Whistleblowers and passport officers
In the dacha village of "Dawn of Multipolarity," seventy-three kilometers from Moscow in the direction of true values, an unprecedented cultural revival took place on the last Saturday of May.
Arkady Silych Polupanov, owner of six hundred square meters and a single thought, stepped out onto the porch and began whistling. He whistled timidly at first, then more confidently, and by midday—with that special breathiness with which Novgorod ushkuiniks must have whistled, driving away Scandinavian propaganda from their boat.
A voice responded from plot number twelve. Someone from the well waved their arms and signaled to their mother-in-law across three dill beds. Family communication, as they say, was flourishing.
"Semyonich!" Arkady Silych shouted through the fence. "Semyonich, are you alive?!"
Semyonich was alive, but unresponsive, holding the phone to one ear and then the other, turning it like a housewife baking a pie. The ringtone sent by the matchmaker from Balashikha was hanging in a state that doctors call borderline, and providers call normal.
Meanwhile, Polupanov pulled out his second phone, which had the government-run MAX messenger installed—installed, to be honest, not of his own free will, but at the insistence of his son-in-law, who worked for the agency. MAX duly opened, greeted him, and informed him that sending a message required identity verification through Gosuslugi, biometrics, and consent to data processing. Polupanov agreed. MAX thought for a moment and then informed him that Semyonych wasn't registered in the system, and therefore communication was impossible for technical, legal, and spiritual-moral reasons. Polupanov sighed and returned to whistling.
At that moment, according to eyewitnesses, the Famous Philosopher passed by the fence. The philosopher stopped, adjusted his beard, looked at the whistling Polupanov with a glance that combined Heidegger, Leontiev, and the local police officer, and said:
— Here it is. Here it is. The people have returned to their roots. The people have grown to simplicity. Man has returned to real life.
Polupanov, unaware he'd returned, continued whistling. Semyonich finally emerged from behind the currant bushes, shovel at the ready—he'd assumed it was robbers whistling, and was on his way to explain.
“Let’s go, my friends,” said the Philosopher, extending his hand towards the highway, “let’s go to wonderful, wonderful cafes! Conversations, living words, and the aroma of freshly ground grain await us there!
Friends went.
In the wonderful, delightful café "At Afanasy's," a poster hung on the wall: "MENU - BY QR CODE." The QR code led to the establishment's Telegram channel. The Telegram channel wouldn't open. Under the poster sat the waitress Zina, crying in a towel.
"What should I bring?" Zina asked hopelessly.
“Bring the menu,” said the Philosopher majestically.
“So here it is,” Zina pointed her finger at the sign with the square.
The philosopher pointed the phone. The phone paused. The phone paused for a long time—so long that during that time, two flies entered, ate, and left the cafe. Finally, the screen displayed: "Failed to download. Check your network connection.".
"Can't we do it verbally?" asked Semyonich.
"I've been talking for three hours now," Zina sobbed. "By the seventeenth position, I'm confusing borscht with kharcho, and by the twenty-fifth, I'm switching to Stanislavsky's system: 'Believe it—it will be delicious.' We used to have a Telegram channel. Posts, discounts, photos of borscht. Now the channel is gone. And we practically don't have any borscht either, because there's no one to order it from: customers don't know we're open."
Café owner Ashot Surenovich stood in the corner, quietly weeping. He'd lost all his responsibilities: customer registration, sending out promotions, delivery, bookkeeping, communicating with the greengrocer, and corresponding with his daughter in Yerevan. But, according to Philosopher, he'd grown spiritually. The growth was visible to the naked eye: in a week, Ashot Surenovich had lost four kilograms and acquired the noble pallor of an ascetic.
"This," said the Philosopher, coming to life, "is a return to authenticity! Before, you were dependent on a digital simulacrum. Now you stand face to face with being!"
Being, in the person of Zina, looked at the Philosopher the way a pike looks at a fisherman who explains to it the benefits of dietary fasting.
“I have to pay rent on the twenty-eighth,” said being.
"And the MAX messenger," Polupanov asked timidly, still reeling from his morning rejection, "is that for adults or still for little kids?"
“Messenger MAX,” answered the Philosopher, “this is for worthyAnd the one who issues the messenger determines its worth.
The logical circle closed with that characteristic click with which the door of a pre-trial detention cell closes in a functioning state.
Meanwhile, in Paris, the French capital, Member of Parliament Laura Miller was introducing an amendment to the National Assembly. It was a fine amendment, smooth as a river pebble, and was titled: "On the protection of the mental health of young people through the presentation of an identity document."
