0:39 Lobotomy is an extraction of the frontal lobes of the brain, which are responsible for self-consciousness and decision-making. 

 

The ‘closed’ lobotomy is the most effective method. 

 

In K Kesey’s novel, “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, such a procedure was carried out on the main character, who had rebelled against the despotic order of the mental hospital. 

 

---------  

 

0:57

I first heard the word ‘lobotomy’ 20 years ago, when my colleagues and I were watching this footage at the cinema. When we saw people killed with digging tools. I was watching closely, when suddenly someone exhaled nervously, “This is lobotomy!”. That was how I first heard the word. 

This tape was sent to us by friends from Georgia. It happened on April 9th, 1989. Tanks advanced against unarmed, peaceful people, who were only guilty of one thing: a wish for freedom. 

 

1:48

The  next day “Pravada” newspaper wrote about the dispersal of a rally in Tbilisi. We certainly didn’t believe this newspaper, but we had learnt to extract information from it. So we read about the ‘situation’ in Tbilisi and how “sub-units of the police and army fulfilled the instructions about non-usage of weapons, especially regarding women and teenagers.” A friend of mine read this article and then said, “Did they really kill women and children there?” He was good at reading behind the lines of the party press. Yes, they did. They beat them on the head with digging tools. They beat the heads in which a dream of freedom had arisen. 

 

2:34 

But freedom had already broken loose, and people could not be stopped. Since then, this date, April 9th, is forever imprinted on the souls of the citizens of Georgia. This date predetermined the whole course of subsequent events.  

 

3:02

In ancient times, reaching this place, Georgia, was the aim of legendary hero Jason, who sailed on his ship ‘Argo’, to pursue his dream of the ‘Golden Fleece’. 

The Golden Fleece may not be here anymore, but the Tree of Wishes remains: there it is. The tree stands alone, but its magical properties entice people. 

That’s why anyone who comes to Georgia once will try to return here again. 

 

3:42

I hadn’t visited Georgia for more than twenty years. For more than twenty years I hadn’t seen my friends. I hadn’t drunk wine with them. I hadn’t heard their drinking songs. It was time; time to repair the omission. 

 

4:17

This is Zaza. He is still the same as before. In general, none of them have changed much; they just have more gray hair. 

Gogi: he has had eight children. 

 

 

4:36 - For Georgia! 

 

 

 

4:41

Of course, they told me about their life over the last twenty years. I knew there has been a war in Abkhazia from 1992-3. But they showed me their archives. For the first time I saw these images, which had never been shown here before. 

 

5:02 – Archival shots, 1993. An announcer for Abkhazian TV. 

 

5:00

The decree of the President of the Confederation of Mountain Nations: “In view of having exhausted all measures for the peaceful solution of the question of withdrawal of occupying Georgian troops from the territory of Abkhazia, I hereby rule as follows: 

All headquarters of the Confederation have to guarantee the re-deployment of volunteers to the territory of Abkhazia. 

All persons of Georgian nationality in the borders of Abkhazia must be considered hostages. 

To realise this all methods must be used, including acts of terrorism.” 

 

5:30

There is the dolphin, the symbol of the GRU. 

The GRU is the main intelligence directorate of Russia. Through rousing the idea of separatism in Abkhazia, Russian generals gathered mercenaries from around the country to expel Georgians from these lands. Future terrorist Shamil Basayev is training somewhere in this Chechen circle. These are Cossacks; they also took part. 

 

6:20

There is a certain regularity in the fact that all conflicts of the early 1990s began in places where Russian military bases were situated; Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia. Only in Adzharia did they miss their chance. 

 

6:40 – They are burning our houses – just look at this! They drove us all out. I escaped naked, and my children were naked too. 

 

6:47 – They beat our people – Russia beat us! 

 

6:50 – Go! Fire! Fire! 

 

6:56 

Like a wild beast, the Empire dug its claws into the lands it still considered as its own. 

 

07:08

One could escape from this hell in only one of three ways. 

 

The first way lay through the sea. But there was a lack of ships. They couldn’t transport all the people. 

 

07:30

The second way was by air. 

