If you go against the king you will die. The time of the Tsar of Russia is drawing near

Elder Nikolai Guryanov about the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II

« He who loves the Tsar and Russia loves God …

Rus' will not rise until it realizes who our Tsar Nicholas was...

How they were tortured! Do not forget: ! The Tsar was very sorry and loved Russia and saved it with his torment. He sacrificed his heir Alexei, the joy and consolation of his heart...

Prayer to Tsar Nicholas - the spiritual shield of Russia. He has the great power of God against the devil's servants. The demons are terribly afraid of the Tsar»

Elder Nikolai Guryanov

Elder Nikolai Guryanov(1909-2002): “Just think about it, in our Rus' the Tsar is called Father-Tsar, Father... And who else is called Father, Father? - The priest! This is how they address a clergyman, a priest. The Tsar is a personality and a spiritual person!.. Special beauty in the Tsar, spiritual beauty is simplicity and humility...

He who loves the Tsar and Russia loves God... If a person does not love the Tsar and Russia, he will never sincerely love God. This will be a crafty lie...

Russia will not rise until it realizes who our Russian Tsar Nicholas was... Without true repentance there is no true glorification of the Tsar. The Lord will not grant Russia a new Tsar, until we sincerely repent for allowing the Gentiles to denigrate and ritually torture the Royal Family. There must be spiritual awareness... The Lord will grant Russia a Tsar only after deep general repentance... Holy Rus' has never died and will never die!

Tsar Nicholas never parted with the Jesus Prayer. She kept him from troubles and misfortunes. It was she, this prayer, that gave him spiritual intelligence and divine wisdom, enlightened his heart and guided him, admonishing him on what to do.

The prayer of Saint Tsar Nicholas averts the wrath of God. We must ask the Tsar so that there is no war. He loves and pities Russia. If you only knew how he cries for us there! He begs the Lord for everyone and for the whole world. The Tsar cries for us, but the people don’t even think about Him!... Such misunderstanding and lack of repentance do not heal the wounds on the body of Russia. We must pray, fast and repent...

Russia must realize that without God there is no way, without a Tsar it is like without a father.

The people are sleeping, the clergy is sleeping. It is better to talk to a pillar than to another priest. Don't sleep, Orthodox Christians! You cannot sleep spiritually and not see what is happening to everyone - to the Church and to the country. The king prays for us and waits for us to change...

Lord, what is this! I had to repent! How should one repent in the Church? - Serve the Liturgy, ask, implore the Lord, and everyone goes with prayer to repentance and confession. To say: we have sinned against the humblest and meekest King. Lord, forgive and help the suffering Russian people. If people repented, they would understand that without the Tsar there is no Russia...

Tsar Nicholas is an innocent sufferer for the Russian throne, handed to him by the Lord. The Tsar is the guardian and master of dear Rus'. As the Holy Chosen One was tortured, all of Russia is covered with countless crosses and suffers and suffers until it wakes up and comes to its senses.

The king left, forgiving us all, and we must ask him and the Lord for forgiveness. Tsar Father Nicholas loved the Russian people very, very much...

God! What did they do to Him! What unimaginable torment he suffered from the monsters! Scary to see! Not to tell! They burned them and drank the ashes...

The monsters not only tortured the Tsar, but also sacrificed the image and likeness of Christ the Lord as a ritual sacrifice.. And this is a deep, grave sin that cries out to heaven. Remember, they slaughtered Rus' with the Tsar. They have satanic malice.

How they were tortured! Do not forget: The Royal Martyr saved us with his sufferings. If it were not for the torment of the Tsar, Russia would not exist! The Tsar was very sorry and loved Russia and saved it with his torment. He sacrificed his heir Alexei, the joy and consolation of his heart.

The Tsarevich grieves, looking at Rus'... But how can one not grieve? What reproaches and insults he sees against the Tsar, the Queen and Elder Gregory. Alexey knows his holiness like no one else. The prayer of the martyr Gregory saved the prince from death so many times, healed him... Gregory prayed for Rus', and the Lord heard him...*

« He who loves the Tsar and Russia loves God" - the testament of the Holy Elder Nicholas.

« Without true repentance there is no true glorification, said the Elder. “The Lord will not grant Russia a Tsar until we truly repent for allowing the infidels to denigrate and ritually torture the Royal Family.” There must be spiritual awareness."

“Prayer to Tsar Nicholas is the spiritual shield of Russia. He has the great power of God against the devil's servants. The demons are terribly afraid of the Tsar,” said the Elder.

Father gave his blessing to pray to the First Autocrat Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. He forbade blaspheming, condemning, and speaking impudently about any Tsar - all this is a sign of impurity of heart. You cannot listen or read lies about the holy Kings and people in general - this leads to darkening of the mind. The eye of the soul becomes cloudy and does not see the Truth. “If you hear that someone is blaspheming Tsar Ivan the Terrible, immediately ask the Lord to forgive this person. There could be a terrible punishment for him! He can die without repentance!”

The elder left a spiritual will: love for the Church of God, prayer for the granting of a Tsar to Russia, love for the earthly Fatherland - everything that elevates to the Heavenly Fatherland.

It is necessary to restore true loyalty in oneself and turn to God so that the King will be revealed to us, imbued with proper church consciousness.

He blessed the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, through the prayers of the Royal Martyrs, have mercy on us sinners and save the Russian land.”

To perform religious processions with the Sacred Name of the Tsar and the entire Royal Family - for this is great power.

The clergy should educate the people about the great Redemptive Sacrifice of the Tsar, and be sure to remember it on all holidays.

The King's Redemptive Sacrifice

« Sacrifice of Tsar Nicholas,—complete co-crucifixion with Christ, Sacrifice for Holy Rus'" It is necessary to comprehend the greatness of the Tsar’s Sacrifice; it is exceptional for the Russian Church. The great Elder of the Russian Land Nicholas constantly cried about this Sacrifice and begged for forgiveness, and the Lord revealed to the priest that He had mercy on Russia, had already had mercy, and the Russian people were forgiven - for the Redemptive Golgotha ​​of the Holy Tsar...

« The Holy King did not renounce, He has no sin of renunciation. He acted like a true Christian, a humble Anointed One of God. We need to bow down at His feet for His mercy towards us sinners. He did not deny, but He was rejected».

“The sword of a terrible war constantly hangs over Russia, and only the prayer of the Holy Tsar Nicholas averts the wrath of God from us. We must ask the Tsar so that there is no war. He loves and pities Russia. If you only knew how He cries for us there!”

