@kaia
But of course in some way they have to cater to the people, that is why they make up this surrogate of national culture, and of course all this is just exploited to strip people of their freedoms: some like USSR and hate capitalism — that's why you are denied economic freedom and you get extreme taxation levels for such a poor country, some like "nationalism" — they aren't given true nationalism of course, but xenophobia is natural, it's grassroots — so they play on that, they often set different ethnic groups against each other in a divide and conquer manner, they utilise the anti-migrant rhetoric despite migrants being the main source of demographic growth. This part caught on among the conservative crowd in the West so Russian government decided to double down on it — denying Russian people personal freedoms, this is where anti-abortion, anti-LGBT stuff comes from.
They take the elements that deny the people freedom and explain that out of everything they can lay their hands on and exploit that, the parts that grant people freedoms they throw away.
This is what they've built their "traditional values" on and this fine thing is the epitome of it IMO: https://social.librem.one/@m0xee/112865705231999936
It's the so-called Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, look it up! It's essentially a temple of war that is mimicking the Orthodox Christian aesthetic, but is so satanic that some Christians are uncomfortable being in there, they've been boasting it's made out of metal of re-melted Nazi tanks. At the same time, it has frescoes of Soviet history, despite USSR being atheistic — complete, with portraits of Stalin. AND, although according to the latest info they have decided to remove it, but it was originally there, depictions of current state officials, some of whom still occupy their offices. Throw in Hitler's cap — a WW2-era trophy they've taken from some museum and put there on display. How do you like that? A cocktail of shit that doesn't fit well together, but the main message being: "Go die for the Motherland!",— "the Motherland" being the authorities of course 🤦

@Hyolobrika @amerika @m0xee