 

07:42

This plane was ready to fly, but was shot down by a ‘Strela’ rocket launcher on the airfield. These scenes were captured just minutes prior to take-off. She was lucky, she failed to board. 

Another airliner fell into the sea. Can you see the diagonal trace in the sky of the rocket launched at it? It is said that it was brought down by unknown people, with an unknown rocket, launched from an unknown rocket mount. 

“All methods must be used, including acts of terrorism.”

 

 

08:30 

There was another way, the longest one, over the mountain pass. That is how they left their houses, their land; almost 300,000 refugees.  Think about that number – three hundred thousand! It amounts to three quarters of the whole population of Abkhazia. They left in order to survive, in order not to become hostages. Their former neighbours occupied their houses. Some of them settled in those houses for good, others sold them. This is Tea. She had a large, beautiful house in Sukhumi. Now it is occupied by a Russian general. Tea doesn’t know his name. 

 

9:56

If you find yourself in Tbilisi for the first time, or after a long period away, don’t idle away your time and don’t be afraid of the heat. Go out and look around. 

 

10:27

This city was always recognised as beautiful, but now it has become even finer. 

 

10:48 

It is obvious that freedom and independence harmonise well here with the traditions established in older times, the main one being about remembering those who surround you, living in love and peace with your neighbours. That was the crucial idea of those who created, built and then improved this country. 

 

11:28 

The ancient temples of Georgia were built by true artists. Wonderful panoramas of this country open up beyond the walls of these temples: forests, hills, villages, roads. Looking at them now, you could never imagine the things that became a reality here: Russian tanks on this land, Russian planes launching rockets and bombs on Georgian cities. 

 

13:45 

This is the central square of Gori. There is Stalin’s monument far off – can you see it? It’s there because Stalin was born here. Russian TV channels stated that only military objectives were exposed to bombing, but there are no military targets nearby! There are only people here. 

 

14:12 – Help us! Help us! 

 

14:17 

On August 8th, when this war started, Russian authorities declared that operations began because of an attack on peaceful Tskhinvali by Georgian army and police. It was impossible to hear another point of view in Russia, although such a view existed. 

 

14:50 – 

Yulia Latynia

Writer and Journalist 

 

14:42

Analysing it carefully, you understand that Russia prepared that war for several years. During the last week before the war started the situation was being complicated deliberately, like in the confrontation between Israel and Hamas, when Hamas attacks Israel with rockets and says that Israel is guilty. South Ossetia attacked Georgia constantly, fired on it, using in particular artillery weapons, and stated in response that it was not Ossetia but Georgia that opened fire. 

 

 

 

15:14

Pavel Felgengauer

Military Analyst and Journalist 

 

15:12

As a military analyst, I was sure as early as June that the war would be inevitable and it would happen in August, because it was clear that Russia, our leader, had worked out the plans of incursion into Georgia. 

 

15:27– From what signs was it clear? 

 

15:29 – I know many people at our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including those who work with Georgia. They all ceased from speaking with Georgians at that time. 

 

15:36 – Mr Minister, please, could you answer just one question about the war with Georgia? 

 

15:41 – Are you crazy girl? Journalists are becoming totally mad... 

 

15:44

Georgians put forward some alternative decisions, but no one listened to them. The negotiations were ended, since the decision to start operations in an appointed term had already been made. 

 

15:59

There were quite ill-intentioned things from the Russian side. For example, a good acquaintance of mine, Yuri Snegirev, from ‘Izvestia’ newspaper told me about his trip to Nuria, a Georgian village which was under fire then. It was August 7th and I was a ‘persona non grata’ in South Ossetia by that time. 

16:26

When returning they went through Khetagurovo. Khetagurovo was intact, but Yuri heard some strange things. General Barankevich said that Khetagurovo was destroyed and that this was the beginning of the war. The week before Mr Kokoity evacuated the whole of Tskhinvali, saying there would be a war soon. A week before that, volunteers began to come to the city. If we look at records in Ossetian blogs from the morning of August 7th, we see such phrases as this (I found them on the website of Osradio): “Ossetians, let’s rapidly fill up the biggest morgue in Gori!”, “Peaceful Tbilisi has not been bombed yet, but it will be soon”, “we need to destroy Georgia in one volley”, and “the 58th division has already entered the city”. So they wrote by day on August 7th, and by the evening it was said that the damned Nazi Saakashvili had attacked the peacefully sleeping Tskhinvali. 