The Blessed Elder spoke about what was seen through the eyes of a soul purified by suffering. The angelic world, the world of dark spirits, was clearly seen by his eye. It was unbearably painful to hear the Elder’s revelations about the bloody torment of the Royal Angels: he said that the Children were tortured in front of the speechless holy Sufferers, the Royal Youth was especially tortured... The Queen did not utter a word. The Emperor turned white all over. Father cried: “Lord! What did they do to them all! Worse than any torment! The angels could not mature! The angels wept over what they had done to Them! The earth sobbed and trembled... There was darkness... They tortured, chopped with terrible axes and burned, and drank the ashes... With tea... They drank and laughed... And they suffered themselves. The names of those who did this are not open... We don’t know them... They did not love and do not love Russia, they have satanic malice... Damned Jews... After all, they drank their Holy Blood... They drank and were afraid to be sanctified: after all, the Royal Blood is Holy... It is necessary pray to the Holy Sufferer, cry, beg to forgive everyone... We don’t know their names... But the Lord knows everything!” (01/25/2000)

Elder Nicholas about the Honest Royal Heads: “They were beheaded, not only the Tsar, but all the Martyrs, and taken away... At one time they were in the Kremlin. God knows, maybe even in the mausoleum... They did such things to them that God forbid even speak! Flour! Iniquity! Damned satanic mockery... It’s better to remain silent and cry about this... Demon dancing.”

“In every sorrow, misfortune or joy, sing the Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus, the Savior of the world. He will protect your soul and instill in it the joy and hope of salvation. If you knew how much the Lord loves everyone, you would never despair or sin.” **

*According to the book: “Life, prophecies, akathists and canons to the holy royal martyrs.” Rus' Autocratic, 2005

Forgive us, Sovereign!

“Tsarebozhie” is a religious movement that presupposes “faith in the Redeemer King.” And as such a king, adherents of this doctrine propose the holy passion-bearer Nicholas II, the last monarch of the Russian Empire.

Heresy of the Tsarebozhniks

From a doctrinal point of view, “Tsarebozhie” is a deviation from canonical Orthodoxy, and from Christianity in general, since this cult includes such a concept as “the atoning sacrifice of the Tsar for the sins of the entire Russian people.” At the same time, there was only one atoning sacrifice in Christianity, and it was Christ who brought it, and not for the sins of any individual people, but for the sins of all mankind.

However, this doctrine has a historical background, and it is worth talking about it separately, because it is really interesting. And it’s worth starting the conversation not even with the beginning of the Romanov dynasty, to which Nicholas II belonged, but with the last Rurikovich, Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible.

It is worth mentioning here that in the ultra-Orthodox environment there are quite a lot of cults and sects that treat certain Russian government leaders with special, sacred reverence. There are, for example, admirers of Joseph “Soviet”, in the sense of Stalin, with the corresponding icons, and there are, for example, those who believe that Ivan the Terrible not only deserves canonization, but has long been a locally revered saint, and “The Church is silent about this "

Ivan the Terrible - a saint?

The story of Ivan the Terrible is based mainly on the fact that his name was included in the “Saints of the Koryazhemsky Monastery”, where the following is literally written: “June 10 - the discovery of the holy body of the Great Martyr Tsar John,” and this collection of Russian saints was completed in 1621 . However, as Church historians note, this is an extremely inaccurate collection with numerous errors. For example, it mentions the Kiev abbot Abraham, whose canonization in these Saints is dated to the fifth century after the Nativity of Christ, that is, approximately five hundred years before the Baptism of Rus'.

Ivan Vasilyevich is also present in the icons, and this is also a historical fact. But how exactly is it present? For example, on the fresco in the Faceted Chamber, Ivan IV has a halo, but there is no signature on the fresco with the word “saint”; there he is “Tsar John Vasilyevich”. This tradition of depicting especially revered rulers with a halo came from Byzantium.

The most famous such fresco is the image of Emperor Vasily the Bulgarian Slayer. Also with a halo, but by nickname, try to guess why exactly he went down in history, and what his act was “the most striking”. And of course, he was not canonized. By the way, from such acts, Tsar Kaloyan subsequently appeared in Bulgaria with the nickname “Greek Fighter”.

In general, returning to Ivan the Terrible, it is worth saying that he was revered and respected by people, but these are not at all the conditions to canonize him.

The beginning of the reign

Nevertheless, it was precisely the fact that the “Terrible Tsar” did not leave heirs, that the Troubles subsequently happened, and then the Zemsky Sobor, and became the starting point for the “reign of Tsar.” We are talking about the Council Oath of 1613, which, in particular, says: “It is commanded that the Chosen One of God, Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov, should be the ancestor of Rulers in Rus' from generation to generation, with responsibility in his affairs before the one Heavenly King. And whoever goes against this Council resolution - whether the Tsar, the Patriarch, or every person, let him be cursed as such in this century and in the future, for he will be excommunicated from the Holy Trinity.

This oath, understandably, extended to the entire royal family of the Romanovs. And according to the Tsarebozhniks, in 1917 the people, the descendants of those who signed the Council Oath, all en masse betrayed the last Russian Tsar. And supposedly for this we, all the descendants of those descendants, must repent.

What are national sins?

At the same time, Orthodox theologians note some illogicality in this teaching. If the sacrifice of Nicholas II was atoning for the sins of the Russian people, then the sins, based simply on the terminology, have already been atoned for. And why then the notorious “nationwide repentance”?

This is not to mention the fact that Christianity does not imply “collective”, “national sins”. Collective, so to speak, sin, or rather, its consequences, since the sin itself was just atoned for by the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, only one - the firstborn, all the rest - personally of each person, committed by him, the person, and not his distant ancestors.

At the same time, unlike Ivan the Terrible, Nicholas II was canonized along with his family. First in the ROCOR, and then in the Russian Orthodox Church. But the very formulation of his canonization simply does not provide for any special cult around this largely unfortunate person.

The resolution of the commission for the canonization of the Royal Family contains, in particular, the following words: “The commission noted that in the life of Nicholas II there were two periods of unequal duration and spiritual significance - the time of his reign and the time of his imprisonment. In the first period (of being in power), the commission did not find sufficient grounds for canonization; the second period (spiritual and physical suffering) is more important for the Church, and therefore it focused its attention on it.”

In general, Nicholas II is really a holy passion-bearer, and was indeed canonized, but all other speculations on the topic of “tsar-redeemer” and “collective repentance” are, in general, not quite canonical Orthodoxy, but rather some kind of their own a special cult that actively mimics Orthodoxy.

The name of the last, tragically deceased Russian Tsar appears again in a media scandal. The previous “hype” flared up around the circumstances of his personal life; the current one is around the circumstances of death.

A prominent figure of the Russian Orthodox Church, Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov), spoke at the conference “The case of the murder of the royal family: new examinations and materials. Discussion”, that in the course of a new investigation launched by the Investigative Committee in 2015, the version of the ritual murder of Nikolai Romanov, his family and associates will be verified, and that in the Russian Orthodox Church this version is met with “the most serious attitude.”

