“Vladimirskiy Central” criminal song as Russia's new anthem

Prigozhin turned out to be an amateur, a non-professional, a poor motivator, and a 'war correspondent' in general.

And it's not about the Kremlin's fears that Putin's 'chef' will try to fight for power when the last and fatal bell rings for the 'leader'. 

The point is quite different. It is in the tradition of 'statehood' that has been cultivated in Russia for hundreds of years: with its 'stockades', ‘labor armies’, 'penal battalions', and so on. This tradition means that the authorities keep at least one in three people behind bars, and then, for the sake of, so to speak, 'social adaptation', they offer convicts to 'die for the country'. It doesn't matter whether they die at the front or from overwork on the 'construction projects of the century'. 

“The point is quite different. It is in the tradition of 'statehood' that has been cultivated in Russia for hundreds of years: with its 'stockades', ‘labor armies’, 'penal battalions', and so on. This tradition means that the authorities keep at least one in three people behind bars, and then, for the sake of, so to speak, 'social adaptation', they offer convicts to 'die for the country'. It doesn't matter whether they die at the front or from overwork on the 'construction projects of the century'.”

Now Prigozhin can safely start creating a 'conservative movement' without getting under the feet of real experts. Back in November, ISW reported that Yevgeny Viktorovich is trying to attract an electorate in Russia that is simultaneously interested in asserting Russia's national superiority and Soviet brute force and opposed to the corruption of the Russian elite. Therefore, his new role as a 'politician' does not quite fit the trail of a recruiter in prisons. 

But let's get back to the Russian criminal-state tradition. From the time of Ivan the Terrible, through the Romanov Empire, the openly gangster Bolshevik regime, and to the most recent Putin's Russia, it has been going on unabated and consistent. In or around the Russian 'elite' there have always been sketchy types with criminal backgrounds or habits of 'convicts'. Lenin, also a convict (albeit a 'political' one), did not disdain to take real criminals into his 'communist party', including Stalin, in order to replenish the party treasury with bank and train robberies in time.

Moreover, crime, prisons, and convicts became part of the 'great Russian culture', and almost every more or less notable author had at least supporting characters with a 'prison sentence' in their works, if not entire works. If earlier, before the socialist period, this looked more like exoticism, a kind of 'spice' to the literary 'dish', then in Platonov, Shukshin, and others we see a total 'languid and dreary' cult of prison life. This is, you know, 'Soviet brute force'...

“Crime, prisons, and convicts became part of the 'great Russian culture', and almost every more or less notable author had at least supporting characters with a 'prison sentence' in their works, if not entire works. If earlier, before the socialist period, this looked more like exoticism, a kind of 'spice' to the literary 'dish', then in Platonov, Shukshin, and others we see a total 'languid and dreary' cult of prison life. This is, you know, 'Soviet brute force'...”

I'm not talking about mass culture, prison folklore wrapped in the garb of the so-called 'chanson', although it was not close to the popular French vocal genre, or the array of cinema, where almost every film features characters who are not criminals, but who fully deserve to be in prison.

Therefore, the Russian state machine could not accept the fact that a huge potential reserve of cannon fodder for the Ukrainian front would be managed by some 'outsider'. Despite Prigozhin's 'authority' and influence. And, of course, Sergei Shoigu will only rub his hands after the relevant decision of the Russian Security Council, which took away the authority of the 'chef-musician' to recruit convicts for the war, and then challenge the dubious 'victories' of the Russian army, saying that the Ministry of Defense stole the credit for taking a single doghouse in Soledar from the tattooed valiant knights. 

It is the state, not dubious characters, that will now form the cult of the 'liberator' convict, take care of his advocacy, benefits, and commemoration of the dead. It is the state that has nurtured an entire generation of criminals that has the right to dispose of their lives, deaths, and posthumous glory. Not forgetting, of course, about itself: after all, politicians will unveil memorial plaques in the schools where such 'valuable assets' were taught. And this means recognition, evidence of 'patriotism', in short, PR.

And it would be quite natural, in my opinion, for the “Vladimirskiy Central” (popular Russian criminal song - ed.) to be performed at these celebrations. Isn't this a new glory for a zone covering 1/6 of the globe?

About the author. Ihor Hulyk, journalist, Editor-in-Chief of the Espreso.West website. 

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.