Downed drones – Sevastopol is calm

The last days – no, the last weeks, it’s more correct – they call me, write various acquaintances and strangers, also with a variation of the question: “Well, what do you have in Sevastopol? Heard they were shooting.” The initial catalyst for this interest, of course, was the explosion at the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet on Navy Day, 31 July. The news of this spread around all the cities and villages of Russia, sometimes transforming that that girl in crooked mirrors. Well, then unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, drones) began to shoot down in Sevastopol one after another.

Then, on the Day of the Russian Navy, I went to the headquarters of the fleet. Six casualties were reported. Sad police officers blocked the approaches to the headquarters building. I talked to people: they talked about how they heard loud pops. Went down to Matrossky Boulevard. This is where normal life began. True, the traditional parade was canceled, but people still walked in the city center. There were many who put on a vest. There was even a collie in the vest. The city was calm. Almost everyone understood everything. And only two drunken visitors could not figure out why the parade did not happen.

That morning, on the way to the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet, I met an elderly woman in an elegant hat. She was walking along Sovetskaya Street and loudly discussing with someone on the phone who and why struck from a drone. I don’t know who she was talking to, but her speech was thickly filled with conspiracy theories. She showered it generously, as hosts of programs about reptilians and UFOs. And then I caught the main thing: no matter how many real strikes from drones there are, there will be much more of them in the information space, and therefore, it will be necessary to respond promptly and clearly. After all, people will look for answers, and if you do not give them, then they will find them somewhere on the side.

There is such a hackneyed word “hype”. So, almost everyone rushed to hype on explosions and strikes from drones in Sevastopol. “Send news!” – Telegram channels agitated subscribers and immediately gave messages that were clearly unverified, often with spelling and punctuation errors. I didn’t check if the recipe channels were reporting “urgent information about downed UAVs”, but there is a suspicion that they also dabbled in “investigations”.

It was this lack of information hygiene that irritated and irritates the most. In pursuit of the notorious hype, likes and reposts, unverified data and fantasies were published, when almost the smoke from a fire in a wasteland was presented “in the interests of the investigation” as the consequences of a drone strike. And so they shook the psyche, and so they helped the “decision-making centers” in Ukraine. After all, they seek, first of all, panic.

Moreover, and this is important, the majority of citizens react to such situations absolutely calmly and with restraint. For example, while the telegram channels were raving about “numerous strikes on Sevastopol from UAVs,” the men under my window were drinking beer to the appropriate sounds in the sky and pondering how best to shoot down drones. Everyone, of course, theorized, as they say, from the heart.

However, sometimes such an attitude gave rise to corresponding situations in the spirit of Kharms or Averchenko. I remember, for example, a lady in a lilac dress, who was broadcasting to someone on the phone for the whole minibus:

– Yes, yes, a drone was shot down now. Right above my head. Serezha still wanted to finish off with his feet …

What can you say? This is how urban legends are born. And so I remember the cult scene from KVN “And Seryozha is well done.”

No, there are, of course, alarmists and hysterics. There are even those who are deliberately trying to destabilize the situation. In the end, after all, drones take off from somewhere … But at the core, perhaps, is still a crystallized calmness. And it did not appear in Sevastopol just like that, out of nowhere. No, it is a logical continuation of the very history of the city, which survived two heroic defenses, fought so courageously that it went down in history, despite the occupation by the enemy, as a winner, as an example of the greatest stamina. That case, yes, when “you yourself should not distinguish defeat from victory.”

Leo Tolstoy wrote in Sevastopol Tales: “It cannot be that at the thought that you are in Sevastopol, a feeling of some kind of courage, pride does not penetrate into your soul and that the blood does not begin to circulate faster in your veins …” Actually, we, the people of Sevastopol, have known these words since childhood. They reflect our very essence, our very existence. And here there is not and cannot be any panache or exaggeration – only a pure statement of fact. Otherwise, you cannot be considered a Sevastopol citizen.

And, you know, every time when the philistinism and vulgarity of life creep in a greasy twilight, something happens from which you straighten up to your full height – and you see: the heroic past of the city, the people inhabiting it, has not disappeared anywhere, has not been ground down by circumstances – it is here, in the inhabitants. I observed this in the winter and spring of 2014, I observe it, albeit much less often, even today – I am sure that I will see the everyday life of a feat in Sevastopol more than once. God forbid, of course, that this does not require difficult events. In any case, I observe a calm, measured Sevastopol.

First of all, we have the right to demand peace from everyone. And information hygiene, of course. Moreover, Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev immediately appears on the scene and publishes relevant reports. It’s really important. Because in this whole story, which they often want to make hysteria, the most important thing is communication, the connection between the people and the authorities, mutual trust as much as possible.

That is why it is necessary to stop using constructions in the spirit of “strike on decision-making centers”, stop making loud statements, stop talking about “explosions due to negligence”, and work silently and methodically. It is necessary to explain and clarify, conveying information as close to the truth as possible. Yes, calmness is wonderful and good, but it should not develop into complacency.

And here I am talking first of all about ordinary citizens. It is important to accept without panic the idea that the battle is not out there, and the battle is not abstract. She’s nearby. And absolutely everyone, to one degree or another, in one role or another, takes part in it.