President Vladimir Putin poses for a photo with Russia's
triumphant
figure skaters, winners of team Gold at the Winter Games in
Sochi.
Putin isn't letting press critics get him down, writes Maxim Sokolov.
'Free Press' Won't Spoil President Putin's Sochi Experience (Izvestia, Russia)
"Comparing the pre-Olympics press of the summer of 1980 to
the winter of 2014, one cannot help but conclude that today's press is a lot
angrier. Perhaps this is due to the persona of Vladimir Putin, who is perceived
as the engine and culprit behind the Sochi metamorphosis - far more than Leonid
Brezhnev was during the 1980 Games. ... When the personification is that strong
- and just as this leader is preparing to taste his long-awaited triumph, the
desire to report that the triumphator has bricks
falling from the ceiling onto spectators' heads is only natural; and if they
really do fall, it is treated like an Easter miracle."
President Vladimir Putin holds the Olympic torch from the ill-fated 1980 Moscow Olympics. Ironically, Russian columnist Maxim Sokolov writes that 'free' media today is much harder on Russia than it was at the height of the Cold War.
Reporter Maxim Sokolov on the
sports celebration and misplaced regrets.
Perhaps such candor is inappropriate
during the Olympics, but I have always been indifferent to sports. That's just my
way - it isn't exciting, inspiring, or infectious to me. Despite that, I am
quite respectful of sports fans. Just because I'm tone deaf is no reason to condemn
those more fortunate, and who are connoisseurs of musical harmony. Not to me,
but it is important to many, and God bless them.
I am similarly indifferent to the
lavish super duper computerized performances that open and close the Olympic Games.
As a spectacle, I would more prefer small-scale
chamber music. Ultimately, I generally dislike mass gatherings of people. In
particular, I plan my trips in such a way as to avoid large sporting and
cultural events. A locally beloved festival with an amateur brass band in Upper
Bavaria - a patriarchal "Hop to it, Neighbor" - that's my limit.
Having held that attitude toward the
1980 Olympic Games
in Moscow, 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London, it would be odd for me to treat
the Sochi Games fundamentally differently. "I stand aside, but those who
enjoy it - let them enjoy it."
It is hardly likely that this opening
ceremony, with its intricate machinery and fireworks, will outshine all of its predecessors.
If it does, that's fine, and if not, it's no big deal. Who remembers the
spectacle in London, even though less than two years have passed?
As far as the Olympics building boom
and the Olympics-related gentrification taking place in record time -
"Explosions will be clucking to chase the bears away, and mines of a sporting giant will tear the earth's entrails" [an altered quote from the 1929
poem The Bedbug by V. V. Mayakovsky] - always and everywhere, these have been
accompanied by larger or smaller mistakes, miscalculations, and even outright
theft.
Each and every initial Olympics cost
estimate has been grossly underestimated. That has been especially true in
modern times, when relatively simple Olympics gave way to more pompous Games.
Commercialism without theft is like a wedding night without a bride.
Comparing the pre-Olympics press of
the summer of 1980 (the "free" press, we're not talking about yes men)
to the winter of 2014, one cannot help but arrive at the unexpected conclusion
that today's free press is a lot angrier. In 1980, most Western countries
boycotted the Moscow Games, which resulted in a less accusatory frenzy.
Why spew vitriol and restless denunciations
when you're not going anyway? It just didn't make sense. Since today there is
no boycott and attention needs to be channeled, condemnation of the usual flaws
that emerge at every Olympics, which are associated with mass gatherings of
people, is more heated and pointed than during the totalitarian years.
Perhaps this is due to the persona
of the current leading Olympic figure, V. V. Putin [Vladimir Vladimirovich
Putin], who is perceived as the engine and culprit behind the Sochi
metamorphosis - far more than L. I. Brezhnev was during the 1980 Games.
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
When the personification is that
strong - and just as this leader is preparing to taste his long-awaited
triumph, the desire to report that the triumphator
has bricks falling from the ceiling onto spectators'
heads is only natural; and if they really do fall, it is treated like an Easter
miracle.
Psychologically, this is an understandable
mechanism, but practically, critics of the regime attach greater importance to
the Olympics climax than the Russian leaders themselves.
In 1980, the stakes were probably
even higher than today. The 1980 Games - if they had fully succeeded - would
have served as a certificate of rehabilitation within polite society. The
Beijing Games in 2008 was just such an event in Chinese history (see also the
Games of Tokyo, Munich, and Seoul, which also played rehabilitative roles). Kremlin
leaders probably didn't enjoy the Olympic boycott, but one cannot say that they
found it utterly depressing and demoralizing. Not at all. It was an
unpleasantness and nothing more.
It isn't clear why the free press' current
Olympic pandemonium should have a more devastating effect on the Russian
leadership this time. V. V. Putin's contempt for those who advocate on behalf of the "global
community" (not always unjustified) is well known. So why would he break
down and stumble out crying inconsolably now?
Particularly since the decision to
conduct the Games in this or that country takes place far ahead of time, there
is no canceling them now. Perhaps if the authorities were asked today whether they
would have liked to conduct the Olympics in Sochi in February of 2014, they
would reconsider (or perhaps not). The decision, however, was made in July of 2007, at the Guatemala
meeting of the IOC. At the time, the goals were clear and the tasks assigned.
Get to work, comrades. It's too late for regrets!
If the world's progressive community
is so insistent on its right to at any time, veto long-term decisions of the
IOC, perhaps it should take its complaints to the IOC - and the earlier the
better. Today's bow-wowing only serves the purpose of "I may not stop this,
but at least I'll warm up." Which is, after all, consistent with the
Olympic motto: "The most important thing is not to win but to take part."
