by Stefano Caprio

Just as the bombing was underway on the treatment site for young Ukrainian cancer patients, the exhibition extolling 'Russia without end' closed (to reopen in permanent form) in Moscow. While internal successes are praised, external extermination is commented on with cynical indifference: 'It's war, there's nothing special about it'.

While the Russian bombing of the Okhmatdet children's cancer hospital in Kiev was in progress, the exhibition 'Russia : The Successes of the Putin Era', which had opened the election campaign for the new presidential elections in March last 4 November, with a concert in front of the Fountain of Friendship of the Peoples of Russia's most 'patriotic' singers: opera singer Grigory Leps and the Soviet Oleg Gazmanov, rocker Šaman and rapper ST.

The president liked the exhibition so much that it became a 'permanent mausoleum' with the title 'Russia never ends', as director Natalia Virtuozova announced. The exhibition was due to close in April, but after its re-consecration Putin decided that it should 'remain open until the summer, to allow millions of visitors to appreciate the beauty of Russia'.

A grand new building for 'the preservation of the heritage of today's Russia' will therefore be built on the banks of the Moskva, next to the pavilions of what was once the great parade of Soviet conquests, on the Krasnopresnensky riverfront. It will feature the expressions of the more than one hundred regions of Russia that have matured in the Putin quarter century, under the direction of Grand Councillor Sergey Kirienko.

Indeed, one of the presenters of the closing event, Latvian-born showman and Soviet celebrity Valdis Pelšs, enthusiastically explained that 'many visitors to the exhibition are prepared to stay for days on end, as long as they don't miss out on these treasures... it's not every day that one has the good fortune to see the unique beauty of our country, from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad, all in one place'. Endless Russia' is precisely the plastic definition of the idea of a 'Russian world' that crosses all borders and unites all peoples.

Putin himself was not present at the final concert, but the next day he wanted to meet with all the contributors, who handed him 'three boxes of thanks' from visitors, and congratulated the winners of the 'Our Family Things' and 'Family Strength' competitions, assuring them that 'for the state there can be nothing more important'.

During the election campaign and even afterwards, Putin visited the exhibition several times, expressing his great satisfaction each time, inviting all foreign diplomats residing in Russia to see it as well: 'That way you will be able to see for yourself how our country is growing and developing, and you will no longer want to leave'. According to official figures, the exhibition was visited by over 17 million people, more than 10 per cent of the entire population of the Russian Federation.

A special place was given to new resources designed for the Arctic area, with a special 'electric Arctic bus' and plans for new cities to be built above the Polar Circle. At each regional stand there were virtual tours of all the most exclusive places, including monuments, castles and industries, and each one offered fairs of handicrafts and local specialities, with tastings of products from the various areas.

All the main propagandists and many politicians took part in meetings and public speeches, from Vladimir Solov'ev to Margarita Simonyan, Prime Minister Mikhail Mišustin with many ministers and high-ranking officials, to extol the 'special world' created by Putin by enunciating the figures of all the records he had achieved. Every hundred thousand visitors were rewarded, so much so that someone mischievously remarked that many returned several times, to hit the 'perfect number'. After all, the Vdnk park is one of Moscow's favourite places for strolling.

One of the most popular pavilions was the Tsar-bomb, the AN602 thermonuclear bomb that was produced in the Soviet Union between 1956 and 1961 by a group of nuclear physicists led by the legendary scientist Igor Kurčatov. It was a demonstration of the Soviets' ability to compete in atomic warfare, and is considered the most powerful explosive weapon in the entire history of mankind, so much so that it is even listed in the Guinness Book of Records.

Many visitors dwelled on the comparisons between the stands of neighbouring regions, to see which was more capable of exalting their own features, artistic or technological, and children flocked to the Army of Childhood stand, where they could participate in video games of the special operation in Ukraine and other wars of the past and present.

Many regions invested huge sums in the exhibition, subtracted from the budgetary needs of their own citizens; the Krasnodar region spent 146 million roubles (one and a half million euros), the Vladimir region 50 million, and the Kuzbass region 23 million. Many ironically recalled the 'Potemkin villages', the facades repainted for the visits of Tsarina Catherine II in the late 18th century.

The purpose of the exhibition is that of all internal propaganda in the life of Russia: to show only the positive side and the 'great steps forward' in all corners of the country. One could walk around the entire exhibition with the 'tourist forum' Travel with Us, taste the dishes of Tuvinian or Buriata cuisine, take part in sports competitions - everything that is now impossible to experience outside Russia, in an outside world only to be despised.

It is the task of 'carrying our traditions into the future', as repeated at hundreds of round tables on patriotic topics and 'youth policy'. Now the new mausoleum will be called the Russia-Centre, opening branches in every region, and many have dubbed it Putin-Centre, or even 'the new infrastructure of Kirienko's bloc', where it will be possible to have access to endless funding for those who also see Russia's legacy as the legacy of Putin himself, in a future impossible to calculate for now.

The apotheosis of Putinism, which exalts a grotesque reality based on propaganda lies, impresses precisely in comparison with the umpteenth tragedy that unfolded in Kiev at the same time. The motivation behind the bombing of a particularly sensitive children's hospital is probably that of destroying large independent generators, such as those in clinics where electricity cannot be cut off, in order to 'reduce the lives of Ukrainian citizens to nothingness and silence'.

And while internal successes are praised, external extermination is commented on in Russia with cynical indifference: "it's the war where anything goes, there's nothing special", as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov put it. The more 'elevated' propagandists tried to attribute theOkhmatdet tragedy to Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire, but most 'ordinary' ones quietly admitted that 'Russia is doing its job', again repeating the refrain 'there is nothing special'.

On the Orthodox-patriotic channel Tsargrad, a report was broadcast on 'The children's hospital in Kiev is no accident, let's recognise it and stop being afraid'.

In Russia everything is splendid and special, outside everything is miserable and uninteresting, no matter how terrible or shocking the events may be: this is the pattern of the narcosis of the Russian citizens' conscience. One repeats that there is nothing special, so one can do without thinking about it: the denial of reality knows no bounds, and this is unfortunately a characteristic of many political systems, and various ideologies in the world.

Many allow themselves to be enveloped by the coils of the lie, many pretend to fall for it, but it is not so much the awareness as the behaviour that counts: if there is nothing special, there is no need to fret and protest. In order to avoid unpleasant consequences, one is willing to deny not only the suffering of others, but also one's own, perhaps even pretending to swim in pleasure and abundance.

Those in Russia who still support anti-war positions, who have not fled abroad or fallen under the axe of persecution, are forced to adapt to a situation that seems impossible to change in any way. To the 'there is nothing special' corresponds another refrain, 'you have to go on living somehow', because Russian society cannot control power, only hope that it is not really eternal.

A great scientist and intellectual of Soviet times, the philologist Jurij Lotman, as a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, proposed a 'warlike' way to live long under the totalitarian regime: 'we must do as if we were on the front line of the war, fleeing from enemies, hiding from trench to trench, from tree to tree, without deluding ourselves that we can make plans for the future, but only trying not to lose ourselves'.

The world changes, and Russia too often changes radically and unexpectedly so: if we survive, perhaps we will see a new world.

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