Firework missiles “Obama, catch banana” were the popular merchandise in Russia on the eve of New Year celebration.
All serious professional Russian commentators agree that there is no reason to believe that Donald Trump is going to be an especially pro–Russian President of the US. Even official press-representative of President Putin Dmitri Peskov had stated: “Let’s not rush, let’s not rejoice beforehand”.
Nevertheless most of representatives of the Russian media and Russian political establishment keep cursing Obama and celebrating election of Trump as the greatest event in modern Russian history.
On January 11, a prominent Russian liberal politician Vladimir Ryzhkov said in his interview to radio Echo of Moscow:
“If you pay attention, you’ll notice that the State Duma rejoices about election of Trump most of all. I have a feeling that they will declare January 20, a Russian national holiday, named ‘Trump’s inauguration Day.’ ”
Of course the celebration mood of Duma is shared by many Russians. Below are several examples from Russian press.
Lubov Uspeskaia, a popular Russian singer, who lived many years in the US and than returned to home:
“I always had sympathy for Trump from the very beginning. For some reason I trust him. Whenever I visited Miami, I always would stay in Trump’s hotel because I trust him.”
Unichel, a footwear factory, has decided to make a present to Donald Trump, an exclusive pair of shoes. The factory published a statement, informing Russians that Donald Trump during his speeches in Iowa “was seen in the shoes, like two drops of water similar to one of the models of our company… Thus was born the idea to present the winner of the presidential race with shoes stitched for him personally,” said the statement.
Especially exotic was Trump-praising action of Irbis, the Orthodox Christian Union of Saint Petersburg Cossacks. Historically Cossacks never lived in Saint Petersburg, though in Tsar’s time they served as the city’s political police. There are about 1000-1500 Cossacks in Saint Petersburg today. They seem to not to be an ethnic group, but rather a political organization.
The activity of this group is very noticeable and prominently discussed in Russian media. Saint Petersburg Cossacks patrol night clubs and beaches, proposing to arrest topless women. They are starting armored troop-carrier taxi service, lobbying for separate education of boys and girls, preparing to build a private prison (the first in Russia), and print their own money, carring portraits of of President Vladimir Putin.
They had already erected a bust of Putin, dressed in an ancient Roman toga, in Saint Petersburg.
Of course this organization is strictly anti-American. Even visiting McDonalds and KFC is forbidden to the Cossacks.
That’s why Saint Petersburg’s Cossack’s announcement that they made the American President Elect an Honorary Cossack and invited him to visit them in Russia made a small sensation.
Russian state controlled media takes care of supporting the belief of the Russian population of a special Putin-Trump friendship. It published a copy of a page from British newspaper The Sunday Times, stating that Trump plans to make his first foreign trip to Reykjavik, Iceland, where he is going to meet Putin. Both Putin’s and Trump’s offices refuted the statement; nevertheless the Russian media keeps spreading the reprints of it.
No facts and no logic can stop this Russian Trump celebrating mood. Why?
Alexander Dugin, a well known Russian anti-liberal and nationalistic philosopher of religion and geopolitics who is often called “Putin’s brain”, published an article in which he expressed his joy at the fact that after Trump’s coming to power the US no longer will have to be treated as an enemy, because it will be now be ruled by the right people. He hinted that the next step should be trying to help anti-liberal forces in Europe, bringing them to victory in the elections, starting with the candidate for the post of the President of France, Marine Le Pen.
Dugin wrote: “Anti-Americanism came to its end. Not because it was a false movement, just the opposite: Americans now started off this revolution against the side of the American civilization, which is hateful to all of us… So, now lets fight this ideology of liberalism in Europe. We must hold the Nuremberg trial of liberalism, to finally condemn this latest, totalitarian ideology of modernity. ”
Andrei Kolesnikov, the program director of the Moscow Carnegie Center, said in his interview to the radio Echo of Moscow:
“The psychological problem of this Russian political regime is this regime wants Russia to be equal to America, without resources. Even the Soviet Union was not equal to America, even during the confrontation between the two superpowers. The Soviet Union was economically weak, the Soviet Union was socially weak, the Soviet Union, as it turned out, was even militarily weaker than America. Conemporary Russia in this sense is even weaker. And Russia, if we are talking in terms of war, is militarily weaker even than NATO.
“Therefore, we are not a superpower, but we have ambitions of a superpower. We are trying to show in Syria that we can be a superpower, that we are ready to build peace on our terms. Actually this is the main problem of Putin’s foreign policy, if you will. The world does not really operate on our terms but, due to the fact that in the West there are leaders such as Trump, there is hope that we will renegotiate with the West on our terms to a greater extent. This seems to me the logic of Russia.”