 

17:23

It is called ‘to provoke’. It has already been a tested method. It was used in particular during the second invasion of Chechnya. The tactic includes various provocations, which later serve as a formal pretext for starting operations. 

 

17:40

Enough of warning the Georgian side! Now we shall deliver very strict blows on those weapon emplacements we’ll find today and in the future. 

 

17:53

In this conflict Ossetians began to provoke Georgians actively. Kokoity made statements like, “we’ll clean out all Georgian villages soon” and so on. As a result of systematic firing and other things, Georgians yielded to the provocation. 

 

 

 

18:09

Thus, on the night of August 8th, the Georgian army and police advanced on Tskhinvali. 

 

If you are indignant, I propose that you try to solve this conundrum. Imagine that you are the authority. Some people fire methodically upon citizens of your country. Negotiations do not help. Russian peacemakers do not counteract it. On the contrary, they help to adjust the fire. The question is, what would you do? This question wasn’t asked on Russian TV channels. They only accused Georgia. 

 

To understand these intrigues better, I called my old friend, journalist Vadim Rechkalov. 

 

18:54

Hi Vadim! You were in Georgia during the war, weren’t you? What were your main impressions? How was it? 

 

19:02

To my mind, it was a war waged with the help of new technologies, because everything we had to transmit had been transmitted before it happened, even before TV reporters arrived there. They could neither give pictures nor link up their equipment, but all the main news concerning this war had already been known to everybody. It didn’t matter that this news had nothing in common with reality. It had already been accepted, and it was useless to try and disprove it. For example, about 2,000 dead later turned into little more than 300 people, as I remember. 

 

19:47

And later even into 150...

 

19:50 

Yes. It is remarkable that our authorities later published all official reports on the dead and on the destruction, and those reports had nothing in common with that information that was presented to us (excuse me for using such a cynical word), in the first hour of this conflict. 

 

20:14 

I guess it is time to tell you exactly what was shown to audiences by Russian TV channels in those days. 

 

20:21 

– The Russian military was forced to undertake police actions to keep order. We are here for supporting order, we came so that stores and flats wouldn’t be plundered. 

 

20:39 

Protection of other people’s property from robbers is a very generous occupation. But to tell you the truth, I saw something quite different. 

 

20:47 

Where did you take this fork? Could you tell me? 

What’s the difference to you? Go away! 

I’m just curious where you took the fork from. 

Step aside! To the first vehicle. 

If you filch it, you could at least hide it. 

 

21:02 

But they didn’t filch it, just take it under protection. These men are putting protection over our carpets. Now they will be protected in an armoured troop-carrier. It’s a lot for a carpet, but protection was put over every trifle. Can you see? He has got something and is carrying it to protect it. He hurries! He runs! 

These guys are taking a bank branch under their protection. CCTV cameras captured these images. Unfortunately, the money had already been driven away, but there are still some objects needing protection – office equipment, computers. 

But the most pleasant thing was taking under protection private motor transport. For some reason the owner doesn’t want to give it up, but the protector has a gun. Can you see? One shot is enough to persuade him to put the car under protection. Don’t worry about it, it is in reliable hands. 

 

22:12

Protection of boats is mission for the colonels and generals. The ranks couldn’t do it; they don’t have the corresponding professional skills. Recently in modern Russia, this aim of taking everything under protection has reached the level of national interests. To understand it, let’s leave the seat of war and move to Moscow. 

 

22:42 

In terms of national interests, we should be friends with Georgia, but instead we make an enemy of it. What for? As for Western political scientists, who talk about the primacy of national interests and so on, I tell them: “Just hire a former Mafiosi or see ‘The Godfather’, then you’ll better understand Russia’s policy.” It concerns not only Georgia, it concerns everything: economic policy, domestic policy. You’ll understand it much better if you understand that Russian policy is determined by other laws. It is quite unlike the Western system of decision-making and working out of policy, but instead is very similar to how a boss or the head of a family manages his business, distributes cash flows and so on. In our situation we have to look at who benefits, specifically which person, and how much he puts into his pocket as a result. 

