Traditional nesting “Matryoshka” dolls, depicting American presidents and presidential candidates appeared in the Russian souvenir stores prior to the American elections. Tramp doll was made largest; others were nested inside of Tramp.
This September the election of the Russian parliament took place. The poll made on the eve of the election showed that only 20% of Russians were even sure that they were going to vote.
A poll of October 21-24 showed that 91% of Russians were interested in results of the American President election!
Russians didn’t care about Russian elections, as they didn’t believe that their voices will be fairly counted and could influence pre-planned outcomes. On the other hand they believed that their future, as the future of the entire world, depends on who will be the next president of USA.
According to the poll, every second Russian (52%) finds it difficult to answer whose victory would be better for Russia. Thirty eight per-cent of the respondents preferred the victory of Donald Trump compared to only 9% who preferred the victory of Hillary Clinton.
Serious Russian commentators stressed the point that it’s impossible to predict which of the candidates will be friendlier toward Russia after becoming president. Nevertheless most of the Russians choose to trust Trump’s pro-Russian rhetoric. Besides, image of a mucho bully seems to most of Russians’ image of someone fit to be a person of power. “Of course a billionaire can be a better president then a crazy women.” This comment, made by a Russian woman in the street, is very typical.
American election was in the center of attention of Russian media.
To make their anti-American propaganda more believable and more understandable to Russians, Russian media often use Russian immigrants in the US as their implied source of information.
Last week one of the most popular Russian Newspapers Moscovsky Komsomolets devoted a huge article to the voting plans of residents of New York Brighton Beach, populated predominantly by immigrants from Russia.
“Barak Obama, admittedly, has not fulfilled any of his promises, nevertheless his departure is viewed with sadness: nobody expects anything good from a new president.
“America never had such a dirty election campaign”, said outraged Boris, a businessman from Odessa, “Instead of detailed programs of the candidates. we only heard at the debate insults and rummaging in the dirty linen”. And yet Boris will give his voice to Trump, it seems safer to him. The vast majority of all people I met in Brighton Beach are choosing eccentric billionaire.
“Women should not lead a country, especially America, the superpower”, commented Larissa, a supermarket clerk from Pyatigorsk.
Here is another quote, from a speech of a supposedly successful businessman who had immigrated from Russia 23 years ago:
“I feel shame for our country, for what we are becoming. Americans do not see their country from the outside, they do not realize that everybody makes fun of them. The fear of terrorism has deprived people of the last vestiges of reason. In Michigan, which once had very successful industry, now there is 33% unemployment. People over there burn their houses to prevent them from being confiscated. Americans are strained to the last limit, especially because of the predatory, savage, deadly health insurance policy that first robs all the patient’s property, freezes all his accounts, and only then begins to treat. Yet Americans have always perceived any change with hope. They do not realize that only a complete boycott of the elections, this Hollywood show, would really change something…”
In Russia the unexpected victory of Trump was met by the official media and majority of citizens as a great victory of Putin’s politics. Russians cheerfully celebrated it, in hope that all the sanctions now will be taken off their country, all the wars will stop, and the Russian economics will be finally cured.
Here is how New York Times described Russian reaction to Trump’s victory
“The victory of Donald J. Trump declared early on Wednesday was an unexpected bonus for the Kremlin, which had used the long, tortured United States election campaign to prove the global reach of its disruptive disinformation operations and to cast doubt on the entire Western democratic process.”
Not all the Russians though share this point of view. A known opposition journalist Alexander Minkin publishes every week his open letter to President Putin in the popular paper Moskovskij Komsomolets. On November 8 he wrote:
“The Kremlin press often calls Americans fooled halfwits. Fooled? But it is quite clear that neither President Obama nor the entire American media, who was fighting for Clinton, had been able to fool (in the sense of to subdue, to persuade) Americans. US propaganda machine? We are told about its power. But the machine was powerless.
“Mr. President of Russia, consider this: US President was unable to push his successor. And here you could do it, easily. American President was fighting for an incredibly experienced and world-famous politician. And he failed. And in our country you won, without any effort! You made your clerk the head of the country. We, Mr. President, have no Trump, we are absolutely not able to have a Trump – rich, bold, quite sure that in no case he will be put in jail, and his property will be taken away. That’s the only 146% reason for your victories.
“No one knows whether we should rejoice in the victory of Trump. Will it be better or worse for us? It’s impossible to predict.”
Below are some of the comments to Trump’s victory taken from Russian Internet:
A journalist and political activist Fedor Krasheninnikov:
“Our own, of course, will be celebrating his victory a few months, pretending that it is our victory. But then it may become clear that Trump was not such a Putinophile as he was described by Clinton’s propaganda and imagination of our leaders.”
A popular political journalist Lidia Shevtsova:
“It’s funny if anybody in Russia expects that Trump will pay back Russians for their support. Trump is known as one who never pays his debts.”
The opinions of different members of anti-Putin opposition on the Trump’s victory are very different. Some see it as the victory of the supporters of the strong America, comparing Trump to Ronald Reagan, who in the beginning of his presidency favored negotiations with Russia, nevertheless finally was able to stand strongly against it.
Others, on the contrary, see the event as a result of Putin’s attempts to ruin USA. Some of the Russian commentators see Trump’s victory as a really apocalyptic event. Here is one of such comments, made by a well known political and human rights activist Eugene Ikhlov:
“Now the Anglo-Saxon alliance will cease to exist. There will be only Western Europe, trembling before Putin… US will collapse. China will rise above the world, as all the plans to create a counterweight to it in form of an alliance of East Asian countries will be buried. Convergence of US and Indo-China also will be buried, abandoning Indo-China to confront China alone.
“Putin will become a pole of power in the world. Poland and the Baltic countries will have no protection.”
Many commentators in Poland, Baltic countries, Ukraine and Georgia seem to share pessimistic attitude of Eugene Ikhlov.
The above graffiti appeared lately on a wall of a building in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.
