Evgeniy Limanskiy - Confession… A fairy tale in the style of sentimental cynicism

15 cents from Eugene.

Here, perhaps, we should pay attention to one principle on which there is a higher bureaucracy. Alex noted this principle in the text about lawlessness in the Khazar Khanate. This is when the authorities steal, but at the same time turn a blind eye to the fact that everyone else, following power’s example, also start stealing. Of course, the scale of theft in the first and in the second case are incommensurable. However, the fact is that both the power in the person of officials, and the people are engaged in the same, steal from themselves. I would call this principle the Principle of distribution of guilt. This is the basic principle on which our state exists. It turns out that the bureaucrat who stole a million dollars and the hard worker who sneaked off a hundred dollars in production are tied by the same principle. And it turns out that the hard worker has no reason to grumble at his share and accuse the powers that be in the acquisitiveness. Because he also has a finger in the pie.

All the tackles of Volgograd and Astrakhan poachers, of which I spoke above, just childish pranks compared to what was going on in this twelve-kilometer-long section of the river. If the Volga hydroelectric power station just blocked the sturgeons the opportunity to reproduce, the Khazars had already begun to wage the total war of annihilation with the sturgeon population on the subordinate territories. Huge bottom fishing nets blocked the Volga River from one Bank to the opposite, and fishes already in principle could not pass through this site up on the river, and simply were caught completely. As a result, while the general catastrophic decline of sturgeon population, above this section of river the sturgeon, in the river did not remain at all except for a small sterlet. Here, by the way, I can sympathize with the Volgograd poachers. Because we survived to the point that as a poacher’s delicacy in the Hero city it is already sold sterlet caviar. Idiocy triumphs! In the history of the Great River, this has never happened. A little more and we will begin to produce the caviar from the aquarium guppies.

It is clear that such lawlessness was possible only because of close and mutually advantageous cooperation of the Khazar governors with the highest echelon of the power and most likely in their General interests. In those days there was a high-profile criminal case connected with illegal sale of black caviar abroad under the guise of sardines in tomato sauce. It seems, someone from the Ministers and leadership of the trade network “Ocean” were convicted. However, all these are pawns in a big game. It seems to me that lawlessness in the Khazar Khanate is one of the links in this great Scam. And the scale of the Scam shows one thing, it was organized at the very top.

Still a small remark on the same subject. In the nineties, my wife and I in pedagogic purposes sent 10 thousand rubles (those cheap) on behalf of and with the participation of our son to the Fund for the protection of wild animals on rescue of the Amur leopard, and then for fifteen years we were receiving letters of thanks from the Fund. Each time we received these letters, we all felt part of a great cause. I think the Fund spent a lot more money on these letters than ten thousand. Well, but that is not what I am speaking about now. I have another question, why we so selflessly try to save Far Eastern tigers and leopards, but at the same time conduct systematic deliberate war of extermination, a relict species, a contemporary of the dinosaurs.

By the way, I thought, that it was very easy to calculate the economic benefit or damage from the construction of HPP against the background of Khazar lawlessness and the simultaneous destruction of the population of sturgeons. The amount of electricity generated by the HPP during its existence is known. The question is easy, it is necessary to calculate how much profit was lost from the possible production and sale of caviar during the existence of the HPP. Let only the ichthyologists will determine the size of the population of sturgeon in the year of start of hydroelectric power station operation and possible volume of annual production of sturgeon and sale of black caviar, including abroad, for all these years. The price of caviar, let me remind you, is known, about one dollar per gram.

While ichthyologists have not counted, I will calculate by myself, roughly on my fingers. I found a figure on the Internet that in one of the last years 44 tons of black caviar were produced in Russia. This is ridiculously small and means only one thing, that in 1960 it could be produced, for example, 500 tons, or 1000 tons. If we believe Wikipedia only in the past fifteen years, the population of sturgeon has decreased by 38.5 times in the Caspian basin. We can therefore assume that in sixty years the sturgeon population could reduced by 100 times. That is, proceeding from the current production of 44 tons, in the fifties of the last century even 5000 tons of caviar could be produced without damage to the sturgeon population. However, let it be from the field of science fiction, and we stop at minimum 100 tons. Do you know how much it costs? Yes right, $100 million. Now about HPP, according to the latest data it produces about 11 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. With the largest tariff per kilowatt-hour 0.1 dollars, per year it is 1.1 million dollars. That is, this most Volga HPP stole from us, over the years of its existence, a minimum of about six billion dollars in the form of a delicious product. But it is if a hundred tons of caviar a year, but if it is contrary to expectation a thousand ton, then respectively, sixty billion dollars. Maybe to break this hydroelectric power station to hell before it is too late. I think, for fifty years the population of sturgeon will restore. Of course, if the Khazars will not continue lawlessness on their twelve kilometers of the river.

When I calculated all this, I became both funny and scared. It is awful to realize the level of thinking of those who ruled us (we will speak in the past tense, so safer) and created this.

Now again about the hypocrisy of our morality, and on a state scale. The state, represented by specific leaders and officials, with their own hands buried in the ground sixty-billion dollars (or if still not in the ground, but in the pockets of these officials). Nevertheless, it continues to struggle with its own people for less than twenty million dollars a year. I think that just on this amount you can estimate the current illegal production of caviar. Moreover, perhaps the same amount is spent by the state on this very fight against poachers. Do you remember what hypocrisy in my definition is? When it is not pronounced aloud, what everyone knows. It is scary to think how much more we have that everyone knows, but does not say aloud.

Sorry, we seem to be distracted.

15 cents from Eugene.

Some time ago on television, it was showing the TV series “Caviar” about a high-profile criminal case where senior officials in the seventies of the last century exported abroad black caviar under the guise of sardines in tomato sauce. Alex mentions the same thing in his caviar story. First, about the TV series. The film turned out exciting and interesting, simply because the theme itself is winning, shrouded in romance and mystery of the elite product. In addition, excellent direction and great game Pavel Maikov, performing a major role. I would even say that after many years in the shadows after the series “Brigade”, in this film he literally shot. But…

You may think as you like, but when I looked through the TV series to the end, I had the feeling that I cracked an empty nut and that the authors stopped without saying the most important thing. Of course, young people who did not live at that time can get an impression that the series is the limit of revelation. But any sane and older person, who have their own memories and their own opinion about that time, how the series ended, it would not be enough. This is even more obvious to me, since I already caught what Alex was trying to say in his narrative. At the same time, I have quite understood the way of Alex’s musings. He moved through his narration cautiously and step by step, based mostly on his fragmentary memories and reasoning. Probably, sapper moves so through a minefield, or a bather, carefully steps on the bottom, covered with sharp stones and seashells, afraid to make a wrong move.