Who are your parents? What did you do before 1917?

The Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs came up with a proposal echoing the questionnaires of the early Bolshevik years and later Stalinist times, as well as reminiscent of the late Soviet-era district committee “Old Bolshevik commissions” when they conducted “interviews” with tourists traveling abroad.

As is known, in Europe, in connection with the special operation of Russian troops in Ukraine, the initiative of some countries of the European Union to ban the issuance of Schengen visas to Russian citizens is being discussed. There is no consensus. Against are Austria, Germany, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, France, Portugal. Their representatives recall the principles of freedom and democracy, in particular, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of every state.”

The European Commission officially announced that this issue will be considered on August 31 at the upcoming meeting of EU foreign ministers.

However, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has already stated: “First of all, we will strive for a European solution, because it is the most stable, the most correct from a legal point of view. If this does not happen, we do not exclude the possibility of finding a regional solution that would include the Baltic countries, Poland, and potentially Finland.”

That is, to act bypassing and separately from the European Union, to establish their own visa restrictions and permits – to which they have a formal right. As an exception. Although the European Union was created and exists precisely in order for its countries to live by common rules.

And then Landsbergis shocked many with the “idea” of political interrogation of tourists at the borders. And according to its “results”, it’s already up to you to decide whether or not to let the Russians in:

“The border guard has the right to ask if you support the war in Ukraine, whose Crimea? Based on the answer that a person crossing the border of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Poland will say that, in his opinion, Crimea is not occupied, it can be assumed that the admission of this person is not in the interests of national security.”

Gabrielius Landsbergis was born in 1982. I did not study for two years at a school with the Soviet canon of ideological education – in March 1990, Lithuania declared independence. I did not have time to join the pioneers. That is, to the call “Be ready to fight for the cause of the Communist Party!” did not raise his hand in salute and did not answer in the general chorus: “Always ready!”

In addition, he is the grandson of Vytautas Landsbergis, a well-known figure in the democratic movement in the USSR, the first head of the parliament of the independent, democratic Republic of Lithuania.

How did the truly soviet roots of Bolshevism-Communism-Sovietism grow in Gabrielus – in the most unattractive and already parodic-satirical “ideological” version?

After all, he offers the border guards – nothing less than nothing – to test people, citizens of another country, for political, ideological reliability and impeccability, “correctness” in their brains and souls! And “correctness” will be determined by the border guard. According to the methodological instructions of Landsbergis?

The transition to irony and sarcasm is natural. But after all, everything is the same as in the early years after the Bolshevik coup and in Stalin’s times, when applicants for certain positions answered questionnaires: “Who are your parents? What were you doing before 1917? Later, after many decades, in late Soviet times, the question turned into a common witticism, into a satirical-humorous meme, as they would say today.

In the late Soviet times, quotas for tours abroad were distributed among enterprises and organizations, vouchers were most often received by “leading workers”, activists. Basically – to the countries of the “socialist camp”. To get to the “decaying West” is a great rarity and luck. Each of the business travelers and tourists also went through an “interview” at an exit commission in the district committee or city committee of the CPSU, in everyday life it was called the “commission of the old Bolsheviks”. There they could ask about anything – about the family, about the latest decisions of the Central Committee of the CPSU, about the hostile essence of NATO, up to the names of the leaders of communist and pro-communist parties in African countries friendly to the USSR.

Thus, the proposal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Gabrielius Landsbergis, is just from this series. It remains to instruct the Lithuanian border guards to “conduct political information” among the Russians entering their country.

As often happens, extremes (let’s call it mildly extremes) converge. A few days before Landsbergis’s statement, Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, member of the committee on agrarian issues Maxim Ivanov publicly spoke in his telegram channel with his vision of the visa problem and a practical way to solve some purely private issues (punctuation according to the original):

“Now Finland joined NATO (to be more precise, NATO joined Finland). The leadership of this country is committing unfriendly actions towards Russia. Rejoice, including, for example, the Ukrainian anthem seeing Russian tourists. At the same time, the Finns are big fans of high-quality and relatively cheap Russian gasoline. They travel from their Finland to Russia to fill up the car. Petrol tourism. Wonderful. But, nevertheless, I propose to act symmetrically. If a Finnish citizen wants to fill up a car with gasoline at a Russian gas station, then before buying, let him sign a document stating that he supports the Special Military Operation in Ukraine and categorically condemns the sanctions against the Russian Federation. You put a signature – you get gasoline. You don’t put a signature – “goodbye”, you push the car back to the border. Everything is very simple and very fair!” (https://t.me/maksim_ivanon/612)

Of course, the incident of Ivanov-Landsbergis, separate and in itself, is a parody and a self-parody.

But it’s not funny. Somehow it’s not funny at all.

Sergei Baimukhametov.

Moskovskaya Pravda collage