“This is absolute nonsense!” exclaimed my former PARNAS party comrade, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and I absolutely agree with him. At least regarding the portion of his interview that fits into this video. In it, he advocated for expanding the Russian delegation to PACE and extolled Russia’s uniqueness and diversity, insisting on preserving it as a parliamentary republic. Moreover, apparently without realising it, he listed almost all the unique attributes of the last existing empire as proof of Russia’s uniqueness. A stretch from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, 11 time zones, more than 200 peoples, all the major world religions, and a multitude of languages—all serve, in his opinion, as grounds for continuing this terrible historical experiment. All that’s needed is for the entire country to become a parliamentary republic, not a presidential one. Whether all the other indigenous peoples of Russia, including the Pomors, want this, Kara-Murza remains silent. He proposes to maintain the unity of this monster, a danger to all humanity, “not with bayonets,” but by allowing sandboxes to be built across the country without the Kremlin’s approval. He accused supporters of regional independence of unwillingness to recognise Russia’s 1991 borders, drawing a strange analogy between Ukraine’s external borders and Russia’s internal borders, as if someone were planning to change those internal borders.
In a section of the interview not included in this video, Kara-Murza made it clear that he doesn’t care which Russian flag he flies under when he sits in PACE, as all flags are banned inside. He would also like to see the Russian and Belarusian flags displayed in front of the PACE building in the form they will appear in that glorious future. Knowing the tastes of other candidates for PACE seats, Kara-Murza’s comrades, also my former comrades from PARNAS, Yashin and Pivovarov, who ran around the UN building with the tricolor on their lapels, I am beginning to feel uneasy.
Chairman of the Committee for the Salvation of Pomorye,
Yuri Shcherbachev