In response, the chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, Alexander Boroda, burst out with an angry rebuke, accusing the Russian Orthodox Church and the Investigative Committee of intending to... slander the Jews.

“Accusing Jews of ritual murder is one of the most ancient anti-Semitic slander. It has repeatedly been the cause of persecution, the victims of which have been hundreds and thousands of people. But every time these accusations were examined by people who were not infected with anti-Semitic prejudices, it turned out that this libel was false... It is regrettable that it is raised again, presenting the slanderous libel as a version worthy of verification.”, - said Beard.

The reaction, frankly speaking, is asymmetrical. Bishop Tikhon did not say a word about Jews (and then specifically explained that there was no talk of any Jewish rituals).

There are an innumerable number of rituals - religious, occult or civil - in the world, as well as the beliefs and beliefs behind these rituals. Instantly taking words about ritual murder personally and reacting as if it is impossible to blame anyone but Jews for ritual murders is a counterproductive reaction.

However, from there, as they say, away we go. “Savagery”, “obscurantism”, “bottom”, “how can one seriously talk about ritual murders in the 21st century?!” - these are the mildest expressions that the Russian Orthodox Church and the Investigative Committee are now hearing addressed to them.

To be honest, such violent indignation causes a rather opposite reaction.

When we hear that something that does not contradict the laws of physics and biology “simply cannot be talked about” because it is “wild” and “indecent” - this is alarming. And it automatically evokes the thought: maybe they want to hide something from us?

In ritual murder – i.e. murder for religious or occult reasons - nothing is impossible.

Even the most militant atheist will not deny the existence of believers - and the fact that for the sake of their faith believers are sometimes ready to do a lot, even kill and die. In the same way, you can (and even probably should) not believe in various mystical and occult concepts - but it is obvious that there are many people in the world who believe in them. And this faith can motivate them to take action, including very serious ones.

By the beginning of the Civil War in Russia there was a fairly long and strong tradition of extra-church mysticism.

Throughout the 19th century, non-church (and partly anti-church) mystical teachings and practices - from Khlystyism to spiritualism - were widespread and popular in the country, both among the lower and upper classes. And at the beginning of the twentieth century, this hobby became widespread among the intelligentsia.

Reading the literature of the Silver Age, we see that not even every second author, but nine out of ten, was passionate about mysticism and the occult—sometimes very “dark”, even down to direct devil worship.

And this is not a specific feature of the Russian Silver Age: the same “religious revival” with a strong flavor of the occult, often associated with a protest against Christianity (or at least the church establishment), occurred during the same years in Europe and the United States.

This general craze did not escape the Bolsheviks, at least some of them.

One can recall Lunacharsky and Bogdanov with his semi-scientific, semi-occult developments, and the contacts of the Bolshevik elite with Roerich. In the choice of the pentagram as a symbol, in the construction of the Mausoleum and the creation of the cult of the “eternally living” Lenin, a certain very specific scent is felt.

Yes, the Bolsheviks positioned themselves as atheists and materialists - but occultism (unlike institutional religion) does not contradict atheism, and, if it uses quasi-natural scientific explanations, does not contradict materialism. As for Christianity in general and the Orthodox Church in particular, the sharply negative attitude of the Bolsheviks towards them is well known and does not need proof.

And the Russian emperor, among other things, was an important religious figure. He is “God’s anointed,” he is the head of the Orthodox Church.

The sacred meaning of the figure of a king, king or emperor is common both for religious studies and for various kinds of mystical and occult concepts.

People whose picture of the world included a decisive opposition to both the Orthodox Church and the “old order” as a whole could well view the tsar, among other things, as a sacred enemy. This has not been proven, but it is quite possible, and there is no more “wild” or “indecent” in such a hypothesis than in the recognition that ISIS* terrorist attacks are carried out for religious reasons.

It is worth noting that the “rituality” check of the murder of Nicholas II and his relatives was already carried out in 1998, during the previous investigation - and then this motive for the murder was rejected. However, this inspection itself did not cause any public outrage.

Why is this important for the Russian Orthodox Church? In addition to the fact that religious issues in general are of paramount importance for the church, here it has a specific and practical motive.

Now Nicholas II is recognized by the church as a saint with the rank of honour-bearer. This is the name given to saints who endured suffering and death not for the Christian faith, but for purely “worldly” reasons - as a result of a conspiracy or political murder.

But, if Nicholas was killed as a religious figure, as a representative of the church, for religious or mystical reasons, his posthumous “status” changes. He turns out martyr- a “title” that is more popular and honorable, allowing for wider veneration of the last king, with various favorable consequences, even material gain.

Why did this attract the attention of the FEOR chairman and prompt him to immediately “turn the switch” to the Jews?

The most common explanation given for this is: “ Well, everyone understands what we’re talking about - after all, it’s the Jews who are constantly accused of ritual murders, just remember the Beilis case!”

But “everyone understands” is generally a slippery argument, like any attempts at mind reading. When, during a public discussion, we suddenly hear: “Well, everyone understands!..” - it’s time to stop and ask: what exactly do they understand? Please, out loud, even syllable by syllable.

Are Jews somehow more prone to the occult than other citizens? Apparently not.

There is a legend about ritual murders in Judaism, the so-called. “blood libel” - but the murder of Nicholas II simply does not correspond to its plot: Nicholas was not a little boy, he was not killed on Easter and not at all in the way described in the legend. If any ritual was performed in the Ipatiev House, it was clearly not this one.

Or we are talking about something else - that, according to the belief widespread in conservative and “anti-Soviet” circles, the revolution was carried out (or at least took an active organizational part in it) by Russian Jews, and precisely for the reasons of specific religious/national hostility to the national majority and its religion?

This is a much broader and more serious claim.

The disproportionate role of Jews among revolutionary figures was noticeable to all sides during the revolution itself and the Civil War. It was striking and reflected in almost all works of art written about that time “in hot pursuit.” It was actively discussed - including, the Jews themselves, both supporters of the revolution (Trotsky) and opponents (Gershenzon), discussed it and tried to comprehend this phenomenon.

It is clear that this question is painful, and even touching it causes a reaction of rejection: what people are pleased to be involved in bloody atrocities?

And perhaps one of the ways to divert public attention from this painful topic, which inevitably emerges in connection with the anniversary of the revolution, is to marginalize it, reducing the conversation in advance to the scandalous and easily refuted plot of the “blood libel”, telling what to say and even think about such only wild outcasts and obscurantists can do things.

The topic of anti-Semitism is generally a win-win in terms of shifting attention.

In any incomprehensible situation, it is enough to exclaim: “How? Are you accusing the Jews... (of drinking the blood of Christian babies, worshiping Satan, descending from reptilians, etc.)?” And it's done.