 

23:55 – 

Russia is our sacred power, 

Russia is our beloved country...

 

24:02 

Montage is a powerful and insidious weapon, and I initially thought that putting the Russian anthem after a picture of indiscriminate looting would be blasphemous. But on reflection I still did it, because right now we can see among the delegates of congress of the ‘United Russia’ party those public officials whose total corruption budget is comparable with the budget of the Russian Federation. By the estimations of some experts, it comes up to three hundred billion dollars a year. The historian Karamzin once described the essence of Russia simply as, “all steal”.  

 

24:56 

Boris Nemtsov

Politician 

 

24:46 

In a book entitled “Putin and Gazprom”, Vladimir Milov and I analysed in detail which assets of the state stock company had been taken out in favour of Putin’s friends. I must say that very unpleasant for Russia, for the world, and especially for “Gazprom” stockholders, is the news that Putin and his pals have taken out assets to the amount of 60 billion US dollars. 

 

In any other country in the world Putin would already have been impeached for it. Our authorities pretended that nothing had happened. 

 

25:20 

Vladimir Vladimirovitch, you are lucky! 

 

25:30 

This applause has a profound historical meaning. Let me explain: when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the KGB had to take a break. A long break. Everything came back to life in 1999. 

 

 

 

 

25:58 

Dear comrades, I would like to report that the group of FSB officers you sent to the government to work undercover are still coping with their task. 

 

26.11.1999

 

26:13

The audience liked the joke. I’ve noticed that leaders’ jokes were always met with invariable ecstasy, whether in the time of Khrushchev voluntarism, or in the age of Stalin’s repressions, or even in the evil years of famine and forced collectivization. 

 

26.19 – 1959 

 

26:23 – 1937 

 

26:26 – 1929 

 

26:29 

We know very well the stages the state security bodies passed through. We know the contribution made by members of these bodies at all states of the existence of our service. 

 

26:51 

Maybe Mr Putin will be surprised, but we know about this contribution too. And as for the stages, we know who passed through these stages and how many billions of lives they took. 

 

27:12 - Comrades! We have the NKVD, headed by true Stalin admirer Nikolai Ivanovich Ezhov. 

 

27:25

They applaud, though later they themselves will be shot. 

 

27:32 

Yes, they could not have known the truth, they could not understand. But look at this face, at these eyes. Do you see? He understands everything. But he continues to applaud. And this nationwide applause lasted for ten years! 

 

27:50 

Glory to the Soviet Government! Hooray! 

 

 

27:56

We are grateful to the Central Committee of our party for its continual care for people’s prosperity, for the policies aimed at the better satisfaction of the needs of the Soviet people. 

 

28:06

I don’t know whose mind was originally crossed by the idea to integrate the millennial Russian experience of the formula ‘all steal’, with the Soviet one ‘all approve’. But it was a cool idea, like taking a laxative with a soporific. We all just waited for a leader who could realise it. 

 

28:37 – I gratefully accept your proposal to head the list of “United Russia”. 

 

28:43

So that’s what this long pause meant. 

 

 

 

28:49

As we can see, national interests found a national leader. It began to smack not just of money, but of GREAT money! Meanwhile, as we know, to get hold of real money guys first have to show real strength; to be respected, to be known as the coolest guys. So, it was time to think about a war. Georgia was chosen as an object. Why Georgia?: just because, “we don’t like them”. 

 

29:25

A dislike for Georgia is too soft an explanation for it. It would be more correct to describe it as the cultivation of hatred. There were also cases of deportation of Georgians, if you remember. My son, Anton Nemtsov, is a pupil of the 20th municipal school. During this anti-Georgian hysteria a district police officer came into the classroom and said, “come on, stand up anyone who has a Georgian surname.” Are such things normal at a school? It was only the fifth grade, by the way. 

