The fate of the residents: why everyone attacked Isinbayeva

However, who knows, maybe Elena Gadzhievna is waiting for more serious, real things. “Given the clear intent of Isinbayeva to discredit the Russian Armed Forces and desecrate the rank of officer in order to maintain a profitable place in the IOC, I am appealing to the Prosecutor General’s Office to take action,” State Duma deputy Roman Teryushkov (United Russia) writes in his telegram channel, apparently quoting his message to the head of the supervisory department. There is no answer yet.

A year ago, by the way, the same deputy Teryushkov proposed to equate the change of citizenship by athletes with high treason. However, the initiative did not receive support from above and, accordingly, development. However, the campaign against Isinbayeva’s non-return does not seem to be supported at the very, very top.

In any case, the presidential press secretary clearly stated that he did not share the position of the detractors: “It turns out that, not knowing what was discussed, we simply fall upon the athlete, whom we were proud of recently. She did not condemn anything, she did not criticize anyone, she fulfills her functions. Where she lives, in the end, it does not matter at all.

However, the news about the claims of the Volgograd authorities appeared after Dmitry Peskov’s statement. There can be two explanations for this. Either the “clear” signal did not have time to reach the opposite end of our infinitely long “vertical”. Or this is not a signal “end” at all, but just an on-duty politeness, which by no means prohibits Volgograd officials from remembering Isinbayeva’s old debts, and Dagestan officials from renaming the stadium named after her in Makhachkala.

Well, the Prosecutor General, like all other law enforcement officers, the Kremlin, strictly speaking, does not have a decree at all. You never know what the presidential press secretary says? What matters is what the law says. Dura lex sed lex. And if the severity or gentleness of the guardians of the law repeats the severity/softness of the statements made in the Kremlin (on the same occasion), then this, of course, is not on purpose. It just happened.

In general, there is no clear ending to this story yet. But with the massive denunciation of Isinbayeva, it really would be time to tie it up. Well, or then to rebuke everyone who is sinful in the same. And somehow it’s unfair. There are quite a few people who have received much, incomparably more from the state than Isinbayeva, and at least no less comfortably living abroad today. Well, or those who visit there so often that it is already difficult to determine where a foreign land is for them – here or there.

In the host of these restless citizens, the share of former high-ranking officials is not so small, the demand from which – both moral and formal – is obviously greater than from the athlete Isinbayeva, who, although she was a member of the Putin Team, Putin’s team (both in a broad and narrow sense – in a public movement in support of Vladimir Putin, created before the presidential elections in 2018), but exclusively on a voluntary basis. And unlike many non- and semi-returnees, she was in this Team by no means in command positions. Rather, a decorative element.

The ex-generals of the ruling team are, of course, acting more cunningly than ordinary Isinbayeva, who without hesitation declared herself a “man of the world.” The generals for the most part prudently keep quiet, and if, nevertheless, information about their new cozy permanent residence emerges, they begin to vehemently deny it. And then sue whistleblowers. Try, they say, prove: not caught – not in … In the sense – not a defector.

But there are also uncovered ones who do not hide the fact of the change of the Motherland. Number one in this category, of course, is Roman Abramovich. Following the canons of belles-lettres, it would be necessary to say that in his case the problem of VIP non-return was reflected as in a drop of water. But the scale of the incident is such that the word “drop” is definitely not suitable here. This is not a drop, but a whole ocean – a match for those expanses of water that surf the oligarch’s superyachts.

As the poet rightly said, “words, up to the most important thing, become a habit with us, decay like a dress.” The concept of “oligarch” has also become quite worn out. Even the owner of a diner in a provincial town can now be called such – this is, they say, a “local oligarch.” But Roman Abramovich is an oligarch in the original, classical sense of the word. Not just a rich man, but a member of the ruling elite.

One cannot even say about him a “former representative”: as we saw in the example of last year’s Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, Roman Arkadyevich still carries out delicate and responsible instructions from the authorities. Well, there is nothing to say about the past: Abramovich and the ruling team of the first half of Putin’s term are twin brothers.

Moreover, unlike many who were called oligarchs in those years, his status had, among other things, formal confirmation: in total, Roman Arkadyevich trumpeted in the civil service for 13 years. Career developed rapidly: in December 1999, Abramovich became a State Duma deputy, a year later – the governor of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, and six months later he became a member of the Presidium of the State Council.

His last public position was the chairman of the Duma of the ChAO. Abramovich held this post from 2008 to 2013. However, according to rumors, already during this period, Roman Arkadievich was at the workplace, and in general in his native country, to put it mildly, infrequently. Already in 2007, Abramovich, according to The Sunday Times, ranked second in the list of the richest people in the UK.

In 2012, at the end of his public career, Abramovich was ranked 68th on the Forbes list, the world’s richest ranking, with a fortune estimated at $12.1 billion. For comparison: in 1999, at the time of his coming to power, Abramovich’s money was drawing about 1.3 billion “green”. Well, that is, Abramovich’s stay in the civil service at least did not ruin him.

The financial activity of the oligarch at this stage of his working biography consisted mainly in the fact that he profitably sold what he had acquired through overwork here, in Russia, and made purchases there, in the West. In other words, he withdraws assets. The most famous examples are the sale of Sibneft and the purchase of the Chelsea football club.

And what is most striking: neither the business of the state official Abramovich, nor the nature of this business met with any objections from the supreme power. Moreover, the authorities only welcomed it. Putin’s interview with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (October 2006) can serve as confirmation.

Question: “The Gazprom concern is joining financially one very famous German football club, Schalke 04… For England, Abramovich bought a man who made the game of the German national football team… Should we Germans be wary of the Russians’ desire to buy everything?” Answer: “I think we should only rejoice…”

In the same 2006, Abramovich was, by the way, awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor, and 10 years later, in 2016, the Order of Friendship. In general, there are a lot of signs of goodwill. There are no traces of disgrace. No matter how many billions of dollars Roman Arkadyevich took out of the country, no matter whose citizenship he acquired (at the moment, according to open sources, the oligarch is a Portuguese and Israeli subject), nothing ruined his close, trusting relationship with the authorities.

Against the background of this intimacy, the attacks on Isinbayeva look at least illogical, forcing one to remember the old joke about Vovochka, who spied what his parents were doing in the bedroom: “And these people forbid me to pick my nose ?!”

True, there is an opinion that the case of Abramovich is a special case. That he is more like an intruder – our man in the West, sent there on an important secret mission.

But after all, the same thing can be assumed in relation to Isinbayeva. And other former members of the Putin Team who settled abroad, what’s worse? Maybe the villas, and bills, and other dolce vita – this is for all appearances, for disguise, for averting eyes, but in fact the heads of these people are full of thoughts about the Motherland? And what? There are such cases. One something similar is even described in the literature:

In the morning I smear a sandwich –

Immediately thought: what about the people?

And caviar does not climb into the throat,

And compote does not pour into your mouth!