Some fall silent in fear and try to even think about something else, so as not to be labeled as anti-Semites. Others, on the contrary, become animated and begin to talk a lot, colorfully and with great fervor - but about reptilians. And the thesis: “Only crazy obscurantists can even discuss this!” - is confirmed brilliantly.

It is worth saying that the “stuffing up” regarding Nicholas II and his fate, coming one after another in the last two years, generally looks strange.

It began, I remember, with an all-Moscow vote on the name of the Voikovskaya metro station.

The initiative itself looked very positive: it is not very often that the authorities ask the opinion of ordinary people about what toponyms, surrounded by what symbols people want to live, and they do not often encourage them to actively form and express their opinions about important and controversial events in national history. Strictly speaking, this never happens at all - with “Voikovskaya” there was the first such case.

And the public responded gratefully. For several months, politically active citizens immersed themselves in the history of the issue, read sources, formed their opinions, spoke out, argued, and voted.

It turned out that the ratio is divided approximately in half.

Some consider the murder of the royal family a crime that cannot be forgotten or reconciled with; for others, the attitude ranges from “they did everything right with Nikolashka” to “yes, it somehow turned out badly, but such things don’t happen in history, let alone now.”

There is no public consensus.

Perhaps someone “at the top” might have thought it was a good idea to continue “pumping up the topic”... and the next act was a months-long farce around the film “Matilda”.

A campaign against the film, headed by a well-known and well-promoted female deputy, covered in detail in the media - somewhere in a positive way, somewhere in a negative way, but covered daily and in great detail - scandalous statements, threats, vague promises to burn cinemas, even arrests “extremists” - all this attracted public attention to the figure of Nicholas II for a long time. But in some very specific way.

Having forgotten about his deeds on the throne, and about his fall, and about his death, the country began to unanimously discuss an unusually important question: did he sleep before his wedding with the ballerina or did he not sleep? The tragically deceased ruler of Russia was relegated to the level of a gossip column playboy.

“Matildagate” lasted almost a year; for a year the public, with a powerful boost from the media, sucked up the bed affairs of the last emperor. Finally, the notorious film was finally released - and everything was as cut and dry as it was.

Where are the rallies and religious processions? Where are the fierce Orthodox fanatics who promised to burn down cinemas? No. The topic is over. They turned the switch and the light went out.

Now there’s a new twist - and from the win-win topic of “strawberries” we move on to the next equally win-win topic: the Jewish question.

The overall picture is as follows.

What did Nicholas II do during his lifetime? Well, either he slept with Matilda, or he didn’t sleep. In general, I was doing some nonsense. How did he die? Yes, they say that the Jews sacrificed him... although no, well, this is some kind of nonsense, what is there to even discuss! In a word, “he lived sinfully and died funny,” and only fools or wild obscurantists can be seriously interested in the circumstances of his life or death.

Perhaps I am prone to conspiracy theories. Perhaps I am influenced by my own experience of practical work in political organizations - and, in particular, by the fact that I had to observe the intelligence services on private issues, at a very local level.

“Strawberry” and “Jews” are two topics that work flawlessly, just like in a textbook. Or in order to discredit - then the “target” itself is accused of sexual depravity and Jewish origin; or in order to take the organization away from productive activities and the fight against real problems - then it is persistently asked to fight “depravity” or “world Zionism”.

What are we being led away from in connection with the figure of Nicholas II? From the question of the causes of the revolution? About what kind of people and why they became its organizers and agents? About whether Nicholas’s abdication was legitimate, and whether the Soviet government and its successor, the current government, can be considered the legitimate masters of the country? About who should own the “royal gold”?

Don't know. But the fact that there are some dirty manipulations going on around the life and death of the last king is visible to the naked eye.

* An organization in respect of which the court made a decision that has entered into legal force to liquidate or prohibit its activities on the grounds provided for by the Federal Law “On Combating Extremist Activities”

The vigorous activity to protect the good name of Emperor Nicholas II from director Alexei Uchitel with his film “Matilda”, which was developed by Orthodox activists, part of the clergy and even State Duma deputies led by Natalia Poklonskaya, created the illusion among the public that being Orthodox means being Orthodox. It is impossible for the Russian emperor to live without trepidation. However, in the Russian Orthodox Church there were and still are different opinions about his holiness.

Let us remember that Nicholas II, his wife, four daughters, a son and ten servants were canonized in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia as martyrs, and then, in 2000, the royal family was recognized as holy passion-bearers and by the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church made this decision only on the second attempt.

The first time this could have happened at the council in 1997, but then it turned out that several bishops, as well as some of the clergy and laity, were against the recognition of Nicholas II.

Last Judgment

After the fall of the USSR, church life in Russia was on the rise, and in addition to restoring churches and opening monasteries, the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate was faced with the task of “healing” the schism with the White emigrants and their descendants by uniting with the ROCOR.

The future Patriarch Kirill, who then headed the department of external church relations, stated that by canonizing the royal family and other victims of the Bolsheviks in 2000, one of the contradictions between the two Churches was eliminated. And indeed, six years later the Churches were reunited.

“We glorified the royal family precisely as passion-bearers: the basis for this canonization was the innocent death accepted by Nicholas II with Christian humility, and not political activity, which was quite controversial. By the way, this cautious decision did not suit many, because some did not want this canonization at all, and some demanded the canonization of the sovereign as a great martyr, “ritually martyred by the Jews,” said many years later, a member of the Synodal Commission for Canonization Saints Archpriest Georgy Mitrofanov.

And he added: “We must keep in mind that someone in our calendar, as it will become clear at the Last Judgment, is not a saint.”

"Traitor to the State"

The highest-ranking opponents of the canonization of the emperor in the church hierarchy in the 1990s were Metropolitans of St. Petersburg and Ladoga John (Snychev) and Metropolitans of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas Nikolai (Kutepov).

For Bishop John, the tsar’s worst offense was abdicating the throne at a critical moment for the country.

“Let’s say he felt that he had lost the trust of the people. Let's say there was treason - treason by the intelligentsia, military treason. But you are the king! And if the commander cheats on you, remove him. We must show firmness in the fight for the Russian state! Unacceptable weakness. If you are going to suffer to the end, then on the throne. And he stepped down from power and handed it over, in essence, to the Provisional Government. And who composed it? Masons, enemies. This is how the door to revolution opened,” he was indignant in one of his interviews.

However, Metropolitan John died in 1995 and was unable to influence the decisions of other bishops.

Metropolitan Nicholas of Nizhny Novgorod, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War who fought at Stalingrad, until recently denied Nicholas II sainthood, calling him a “state traitor.” Shortly after the 2000 council, he gave an interview in which he explicitly stated that he voted against the decision to canonize.

