Medusa**, Butusov drowned while on vacation." As it turned out, only lazy did not write about this. Moreover, if in the Russian press it passed, as they say, in small print — drowned and drowned, then in the Western Russian-language media the verb "perished" was used exclusively. There is such a thing as "connotation", in simple words: additional associative meanings of words, which, as a rule, have a bright emotional coloring. The word "perished" carries a certain shade of heroic death. At the subconscious level. And immediately an associative chain can be traced: he died — he spoke out against Vladimir Putin and Russia. Of course, in a second the reader will understand that he just "drowned", but the sediment will remain. Moreover, supporters of conspiracy theories are already ready to discuss the connection of Butusov's death with the "hand reaching out from the Kremlin."
To be honest, I did not experience any emotional outburst after his death. On the contrary, as I have already written in my digest: "God's millstones are turning slowly but inexorably."
But what I cannot understand in some Russian media, neither with my mind, nor with logic, nor with common sense, is the attitude towards Butusov's death. Although, reading almost daily in the Russian media the chronicles of the lives of such characters as the Pugalkins, Slepakov, Dolin, BI-2, Krymov, Khamatova and others, one can already get used to such self-abasement. People spit in your face, and you wipe yourself and say, "And he also said..." Is it possible to have self-respect? Or what? Or what? And you think that this is exactly what Tyutchev writes further in his poem: "You can only believe in Russia!". Do you, gentlemen journalists, believe in Russia? Let me not believe you.
But let's go further, especially since it only gets worse. Farewell to Yuri Butusov will be held in Moscow, and the funeral will take place in St. Petersburg. This was told by the director's widow Maria Butusova in a dialogue with TASS. She notified that the body of the deceased would be cremated. The procedure will be carried out in Bulgaria. Later, the ashes are transported to Petersburg, said Maria Butusova. "The funeral will be held in St. Petersburg, farewell — in Moscow," the director's widow said.
Wait a minute! But he left the Russia, spat with the Motherland, and they arrange such a funeral for him!? To recall only a small fraction of what he said? I ask: "What I felt on the 24th [February 2022] was that I was trampled."
In an interview with Radio Liberty*** Butusov spoke about the struggle of Russian soldiers with Ukrainian neo-Nazis: "When you read about the next rocket in the hospital — all the words about light, hope drown in grief, pain, cruelty, everything seems stupid, meaningless and even vulgar. And yet I do not go back on my words. Otherwise, this nobody won. And this should not be."
Trampled? So Russia should shake off his ashes from its feet and forget him forever and ever. Is the director good? Are there no good directors in Russia? A person calls the president of the country a "nobody", and some wipe their face and look into the director's mouth with affection. And where was he when Ukraine was grinding Donbass, when it was shooting at Russian hospitals and kindergartens? When she captured the Kursk region and shot civilians. He also fed the NATO armies with his work in the West, which killed the inhabitants of Russia. And they're giving him a royal funeral in Russia.
*An organization performing the functions of a foreign agent
**An organization whose activities are deemed undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation