The Hunting Drama and Beyond
State Duma deputy Valery Rashkin, who became the antihero of the hunting drama “Rashkin and the Elk”, eventually made a sincere confession: yes, I really am that animal shot. But I said I was sure that everyone was legal, the acquaintances who invited me said that all the necessary licenses and authorizations were available!
Photo: Gennady Cherkasov
This is where the confusion arises: so why lie from the beginning? Why come up with a crazy story about an elk corpse that happened to be on the road (well, yes, elk dead are constantly lying around everywhere) about the fact that the deputy decided to pick up and defeat this corpse (of course, what else can a member of the State Duma eat? when he didn't find a carcass?) Why wasn't it easy to say: yes, I hunted, yes, I came back with a trophy, but I didn't break anything!
However, the question “why lie?” evaporates as soon as you remember that Valery Rashkin is not an ordinary person, but a deputy. That is, a representative of the authorities. And it has happened since time immemorial that representatives of authorities at all levels and of various political orientations often lie and do not blush too much. And most surprisingly, sometimes completely without purpose and benefit to oneself. They simply live by the principle of “tell the truth in every incomprehensible situation.” Because when you're telling the truth, who knows how things will turn out, how to calculate everything in advance. And no one ever had to take responsibility for a lie. Meli, Emelyo, your week, tomorrow everything you said will be forgotten, they will not catch you lying and will not ask: how is it?
The issue of trust or distrust of the population in power has been in our country for a very long time. There is such a paradox – even those citizens who actively support the government do not trust it too much. A gas explosion in a residential building? They're probably lying, I guess it's a terrorist attack. Do they say the ruble will strengthen? So we have to run to buy dollars, after all, they're lying to fool people again. And so on and so forth.
And it's true, they often make fools. The municipality does this and promises its inhabitants that the chemical plant being built is so good and modern that it will only improve the ecology of their village, literally turn it into a garden city and one who conceals or embellishes the terrible truth about this or that catastrophe that happened, and those who promise every family an apartment within a certain year, living standards as in Germany, income as in Singapore …
Sometimes government officials lie with good intentions to reassure the people, sometimes with less good personality, and sometimes – and this happens most often – without any purpose or meaning, only out of the custom our government inherited from its predecessors. in hairy Soviet times. To hide the truth about repression, about dissidents, about dancing in Prague, about shooting in Novocherkassk, about the Chernobyl tragedy … But I don't remember a case where someone was even responsible for a lie – even if the lie came out and shamelessly reported. Nobody just notices her.
Valery Rashkin therefore served as a mirror of the Russian government in this case. And it could not be stopped by the fact that he is to some extent an opposition to this very power, that after the elections he spoke in favor of canceling their results and thus made himself a lot of adversaries. The ingrained habit, rooted in flesh and blood, proved to be stronger than the arguments of reason.
It is also possible that Rashkin will become the first representative of power to be harmed by his own deception. Because he probably gets a question: if you were sure of your innocence, if you yourself were the victim of some provocation planned against you, then why did you lie?
And he most likely lied to the lie for no reason. Just out of habit.
Rashkin uploaded a video report on the scandalous hunt: “The body of the moose lies”
Watch the video on this topic