“You see, I didn’t take any steps, because if the icon had already been created, where, so to speak, the Tsar-Father sits, what’s the point of speaking out? So the issue is resolved. It was decided without me, decided without you. When all the bishops signed the act of canonization, I noted next to my painting that I was signing everything except the third paragraph. The third point was the Tsar-Father, and I did not sign up for his canonization. He is a state traitor. He, one might say, sanctioned the collapse of the country. And no one will convince me otherwise. He had to use force, even taking his life, because everything was handed to him, but he considered it necessary to escape under Alexandra Fedorovna’s skirt,” the hierarch was convinced.

As for the Orthodox “abroad”, Bishop Nicholas spoke very harshly about them. “It doesn’t take much intelligence to run away and bark from there,” he said.

Royal sins

Among the critics of the emperor’s canonization was Alexey Osipov, a professor of theology at the Moscow Theological Academy, who, despite the lack of holy orders, has great authority among some Orthodox believers and bishops: dozens of the current bishops are simply his students. The professor wrote and published an entire article with arguments against canonization.

Thus, Osipov directly pointed out that the tsar and his relatives were canonized by the ROCOR “mainly for political reasons” and after the collapse of the USSR the same motives prevailed in Russia, and admirers of Nicholas II, without any reason, attribute to the emperor the greatest personal holiness and the role of a redeemer sins of the Russian people, which from theological point of view is heresy.

Professor Osipov also recalled how Rasputin disgraced the royal family and interfered in the work of the Holy Synod, and that the tsar did not abolish “the anti-canonical leadership and administration of the Church by a layman, introduced according to the Protestant model.”

Separately, he focused on the religiosity of Nicholas II, which, according to Osipov, “had a clearly expressed character of interconfessional mysticism.”

It is known that Empress Alexandra Feodorovna despised the Russian clergy, calling the members of the Synod “animals,” but she welcomed at court various kinds of magicians who conducted spiritualistic seances for the imperial couple, and other charlatans.

“This mysticism left a heavy stamp on the entire spiritual mood of the emperor, making him, in the words of Protopresbyter George Shavelsky, “a fatalist and a slave of his wife.” Christianity and fatalism are incompatible,” the professor notes.

Like Metropolitans John and Nicholas, Osipov insisted that the emperor, with his abdication, “abolished autocracy in Russia and thereby opened a direct path to the establishment of a revolutionary dictatorship.”

“None of the currently canonized holy new martyrs of Russia - Patriarch Tikhon, Metropolitan Benjamin of St. Petersburg, Archbishop Thaddeus (Uspensky), Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky), Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov), the same Hilarion of the Trinity - none of them called the king a holy passion-bearer. But they could. Moreover, the decision of the Holy Synod regarding the abdication of the sovereign did not express the slightest regret,” concludes Alexei Osipov.

"A wise decision"

There were opponents of canonization not only in Russia, but also abroad. Among them is the former prince, Archbishop of San Francisco John (Shakhovskoy). The very first Primate of the ROCOR, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), a member of the Holy Synod, a witness of the revolution and one of the most respected hierarchs of his time, did not even think about canonizing the tsar, considering his tragic death as retribution for the “sins of the dynasty,” whose representatives “insanely proclaimed themselves the head Churches". However, hatred of the Bolsheviks and the desire to emphasize their cruelty turned out to be more important for the followers of Metropolitan Anthony.

Bishop Maximilian of Vologda later told reporters how Metropolitan Nicholas and other opponents of the tsar’s canonization found themselves in the minority at the 2000 council.

“Let's remember the Council of Bishops in 1997, at which the issue of canonization of the royal martyrs was discussed. Then the materials were already collected and carefully studied. Some bishops said that the sovereign-emperor should be glorified, others called for the opposite, while most bishops took a neutral position. At that time, the decision on the issue of canonization of the royal martyrs could probably lead to division. And His Holiness [Patriarch Alexy II] made a very wise decision. He said that glorification should take place at the Jubilee Council. Three years passed, and when I talked with those bishops who were against canonization, I saw that their opinion had changed. Those who wavered stood for canonization,” the bishop testified.

One way or another, opponents of the emperor’s canonization remained in the minority, and their arguments were consigned to oblivion. Although conciliar decisions are binding on all believers and now they cannot afford to openly disagree with the holiness of Nicholas II, judging by the discussions on the RuNet around “Matilda,” complete unanimity on this issue was not achieved among the Orthodox.

Dissenters in the Russian Orthodox Church

Those who are not ready to admire the last tsar, following the example of Natalya Poklonskaya, point to the special rank of holiness in which he was glorified - “passion-bearer.” Among them is Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev, who told SNEG.TV about the mythologization of the figure of Nicholas II.

“The special rank of holiness in which Nicholas II was glorified - “passion-bearer” - is not a martyr, not a second version of Christ, who allegedly took upon himself the sins of the entire Russian people, but a person who was able to not become embittered in a situation of arrest and act like a Christian accept all the sorrows that befell him. I can accept this version, but, unfortunately, our Russian maximalism begins to work further: huge layers of mythology are already beginning to be added to this basis. In my opinion, we will soon have a dogma about the immaculate conception of Nicholas II,” he said.

“The scandals surrounding Matilda show the popular demand that he was a saint not only at the moment of his death, but always. However, at the 2000 council it was emphasized that his glorification as a passion-bearer does not mean either the canonization of the monarchical type of government as such, or specifically the type of government of Nicholas II as a tsar. That is, holiness is not in the king, but in a man named Nikolai Romanov. This is completely forgotten today,” the clergyman added.

Also, Protodeacon Andrey Kuraev answered the question in the affirmative
SNEG.TV, whether the canonization of the royal family was a condition for the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. “Yes, it was, and in many ways, of course, this canonization was political,” Kuraev noted.

Holiness Commission

To understand more clearly who is called passion-bearers in the Church, one should turn to the official explanations from the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints. From 1989 to 2011, it was headed by Metropolitan Yuvenaly of Krutitsky and Kolomna, during which time 1,866 ascetics of piety were canonized, including 1,776 new martyrs and confessors who suffered during the years of Soviet power.

In his report at the Council of Bishops in 2000 - the same one where the issue of the royal family was decided - Bishop Juvenaly stated the following: “One of the main arguments of opponents of the canonization of the royal family is the assertion that the death of Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family cannot to be recognized as a martyr for Christ. The commission, based on a careful consideration of the circumstances of the death of the royal family, proposes to carry out its canonization as holy passion-bearers. In the liturgical and hagiographic literature of the Russian Orthodox Church, the word “passion-bearer” began to be used in relation to those Russian saints who, imitating Christ, patiently endured physical, moral suffering and death at the hands of political opponents.”

