A horrible thing happened in Russia. Fourteen children drowned during a boat excursion in their summer camp. The country is so corrupt that the camp’s managers had sold places in the camp to many more kids than the camp could accommodate. As a result, several dozen children who didn’t get beds in the camp had to be kept in boats at all times. Until 14 of them drowned.
Of course, it took forever to get help to arrive and rescue drowning kids, and the children had to act heroically and desperately to save smaller kids.
The National Ombudsman for Children’s Rights came to visit the survivors. “I hear you had a nice swim,” he guffawed at the small, shivering, terrified kids who had just seen their friends die before their eyes.
The amount of casual daily cruelty in our former USSR countries is shocking. The Ombudsman for Children’s Rights who thinks it’s cute to mock survivors of a terrible tragedy is a fairly young man. He probably doesn’t even remember the USSR that well. But he is infected by its mentality of cruelty and hatred anyway.
Clarissa's Blog 
This is so sad…I feel for those parents.
LikeLike
Do you think it is Soviet or Russian, the cruelty? I have a really bad impression of Russia from Tolstoy.
LikeLike
It could be…
LikeLike
Yes, it’s absolutely true that the Revolution of 1917 happened and was so bloody because it was a response to centuries of horror. The Russian Empire was vicious and unlike the British Empire, it didn’t export its horrors to far away lands where it could terrorize and then turn around and flee. So the horrors of the Empire transitioned into horrors of the USSR and are now smoothly migrating into post-Soviet spaces. And of course, it’s not just Russians. It’s all of us, post-Soviet people.
LikeLike