 

36:06

The things Boris Nemtsov talks about started almost two years before the war. Why was this done? Can anyone explain it? Why was the forest in the Borjomi Nature Reserve set on fire, after the war began? Did somebody equate the trees and grass with Georgians and burn them for it? 

 

30:37

I am from the village of Svaneti. We fled. 

- Did they enter there? What did they do? 

 

30:44 

They burnt our houses!

- Was it Russians who did it? 

– Yes, Russians.... 

 

30:50

Who can say why soldiers burnt the villages in the mountains of Svaneti? It is about three hundred kilometres west from the conflict zone. Why did they bomb the town of Senaki? It is also three hundred kilometres from Tskhinvali. Yet, there are many victims in both places. 

 

31:23 

This is a list of the wounded people in hospital in Senaki. This is a list of the wounded in Gori. And this is Tbilisi’s one. How much hatred one has to have, so that these things become reality. 

 

31:51 

Yulia Latynina

Writer, Journalist 

 

31:46 If the reason for this war was personal animosity, then I think this animosity didn’t arise from the fact that Saakashvili had said anything wrong to Putin, or even called him Liliputin, but from the fact that Saakashvili made a Western state from Georgia, and this was a shame for the Russians. 

 

 

32:06 – But why? Why was it a shame for the Russians? 

 

32:08 I don’t know why it is so, why in the time of Nicholas I Russia could not stand revolutions in France or in Austria. But in the same way, in the time of Putin, Russia can’t stand the Orange Revolution and the Rose Revolution. 

 

32:32

So they won! The insidious enemy is defeated, the Reichstag is taken! It’s pleasant to be a winner. You are stronger, you can do anything. For example, you can put a civilian on the ground. No matter that the man has gray hair, that he is old enough to be your grandfather. After all, you can do anything! 

 

33:04

But there is an invisible threat to the authorities in this. Look, Russian soldiers entered the Georgian military base and filmed it on a mobile phone. Listen to it. 

 

33:25

So that’s how these fucking bastards lived! Just look, look around! 

You want to say they lived badly?! 

No, they had everything! What fantastic beds! What a fucking nice casern with wide windows! 

Meanwhile, we live like beggars! 

 

33:43

This is the main threat for the authorities: the winners have got a chance to see that there is a different life and a different treatment of people. What do these young soldiers know except homeless penury and humiliations? To feel it you have to be born and live in a small Russian town, in a place where nobody needs you, where the authorities remember you only when they need cannon fodder. You have to see how in winter the inhabitants of such towns are frozen together, how at night sometimes there is no electricity. In spring these towns are often flooded, either by rains or by some burst dam on a hydroelectric power station. Like in Beslan, there is no special protection from terrorists here. In short, this is the ordinary life of the Russian provinces. 

 

35:03 - Guys, go away! It’s dangerous here! 

 

35:05

It’s not such a joy to be born in a small Russian town. How old is this kid? About eight years old, right? That means in ten years time he will join the army. Maybe he will be lucky and will give a solemn oath in the heart of Russia – on the Red Square. 

35:37

Ten years will pass and then this boy, like hundreds of thousands of other boys, will swear himself to the country that doesn’t swear anything to him. 

 

35:51 - Comrade vice-admiral, “Kursk” submarine has arrived from a long voyage! After re-stocking it is ready to be put to sea! 

 

36:07 – Tell me, Mr President, what actually happened to your submarine? 

 

36:11 – It sank. 

 

36:17

This smile of Putin’s, like Mona Lisa’s, is worthy of immortality. It’s not just the smile of a man, but it’s a symbol; it is the smile of the Kremlin. A lot of mysterious and unknown things are hidden beyond the Kremlin wall. Why does anyone who works there after a while begin to search painfully for the ‘national idea’? Don’t tell me this idea has already been found. Yes, some people steal, and all others must approve, but it’s not an idea, it cannot inspire nationwide enthusiasm. After all, what is the guarantee that you are able to move from a despicable level of approving to the desired club of stealing? That’s just the point. There is the need for an idea, which can be taken up by the masses. That’s what I thought at the end of 2008, when Dmitry Medvedev was celebrating his first New Year’s Eve as a President. Meanwhile, I remembered the year 2000, the first year of President Putin. Maybe it’s just a co-incidence, but that year was also marked by a war. So these two New Years combined in an interesting manner. 