“In the history of the Russian church, such passion-bearers were the holy noble princes Boris and Gleb (1015), Igor Chernigovsky (1147), Andrei Bogolyubsky (1174), Mikhail Tverskoy (1319), Tsarevich Dimitri (1591). All of them, with their feat of passion-bearers, showed a high example of Christian morality and patience,” he noted.

The proposal was accepted, and the council decided to recognize the emperor, his wife and children as holy passion-bearers, despite the fact that the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad in 1981 had already recognized the entire royal family and even its servants as “full-fledged” martyrs, among whom was the Catholic valet Aloysius Troupe and Lutheran goflektress Ekaterina Schneider. The latter died not with the royal family in Yekaterinburg, but two months later in Perm. History knows no other examples of the canonization of Catholics and Protestants by the Orthodox Church.

Unholy Saints

Meanwhile, the canonization of a Christian to the rank of martyr or passion-bearer in no way whitens his entire biography as a whole. Thus, the holy passion-bearer Grand Duke Andrei Bogolyubsky in 1169 ordered the storming of Kyiv - “the mother of Russian cities”, after which houses, churches and monasteries were mercilessly plundered and destroyed, which made a terrible impression on his contemporaries.

In the list of holy martyrs you can also find people like Barbarian of Lukan, who for the first part of his life was engaged in robbery, robbery and murder, and then suddenly believed in God, repented and died as a result of an accident - passing merchants mistook him in the tall grass for a dangerous the animal was shot. And according to the Gospel, the first to enter heaven was the thief crucified on the right hand of Christ, who himself recognized the justice of the sentence passed on him, but managed to repent a few hours before his death.

The stubborn fact that most of the life and entire reign of Emperor Nicholas, right up to his abdication and exile, did not at all represent an example of holiness, was openly recognized at the council in 2000. “Summarizing the study of the state and church activities of the last Russian emperor, the Commission did not find in this activity alone sufficient grounds for his canonization. It seems necessary to emphasize that the canonization of the monarch is in no way connected with monarchical ideology, and certainly does not mean the “canonization” of the monarchical form of government,” Metropolitan Yuvenaly concluded then.

As a champion, Kasparov retained his sanity and charm. But when he reached his forties, he lost patience with the game. The international chess bureaucracy is so mysterious that Kasparov, despite having the highest rating in the world and his highly publicized matches against computers, was never able to get a chance to replay his match with Kramnik. He was sure that he was still the best player in the world, but he could not prove it.

“When I lost to Kramnik in 2000, it was not easy to think about returning,” he says, “for two years I tried to regain my lost position - I studied, I played: I haven’t lost the desire, but I really need to be at the forefront of the attack. I played with the computer "I looked around."

Kasparov had difficulty maintaining his focus on chess. He sought to increase his already significant fortune through various business schemes - the export of Russian sculptures, an attempt to buy the GUM shopping complex located near Red Square opposite the Kremlin. All these attempts were unsuccessful. “I was a bad businessman,” says Kasparov, “I like the big picture; I don’t like to deal with details.” By 2004, Kasparov had lost interest in chess. "It was a year of breakups," he says. Kasparov had already had one divorce, and now he was dealing with a second one.

“I didn’t want to leave the world of chess on a minor note,” he says, “but I wanted my son to see me once again on stage as a winner. In 2004, the Russian championship was held in Moscow, and my son turned eight years old. Then I I took him with me to the Rossiya Hotel, and I won, and he saw the final award ceremony and put a medal around his neck.”

At the beginning of 2005, Kasparov planned to play one last tournament - in the chess center in the south of Spain in the city of Linares. He told only his mother and his third future wife, Daria Tarasova, a graduate of the St. Petersburg business school, about his intention to leave chess. Having taken first place in the round-robin tournament, Kasparov lost in the final round to Veselin Topalov. There is a video recording of the final thirty minutes of this meeting. Kasparov suffers on screen much more convincingly than Sarah Bernhardt herself. He wipes his face with a handkerchief. He looks mournfully at the ceiling. When he gives up, there is anxiety about what he might do to himself. “I finally felt like I didn’t want to do this anymore,” he told me, “It was very strange. I changed my pace of life and my priorities, but I didn’t lose my fighting spirit.”

Not long ago, Kasparov gave a speech at the Four Seasons restaurant to staff and guests of the neoconservative think tank Hudson Institute. Among those invited were television journalist and former Nixon aide Monica Crowley, as well as former Commentary editor neocon Norman Podhoretz, who had just become a foreign policy adviser to Rudolph Giuliani.

Kasparov presented a slightly modified version of the speech he had previously given in Washington and Toronto. There were several reassuring phrases like “Putin’s regime is not a geopolitical monster.” But Kasparov did not regret the gloomy warnings. "The Cold War was based on ideas that you could like or dislike," he said. "Putin's only idea can be squeezed into one short slogan - 'Let's steal together.'"

When one of the guests asked how he could help the Russian opposition, Kasparov was careful not to stir up old Cold War fantasies. He said: "We are not looking for outside support. All we want from the leaders of the free world is for them to say to Putin: 'You cannot act like Lukashenko (the mercurial president of Belarus), Mugabe or Hugo Chavez, and at the same time expect to be treated as a democratic leader."

Kasparov speaks frequently in the West to two types of audiences: business interests, who view him as a product of the American career-advancing business, and conservative political organizations. He resembles futurist and writer John Naisbitt, with a bit of a chess twist. He believes that success in the boardroom of a large company requires the same planning, strategy and discipline as success on the chessboard. He uses the same kind of spectacular technique in his new book, “How Life Imitates Chess.” Kasparov is also popular among American right-wing politicians. In 1991, he received the "Keeper of the Flame" award from the neocon think tank Center for Security Policy. The same award, given to "individuals who have dedicated their public careers to defending the United States of America and American values ​​around the world," was given to Newt Gingrich, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld.

This award did Kasparov a disservice in his homeland. Russia has a centuries-old tradition of xenophobia. During the Soviet era, Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak and hundreds of other people were accused in the pages of Pravda of working for the CIA, MI6 and Mossad. Vladimir Kryuchkov, who headed the KGB under Gorbachev and masterminded the August 1991 putsch, constantly tried to convince the Soviet leader that his most liberal adviser, Alexander Yakovlev, was working as a secret “agent of the imperialist intelligence services.” Therefore, although the efficiency and ease with which Kasparov behaves abroad appeals to Americans, in Russia he is a constant target for attacks, as residents of that country are suspicious of what is called the political arrogance of the West.

Putin skillfully takes advantage of Russians' traditional suspicion of foreigners. Boris Dubin of the Levada Center, the most independent and reliable public opinion research institute, said that in 1994, forty-one percent of the population believed that Russia was surrounded by enemies. By 2003, this number had increased to seventy-seven percent. Putin is loudly applauded when he lashes out at his neighbors, cutting off gas supplies to Ukraine or waging a kind of cold war with Georgia. In 2000, just before his election as president, Putin said at a meeting of the FSB: “Several years ago we fell victim to the illusion that we have no enemies, and we had to pay dearly for it.” Putin and his team have made it clear that Russia will not tolerate uprisings such as those that occurred in Georgia and Ukraine. They say the culprits are foreign organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy.

