 Recently I’ve been invited to an event with the Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper and several senior officials of the government of Canada. There were representatives of 35 different countries. The event took place in an enormous auditorium. At the entrance no one asked me to show an I.D. There wasn’t even a familiar to Moscow’s cinema or circus metal detector. For the entire auditorium there were only 6 security guards. After the event I went outside and it happened so that the PM’s cortege was there. Cortege – is actually too big of a word for what I saw comparing to Russian standards. Not even a new Cadillac of the Prime Minister was followed only by two, also pretty old Mercury cars (one of Ford’s brands). Police wasn’t seen anywhere, not even on the horizon. Following the rules, the cortege let me pass, as I was a pedestrian. It accidentally turned out that my car was traveling in the parallel lane to the cortege. Yes, you got it :), for 10-15 minutes I was driving right next to PM’s car. There were no wailing sirens or flashing lights, and no police. The speed was what was allowed by the signs – 50 km/h. There were no limitations of how to drive in front or to pass the cortege. At intersections the cortege was letting cars pass. I was driving right next to the car of the head of one of the most developed countries in the world, looking at Mr.Harper through the clear windows of his car and thinking of Moscow and other big and small cities of Russia. I was hearing the thunder cries of sirens, seeing blinding lights passing by with crazy speed, like in the best thrillers guns were sticking out of the windows, I was feeling the nervousness of citizens of the great country, involuntarily sacrificing minutes and hours of their lives for the emergency deeds of the leaders of our «empire», its cities and regions. Perhaps, democracy differs. Leaders of developing countries talk a lot about it. Of course the level of life also differs. No need to dispute this because mass media gives an opportunity to compare without leaving the country. But the criterion to answer all questions is the same and very simple – the difference is in the lifestyle of an ordinary and an unordinary citizen, including in an unordinary Russia. Konstantin Y. Smolentsev
http://smolentsev.com/
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