 

37:39 - The Russians enjoy New Year in a special way, as no one else enjoys it. 

 

37:44 - Well, we congratulate them at Christmas. Now I congratulate you. 

 

37:51 - I think it’s a tradition that is ingrained very deeply in each of us. 

 

37:57 - Is the artillery ready? Fire on the target! Volley! Merry Christmas! 

 

38:04

In 2000, Colonel Yuri Budanov really congratulated the Chechens in a special way. One day he even dragged into his dugout a Chechen girl, Elsa Kungayeva, to congratulate her. First he congratulated her, and then he killed her. His commander, General Shamanov congratulated Chechens too. For example, he ordered the destruction of a column of refugees.  Just in case: what if there are terrorists there? 

 

38:32

We’ll follow terrorists everywhere. If they hide in an airport, we’ll follow them into the airport. You must excuse me, but if we catch them in the loo, we’ll kill them in the loo. 

 

38:40

All brilliant discoveries occur suddenly. So this formula, “to kill them in the loo”, which accidentally escaped the President’s lips, instantly obtained a truly epic meaning. A national idea, which had been searched for, for centuries, was born in one second. The delivery was handled by 250,000 dead, including about 40,000 children. However, keeping this powerful idea solely in the boundaries of Chechnya turned out to be impossible. It spread to the whole of Russia. As a result a nice triad emerged: stealing – approving – killing in the loo. 

 

39:21

If you want to become an Islamic radical and are ready to undergo circumcision, then I invite you to Moscow. We have specialists in this area. I will recommend that they carry out the operation in such a way that after it nothing else will grow. 

 

39:41 

Even in former times, killing was an easy thing in Russia. But now it became even easier. 

 

40:03 – I can’t!

 

40:11 – Didn’t anyone understand? Move on faster! Faster! What do you say? 

 

40:20

Some may say: they are prisoners; it is impossible to treat them otherwise. I suppose ‘impossible’ is disputable. But even so, please watch this reel, shot in a standard prison courtyard. 

 

40:34 - Legs! 

 

40:44 – Smile! 

 

40:52 – And now tell me, “I like special forces”. If you don’t tell me I’ll beat you. Repeat: “I like special forces”. 

 

41:04 

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered on Lesnaya Street, on the doorstep of her house. Her articles about the atrocities committed in Chechnya infuriated the military. They threatened her, promised to shoot her, but she still wrote. In the days of the commemorative events, she flew to Beslan. On the flight she was poisoned, though not to death. She survived and wrote again. Her colleagues knew that Anna would not stop. Someone else understood it too, and she was killed. 

 

And here is the funeral of Natalia Yustimirova. Natalia was a friend of Anna, her colleague and a journalist too. She was caught in broad daylight in the city centre, taken away and killed. On the day of her funeral people marched through the city with placards saying, “The price of truth is death”, and “my native land, you’re mad!” 

 

42:16 

An operations group arrived at the site of another murder. Here is the first bullet, and here is the tenth. The killers managed to escape. Here is Paul Klebnikov when he was alive. He was the editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of “Forbes” magazine. He wrote about the owners of the largest capitals in Russia. Journalist Anastasia Baburova and lawyer Stanislav Markelov were killed together, not far from the Kremlin. 

 

43:03 – There is a “Grad” rocket launcher in the open field, and there are only Putin and Stalingrad behind us... 

 

43:19 

Those who oppose us don’t want our plans to be realised, because they have quite different aims and different prospects for Russia. They want Russia to be a weak, sick state, so that they can arrange their own dishonest affairs, so that they can profit at our cost. 

 

43:38 – Death to parricides! 

43:43 – We young people will take up arms to defend our Motherland! 

 

43:50 Commissars and activists of the “Nashi” movement, listen to my order! Begin the production of fighters! 

 

44:03

Though the chief Kremlin ideologist Vladislav Surkov is a relatively young man, he is a many-sided person: he is a writer and philosopher at the same time. People say that none other than he authored the term “sovereign democracy”. When Mr Surkov is not engaged in philosophy, he works a lot with young people, and already has produced results. 

