Some of you might be surprised to find out that Russia is a democratic country. Officially it has elections, parliament, freedom of speech and other attributes of a democratic society. Well, that's the official story. And it's partly true - after all, these things exist in Russia to some extent. But we must remember that Russia is an unusual country, which means that democracy the Russian way is a bit of an unusual type of democracy. Here is a recent example of Russia's democratic society.
Not long ago the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, visited the Moscow State University (MGU). This university is the oldest and the most well-known university in Russia. It's particularly famous for its Journalism faculty. As some of you might know, 2012 is the year when the new Russian President is going to be elected. Well, there is no need to guess who it will be, as Mr. Putin has already been names as the top candidate. There is absolutely no doubt that he will win (even if the people vote for someone else). But they have to put up a show and pretend that they are working hard and that everybody loves "the dream team" Putin & Medvedev.
Anyway, now Mr. Medvedev is working hard showing everyone that he is doing his job properly. And what can be better than organizing a conference with future journalists, studying at the MGU. The conference was broadcast over the national TV, showing smart young people asking the right questions and Mr. Medvedev giving the right answers. Sweet. The only problem is that it was all a sham.
Strange as it may sound, but only three students out of a couple of hundred present at the conference were MGU journalism students. The rest have never been see in any of the university's buildings before. They were all invited to attend the conference for the purpose of asking the right questions. Nobody really knows who these young people were, but it's pretty obvious that they were members of Russia's youth organizations like "Nashi" ("Ours") and "Molodaya Gvardiya" ("The Young Guard").
At this point you might be asking "Where were the real students?". The answer is really simple. The President's security guards and university officials made sure they couldn't get in. Some students were stopped at the university gates and told that they should go home as all lectures had been cancelled. Others were caught in the halls and toilets and evicted from the premises. As for the ones who brought posters with the wrong questions, they were detained, brought to the nearest police station and were nearly charged with disturbing the peace or some other rotten political charge. Somehow the national TV didn't broadcast that.
So, that's democracy the Russian way. Let's see what will happen after the presidential elections in 2012. Something is telling me that it will not get any better.
Post is based on an article published in "Novaya Gazeta" on 20 October 2011