Behind this newfound sense of self-confidence also lies a change in ideology. During the era of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, the “gray eminence” of ideological correctness was a strict and ascetic man named Mikhail Suslov. Suslov reasoned in the categories of Lenin’s article “State and Revolution.” Putin's strategist, a calm and ingratiating former businessman named Vladislav Surkov, who is barely in his forties, is interested solely in the strength and independence of the Russian state. He relies on Russian nationalist philosophers such as Evgeniy Trubetskoy and Ivan Ilyin. In 2005, Surkov delivered a secret report to a group of businessmen entitled “How Russia should fight international conspiracies.” In it, he proposed the ideology of “sovereign democracy.” This term suggests that democracy has different forms, and that “Russian democracy” will develop in its own way and at its own pace. Surkov says in his speeches that Russia must expose Western hypocrisy: “They talk to us about democracy, but they themselves are always thinking about our hydrocarbons.”

Every morning, delegates from The Other Russia, gathered for the July conference at the Holiday Inn, were greeted by one of Surkov's brainchildren. Members of the pro-Putin youth organization Young Guard, whose name recalls Soviet times, staged a demonstration ridiculing Kasparov and his comrades. The Young Guard is the youth branch of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party.

After the Orange Revolution in Ukraine two years ago, Putin's Kremlin, led by Surkov, contributed to the creation of a whole series of youth organizations in the image and likeness of the Soviet Komsomol. The largest of these groups, with ten thousand active members and capable of bringing hundreds of thousands to their events, is called “Nashi”. “Ours,” like the Komsomol in its time, organizes the work of volunteers and calls on young people to give up smoking and drinking. But it also includes a special group of activists who specialize in persecuting the opposition. One of the tasks that was set during the entrance exams for those wishing to get into the Nashi summer camp was to characterize Kasparov. The "correct" answer was that he was an American citizen who swore an oath to the State Department to undermine Russia from within. According to Kasparov, “Nashi” was created mainly to disrupt the activities of the opposition.

The demonstration outside the Holiday Inn consisted of no more than fifty people. They were wearing red T-shirts and baseball caps. The demonstrators chanted: “Kasparov Judas!” They threw counterfeit American bills - in denomination of thirty dollars - on the ground and shouted slogans about "political prostitutes." A small brass band played a funeral march.

At large rallies of the “Other Russia” organized this year in Moscow and St. Petersburg, youth from “Nashi” and “Young Guard” were joined by thousands of riot police and fighters of anti-terrorist units. After the rally in Moscow, the event was covered on television news exclusively as an event sponsored by the US State Department. That evening, state television aired a French documentary called "Revolution.com," which attempted to demonstrate the role that American non-governmental organizations played in organizing and financing revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Serbia. Russian audiences did not know (until the story appeared on the pages of the Kommersant newspaper) that six minutes had been cut from this 44-minute film. Television officials removed all criticism of Putin and the description of Nashi as a "secret anti-revolutionary ministry." Kasparov has virtually no access to state television. "And when they show me on screen," he says, "they always try to make a fool out of me. They usually show me speaking English. So I look like an alien, like a tool in the hands of foreigners."

The first meeting of the “Other Russia” conference turned into a routine reading of reports on the situation in the country and in “The Other Russia” itself. On the second day, the meeting was held in a larger hall. Along with delegates from many provincial cities, there were several young people who brazenly filmed the participants, as if collecting dossiers on them. Former FSB general and now State Duma deputy Alexei Kondaurov said: “I look at this audience and think that there are people there who seem to be watching us. Unofficially. I know, because in the end, this is my job.”

The composition of the conference delegates was very diverse: environmentalists, liberals, human rights activists, and most of all, National Bolsheviks. In the language of today's Russia, the word liberal (such as Kasparov) usually means a person who talks most about legal rights, about democratic procedure, about a transparent market economy and about civil society. The neo-Bolsheviks, led by their main leader, the writer and oppositionist Eduard Limonov, emphasize the importance of social rights and guarantees, such as pensions and salaries. They also talk about the need to reduce the gap between rich and poor. The left outnumbered the liberal democrats at the conference, who were discredited by their failures and failures in the 90s. “If we had free and fair elections, we would get our own version of Hamas elected in Palestine,” says left-leaning economist and opposition figure Ilya Ponomarev. “I think that with truly open elections we would get a victory for the left or the nationalists.” .

Kasparov chose to unite with the left in the name of holding real elections and creating truly democratic procedures - even with such leftists as Limonov, who in the past fought for the same goals as neo-fascists and anti-Semites. “It was Garry Kasparov who introduced the concept of consensus and a united front, although our ideological differences are extremely serious,” said St. Petersburg National Bolshevik leader Andrei Dmitriev.

At best, Limonov is a dubious partner for Kasparov. In the seventies, he immigrated to the United States of America and began to imitate Charles Bukowski, portraying himself as a kind of dissolute guy both in literature and in everyday life. In his autobiographical story “It's Me, Eddie,” the predominant emotions were contempt and self-pity. He talks about how he lazed around, living off the American welfare and charity system, how he took women to his hotel, how he despised his new compatriots (“because you live a boring life, sell yourself into slavery to work, because you wear vulgar pants into a cage") and drank. Solzhenitsyn called him "a little insect who writes pornography." In middle age, Limonov reinvented himself, posing as a man of action and traveling to Bosnia, where he befriended accused war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic. Returning to Russia in 1994, he founded the National Bolshevik Party. It's unclear how seriously it should be taken. He recommended building a gulag for Russian liberals. He was buying weapons. He began publishing an NBP newspaper called "Limonka" (a play on words from his last name and the colloquial name for a hand grenade). Finally, in 2001, he was arrested for illegally purchasing weapons and spent more than two years in prison. After his release, Limonov slightly reduced the intensity of his rhetoric, and in the presence of Kasparov he portrays a complacent social democrat.

During a conversation during one of the breaks in work, Limonov told me: “I think this is a natural alliance. Look at the coalition against Pinochet or the situation in Russia on the eve of the revolution. There was a whole spectrum of forces - from the Bolsheviks to the bourgeois parties. Therefore, In exceptional situations, numerous and different political forces naturally come together."

Kasparov believes that liberals who maintain a distance from Limonov are repeating the mistakes of the early 90s. “We need to work with the people who live here,” he says. “We’re not trying to win elections yet. It’s just about holding elections, real elections.”