 

44:28 – Can you tell me what the aim of this mass demonstration is? 

 

44:30 – I cannot 

 

44:32 – why? 

 

44:33 – Because I am forbidden to. 

 

44:34 – Quite at all? 

- At all 

 

44:35 – You should not ask us... 

 

44:39

He urges young people, he encourages them, and he also launches them. 

 

44:44 – We are the first, not only in outer space, but on the Earth too! 

 

44:50 

Mr Surkov managed to achieve the impossible: he united youth and veterans. 

 

44:56 – We are pensioners, they brought us here like sheep. They didn’t even inform us why we’re here and what the blue and red inscriptions “for” mean. They should inform us... 

 

45:05

Well, it is a small omission – actually, what the hell is the difference, blue or red? The main thing is being ‘for’ something. Do you remember the word ‘approve’? Surkov is in charge of it. But he also organises protests when necessary. 

 

45:18 – I won’t tolerate that our children might read this filth! 

 

45:21 – Moscow, the 21st century. 

 

45:24 – Is it a detective story? 

 

45:25 – No, it is not a detective story at all.... 

 

45:28

 Writer Surkov does not like writer Sorokin. 

 

45:32 - I read here about Stalin, Krushchev – well, maybe they had some digressions, but not to such a great extent! 

 

45:37 

That’s why books by writer Sorokin are torn. 

 

45:41 - Let him stay somewhere in his nest and write his shit. 

 

45:47 – Well, you are exasperated by Sorokin’s book. But have you read it? 

 

45:50– We read selected pieces given to us. 

 

45:52 – We decided not to read it. 

 

45:56 

The ideal model of sovereign democracy. Voters read and watch only what is selected for them by those whom they elected. It looks really cool! Don’t you think so? And here is an example of what the voters have to watch. 

 

46:15

It says in the opening caption of this film: “everything you’ll see in this film happened in South Ossetia in August 2008.” Let’s watch. Here a Georgian is shooting down an Ossetian car. Let’s think about it. If this is documentary footage, then at least five cameras had to be used for shooting, and all of them had to be fixed on tripods. This is a stage scene with good pyrotechnics. It doesn’t happen like this in reality. In reality everything looks more prosaic. Here you see a car full of Turkish journalists under fire from Russia’s military. The car is clearly civil. That’s how it looks. There’s nothing heroic. And no tripods. 

 

47:17 

But we digress. Let’s continue watching. 

 

47:22 – Meanwhile, armed forces began to sweep the urban area. Georgian tanks accompanied by infantry marched through the streets. Fire was opened on anyone within sight, without warning. 

 

 

 

47:34 

Please note, the commentator said that everyone within sight was under fire. But the cameraman is within sight isn’t he? And he is not fired at. Something is wrong. 

 

47:55 

Yuri Latynina

Writer and Journalist

 

47:47

Goebbels-style lies are most often inconsequential. In this city, amid the general destruction and chaos, where there was no resistance and all relied only on Russian troops, one thing was organised perfectly, namely propaganda. SMS messages were sent to everybody, neighbours ran here and there talking about Georgians knifing throats and knocking down children with tanks. Yet through that whole time the Ossetians didn’t present any indisputable, documented evidence of the killing of a civilian by a Georgian. So there is no reliable evidence for Georgian atrocities, and yet Georgian villages have been destroyed. 

 

48:39 – Don’t go too far. Is everything ok? 

 

48:42 - And Kokoity himself said, “We have cleaned out all there.” This tactic was called “the final solution of the Georgian question” in the Greater Liakhvi canyon. It was his public statement: “We have cleaned out all there.” 

 

49:01

When I was searching for a common list of victims through the Internet, I stumbled across an interesting video, a piece of Russia’s television news. Here it is: 

 

49:13 – The town was practically destroyed. Now, as you can hear, the skirmish increases again, and we have to stop our reporting. 

 

49:21 

At first I did not understand the trick, but I rewound it and looked again. Please take another look too – carefully. 

