Writing about the 9 May festival in Russia is one of those things that can not be done hot; you have to stop a moment and wait for the emotions to settle otherwise the risk is to compose a rhetorical piece in which the superlatives abound more than necessary.
Being there and marching with over a million people is an experience that can not leave you indifferent, you want for the glance offered by that mass of colorful and joyful people, or for the popular songs that make even long waits pleasant and you want for the fantastic spring day.
For those coming from an anaesthetized and depressed country like Italy, that wave of vitality has the effect of an electroshock.
In the kaleidoscope of colors that made up the palette of the parade, red certainly dominated, as did the hammer and sickle that appeared almost everywhere. Yes, because in Russia the Soviet past has long been no longer a taboo: purged of the most negative meanings, it has been reused as the glue between a glorious past and a present in the making. Soviet are the red drapes displayed along the route of the "march of the regiment of the immortals", Soviet is the gigantic red star that stands out in the square, Soviet is the demeanor of the veterans sitting in the box of honor, Soviet are the faces of many of the participants , but above all Soviet is the general liturgy of the event.
What has been understood in Russia is that there can not be a revival without the rediscovery of one's roots and without offering one's own people a horizon towards which to march.
Here in that human tide there were all these elements. I was very impressed to see a woman caress the black and white image of their ancestors at the moment of their acclamation, as I was struck by the quantity of military uniforms and the tributes of gratitude towards them.
This aspect is in fact not in tune with today's European culture. Europe is a world where there is not so much desire to wave flags and remember wars; but especially when a veteran has his chest covered with medals and proudly shows them to us it is not perceived as a pleasant thing.
The country emerged from the rubble of the fall of the wall was a nation in disarray. The economy had collapsed, the oligarchs and the western companies had just started the "bag" of the immense natural wealth of the country, the geopolitical weight had been reduced to almost zero, the birth rate had drastically decreased, the unemployment rate was scary for not talk about that of suicides.
Is it possible to count the effect of the economic recipes dictated in the "eltsiniani" (and Clintonian) years of the Nineties?
The bill was made. Published in one of the most prestigious international medical journals, English Lancet (based on Unicef data from 1989 to 2002).
Mass privatization policies in former Soviet Union countries and Eastern Europe increased mortality by 12,8%. That is, they caused the premature death of 1 million people. The unemployment-mortality link in the former Soviet Union is evident as it was the factories that often guaranteed them screening methods doctors. With the closure of the former USSR, the social system also collapsed.
To understand how a situation of total disarray has been able to return to current levels is the task of historians and economists. A reporter can only point out that after less than 30 years Russia has risen from its ashes: the economy (despite the sanctions of the West) is stable, the rising birth rate, that of the suicides has returned to the average but above all the Country has again occupied the place that had been left vacant by the USSR in the geopolitical chessboard.
Many are today bringing back the merits of this relaunch to the political ability of President Putin.
Certainly his guide has merit in this process and the latest election data show him: three Russians on 4 voted for him. The remaining 25% of voters, with all due respect to Vittorio Zucconi, chose among the ultranationalists and the communists.
But according to my humble opinion the real reason for this rebirth is due to that people marching through the streets of Moscow: a people that in the best Slavic tradition knew how to suffer in silence in the moment of greatest difficulty, but which at the same time reacted as a single man.
What has been said so far leads me to a reflection on the Italian situation. For years the beautiful country has been experiencing a slow but inexorable decline. With an industrial apparatus in progressive dismantling, the loss of sovereignty certified by the continuous overlapping of technical governments (as hateful as they are useless), an irrelevance in foreign policy only inferior to that of some African country, a rate of unemployment (especially youth) from alarm red, a public debt out of control, for years Italy appears as a chronic patient unable to heal.
Going to research the causes that led the country to the brink of the abyss is a style exercise that I leave to others. What interests me to understand at this point is how I can get out of it.
The Italian population today as well as not having a guide does not even have a horizon in front of itself. One of the clearest symptoms of the total loss of confidence in the future is the fact that in Italy for 30 years have no more children. A whole generation (mine) has in fact missed the appointment with the renewal of the vital energies of the Country, with great happiness of the fertility clinics that today profit from the wrong choices of a generation.
Hedonism, youthfulness, deresponsibilization ... To my generation and to the following ones was offered an imaginary fact of eternal present without future.
To make children and to make a country evolve must have in mind a future, imagine it.
The generation preceding my future has imagined it (and it has failed, ed) and has turned the frustration of bankruptcy on generations to come by replacing dreams with consumer goods, or even worse with the dream of consumer goods.
Today's Russia teaches us that historical processes are reversible. Therefore, if we really do not want to reward our recognition for the immense loss of human life suffered during the liberation of Europe in the Second World War, at least we know how to recognize the merit of having succeeded where we have not even tried. Resuming one's dignity is possible.
(photo: Giorgio Bianchi)