Speakers took to the podium one after another, offering their diagnosis of the Kremlin and its abuses. The army is collapsed. The FSB is omnipotent. The elections are a complete fraud. They took turns calling the economy a “kleptocracy,” a “giant money laundering operation,” a “cartel,” a “brigade,” or “Saudi Arabia without Islam.”

Former political prisoner Vladimir Bukovsky presented a calm and moving speech, in which he condemned “Putin’s new security regime.” According to him, elections in Russia have again turned into a fraudulent formality, individual rights have been crushed, and the “small Caucasian nation” - Chechnya - has been destroyed. "There are no citizens here, only subjects." Bukovsky reminded those gathered how important it is to unite against the Kremlin. He said that during his time in a Soviet prison, "we didn't believe in the left and right opposition; we didn't think about people's beliefs; we all ate from the same bowl."

His speech emphasized the plight of opposition politics in today's Russia. But Bukovsky himself was not present in the hall. Although he is one of those proposed as a contender for the presidency, Bukovsky has lived in Cambridge, Britain, since his release from the camp in 1976. And he recorded his speech on videotape, delivering it in his own English garden.

Other potential presidential candidates have had their own problems. The former head of the state banking system, Viktor Gerashchenko, has extensive experience in the country's economic sector, but he was an apparatchik. Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov is younger and livelier than Gerashchenko. But at one time he received the nickname “Misha two percent” for the “tax” that he imposed on all transactions that passed through his office when he worked in the Ministry of Finance.

If any of the speakers had moral authority, it was Sergei Kovalev, a biologist and former political prisoner. Kovalev, approaching eighty, wearily walked to the microphone and informed delegates that victory in the upcoming elections was impossible "without the Kremlin's approval."

“So what should we do?” he asked, “we need to create a critical mass. Few people understand that democracy is boring and painstaking work. If there is no chance of winning elections, then the danger of participating in them is that they become a trap ", a trick of state propaganda. But a real candidate can tell the truth about the regime to as many people as possible."

At the end of the meeting, Kasparov invited people from the audience to ask questions. One woman, calling herself a reporter for an obscure business newspaper, suddenly launched into a tirade against Kasparov, then threw a wad of thirty-dollar bills at him and declared him an American agent. She was one of the Young Guard demonstrators. Kasparov was completely calm. “You know, I was already disappointed,” he said, closing the meeting, “I thought that they had completely forgotten about us.”

After that, Kasparov, Limonov and the well-known liberal economist Andrei Illarionov, who worked under Putin, left the hotel and went to the city center, to the Ekho Moskvy radio station. Kasparov and Limonov took part in a popular talk show hosted by journalist and professor Evgenia Albats. It was a day of long speeches and internecine bickering. There was an ineradicable feeling that the opposition in Putin’s Russia, if not an empty phrase, then something similar to it. One supporter, calling from provincial Orenburg, brought a smile to Kasparov's face, but he admitted that their victories were only minor.

"We started out as a completely hopeless movement," he said, "but now we're in the game."

Even this was too bold a statement.

Illarionov, who was in the lobby, told me that participation in the March elections is a real disaster. The opposition will be crushed and co-opted. “Harry has put all his energy and daily life into this, and I respect him very much for that,” he said, “but it is a mistake and it will lead millions of people into a dead end.” He fears more than just defeat. According to him, Putin, as a tsar, reacts quite traditionally. And if they don't have real enemies, they create them. They need enemies. They cannot live without enemies. If all the enemies are destroyed, they will take up Yabloko, the Republican Party, the Union of Right Forces, the Other Russia - and destroy these enemies too. This is the natural law of dictatorship. The best that Kasparov can do in the near future is to create the very idea of ​​opposition within the narrow framework proposed by the state.

But over time, it became clear to Kasparov that the “Other Russia” was only capable of nominating a “parallel” candidate who would be nothing more than a symbolic figure. At first Kasparov did not want to be such a candidate. But as he won one after another in the Other Russia's regional primary elections in August and September, his view began to change. "It seems like I have no choice," he says.

“The problem is that we do not have enough funds, and we have too little time to create a powerful impulse capable of overthrowing the regime,” continues Kasparov, “but we want to show that the existing regime violates our basic constitutional rights. We want to take advantage election campaign to promote our ideas, and also to tell the public that we exist. We say that we are not able to win now, but when the regime collapses, everyone should know that we are here."

One summer evening I took the metro to the Oktyabrskaya metro station, which had long been familiar to me, where the long-familiar statue of Lenin still stood, pointing with his hand to a “bright future.” Walking along Bolshaya Polyanka Street, I saw the "House on the Embankment" - a huge gray constructivist-style building where, in Stalin's days, a significant part of the political and cultural elite of the Communist Party lived. During the purges of 1937, a third of the building's residents were arrested and sent either to Gulag camps or to a cemetery after being shot in the back of the head. Now on the roof of this house a giant Mercedes emblem rotates invitingly around its axis.

A few minutes later I arrived at the Oktyabrsky chess club - the most popular in the city. It is located in a long basement. The club was filled with men and women of all ages, who took their places at the old chessboards. Sometimes international grandmasters come here to play. But the core of players remains unchanged. These are enthusiasts. Sometimes they present quite a curious sight. The plump and good-natured teacher Alexander Pachulia, who is the deputy director of the club, told me: “Usually chess players are not very attached to their main job and career growth. They are almost not interested in anything except chess. If we didn’t close at ten in the evening, people would play until ten in the morning, dying of hunger right in their chairs." The club is open constantly, with the exception of New Year, Orthodox Christmas and Easter.

After the collapse of the Soviet system, and with it the state-funded Soviet chess system, many players went abroad to pursue their sports careers. Pachulia says that when chess players from the former Soviet Union began appearing at international tournaments under new banners, "there was a sense of loss." Like some of the club's other residents, Pachulia recognizes Kasparov's genius as a player. But as a person and a politician, he treats him rather coldly. “I rooted for Kasparov when he played against Karpov in the eighties, because Kasparov was opposed to communism, and Karpov was for the Soviet system,” says Pachulia, “but now we live in a different world. If NATO includes Ukraine and Georgia, as well as other states on our borders that are developing so-called democracy, this will indicate that you - the United States of America - are stretching out your hands to our borders. Democracy? Nonsense!"

Pachulia, like most Russians, wants Putin to remain president for at least another four years. According to him, choosing someone else, even if it is Putin’s protégé, personally selected by him, means taking a risk, and the country cannot afford this. "Russia is a giant country and it needs a strong hand," he says. Kasparov's politics and even his language are too alien to the people, and so club members doubt not only his abilities as a politician, but also his loyalty to the Russian state. "The West needs someone to run Russia on its behalf, and it wants Kasparov to do it," says Pachulia. "The West is concerned about the power of Vladimir Putin."

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("CBS", USA)

("The Wall Street Journal", USA)

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.