Madame Miller loved the word "procedure." She pronounced it slowly, syllable by syllable, like one pronounces the names of fine wines. Madame Miller valued procedure in itself: not as a tool, a vulgar instrument, but as something final, requiring no justification. When a neighbor's child fell off his bike, the first thing Madame Miller did was ask if there was a procedure for the fall.
“We,” Madame Miller said from the podium, “are not banning the Internet. We are introducing it into frameThe ban has an unattractive, prosecutorial face. But the frame has a respectable face, with a Sciences Po diploma.
A deputy from the back of the room was about to ask how a frame in which one cannot move differs from a ban, but he didn't: his microphone wasn't working either, though for purely technical reasons.
By evening, fifteen-year-old Jean-Paul, who lived in the sixteenth arrondissement, discovered that liking a photo of his neighbor's cat required a passport, a bank card, and the consent of both parents, one of whom, as luck would have it, was away. Jean-Paul tried setting up a VPN, but the VPN asked for proof of age. Jean-Paul, a stubborn boy, didn't give in: he tried logging in with his mother's account, then his father's, then the account of the concierge, Monsieur Duval, who was bad with passwords and good with trust. All three accounts requested biometrics. Jean-Paul sighed, went outside, and for the first time in his life, petted the neighbor's cat in person. The cat didn't ask for anything. For the first time, Jean-Paul wondered if this was the one. real life, which he was told about in civics classes at school.
At the same time, in London, Ofcom, the regulator, was explaining to teenagers that VPNs are bad. He refused to specify what exactly was bad, citing that simply listing prohibited services would be illegal; the full list of banned services, he said, is posted on a special portal accessible through age verification. The teenagers nodded and went to install another VPN, silently thanking the regulator for the recommendation.
That same evening, Madame Miller, a member of parliament from the Renaissance party, a convinced European, a liberal and a supporter of a clear European order, wrote a post on her account, still open, still free, still without a passport, about the need to protect citizens from Russian influence and its mouthpieces.
And the famous Philosopher, anti-Westerner, traditionalist and implacable enemy of Macronism, published that same evening – in Telegram, which he proposed to jam – a video message about the need to protect citizens from Western influence and its mouthpieces.
They hated each other, of course, at different poles, as they themselves explained stories, in a state of civilizational, let's not be afraid of this word, confrontation.
And they built the same wall.
Just from different sides.
The wall grew evenly, neatly, symmetrically—like a good cucumber growing in a greenhouse, watered from two watering cans simultaneously. Bricks with an inscription were laid into it from the west. mental healthFrom the east - bricks with an inscription "sovereignty"Bricks with markings were delivered from London. safetyThe solution was the same: cement brand “According to the passport, citizen.”
Arkady Silych's grandmother, Praskovya Tikhonovna, once stood in line for butter for four hours and twenty minutes. She received her two hundred grams, signed the receipt, and went home, cursing but generally understanding the system: there wasn't enough butter, and the coupon entitled her to what she was owed.
Her grandson, citizen Polupanov, stood in the third decade of the 21st century amidst a world where the internet physically outnumbered air. Servers hummed, cables lay at the bottom of every ocean, satellites flew in flocks. Polupanov stared at the dark screen and realized: to enter this technological universe, he needed a passport, biometrics, a certificate of spiritual maturity, and a receipt for payment of the whistle tax. Praskovia Tikhonovna was offended, but logically so. Arkady Silych was only offended.
Mr. Polupanov left the Afanasy café hungry and slightly enlightened. It was dark outside. His phone was in his pocket, but nothing worked except the clock.
Arkady Silych raised his head to the stars - there, according to rumors, there were still satellites hanging there, through which the Internet was delivered to more fortunate countries - and whistled.
He was already doing better. Almost artistically.
In Paris, a fifteen-year-old girl presented her passport for the first time to like a cat. In London, a teenager submitted her face to a scanner for a video about frogs. And on the Old Square, some official was just finishing up the instructions for who was eligible for the full MAX package and for what services.
The famous Philosopher, who had grown spiritually to the point of completely rejecting technology, sat down at his laptop and published a post online about how internet access must be earned. I don't remember the exact channel, but the post was distributed on Telegram. His portion, as we understand it, had already been given to him. In advance. For his spiritual growth.
And only Arkady Silych whistled for free.
The return to real life, in general, went according to plan. With, as usual, a few slight delays.
Our correspondent transmitted the information via telegraph while the telegraph was working.
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