 

49:32

Can you see? It’s a wonder! There’s sudden shooting. The reporter twitched, allegedly because of the sound, but a soldier behind him continues to rest peacefully. This is also a performance. But not even in a film – in the news. 

 

49:51 – Media workers have not received many awards or thanks for their participation in a military conflict long ago. There is no free space in the Catherine Hall of the Kremlin. Here are those who in combat conditions did all they could to inform their viewers and readers. 

 

50:07

Vadim Rechkalov was rewarded in that hall too. 

 

50:12 - Vadim, tell me please, what did you feel when they handed you that award? 

 

50:19 – It was a strange feeling because I came from Chelyabinsk region. There is a family of Molchans living not far from my native village. Their son Mikhail burned in his tank. All three guys who burned in that tank were not rewarded; next to nobody knows about them. And yet at the same time President Medvedev in the Kremlin says what a complex and important job we’ve done for the government and rewards us over and over. I suddenly realised that we were much more important for President Medvedev than soldiers. And everything fell into place. We have done more than these soldiers. They just went somewhere and died, burned in a tank. We reported about the two thousand killed, we reported that Tskhinvali had been razed to the ground, we called the Georgians rodents. So who were the real soldiers in that war? We were the soldiers. We waged the whole war. And we continue to wage it. For example, Sergeant Glukhov fled and we are working out that subject very well; we blame him for being a traitor. But the most repugnant thing is that sergeant Glukhov is indeed a traitor. He betrayed his fellow soldiers just as Medvedev and Putin betrayed them from their side. Things have never been otherwise in Russia. Russian people have always lived between two traitors: between the President and Sergeant Glukhov. 

 

52:00 

Well, our story is nearing its end. Just one question remains unanswered: for whose sake were all those lies knocked into Russian heads? 

 

52:26

Boris Nemtsov

Politician 

 

52:13 

They had to distract people from the problems that had snowballed in Russia. And they needed an enemy in order to lay the blame on him and unite the people somehow in the patriotic outburst. They found such an enemy. And it’s remarkable that their enemies are always “superpowers”: Estonia with a population of one and half million, Georgia with a population of four million. So, as we can see, these enemies are always very large. And each time they secure a victory over such a “superpower” and unite the people around them. In general, I must say that the foreign policy of our regime is catastrophic, because we have no friends. 

 

53:01

What foreign policy should you conduct so that all your neighbours hate you? I won’t say anything about the rest of the world. Maybe it’s your fault that all around you hate you, are afraid of you, want to run away from you? 

 

53:44 

Dear ladies and gentlemen, we are here in order to express complete solidarity. We here are the leaders of five countries: Poland, the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 

 

54:10

No story can be considered finished if the narrator has explained what finally happened to its heroes. So... 

 

54:22 

Presidents Medvedev and Sarkozy signed a plan for resolving the conflict in Georgia, which Russia has not realised, of course, and even did not intend to realise. 

In the European Union the report of the commission headed by Heidi Tagliavini was presented. The first part of the report says that Georgia is to blame for the war, and its second part says that Russia is to blame. So the Russians enthusiastically read the first part, and the Georgians do the same with the second: Miracles of diplomacy, “realpolitik”. In return, it’s warm in Europe. By the way, speaking of gas, here Europe has a lot to learn from Russia. 

 

55:01 

Whose interests should the European Commission protect? As we Russians say, pick your legs up and go forward! But they are only sitting there and cutting thread. 

 

55:09 

“Cutting thread” is a metaphor, of course. In this context it means the same as “picking the nose”. Well, everything is clear: infantile Europe is just picking its nose, instead of picking its legs up.  

 

55:35 

Pavel Felgengauer

Military analyst and Journalist 

 

55:26

I don’t know how large Putin’s capital is, but it’s rumoured that it comes up to 40 billion US dollars, maybe twice as much, who knows. When he meets all these people, it is ridiculous for him to talk with them. For him they are like paupers that can be bought on occasion, as Schroeder was bought. 

 

55:43

But let’s proceed. The ruling party “United Russia” continues to steadily win elections. In some regions even more than 100% of voters vote for it. As for President Medvedev, he got finally carried away by the Internet and published an article online, entitled, “Russia, forward!”. 

 

 

 

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