4 мин.

Путин в роли гопника, играющего в керлинг

9

The highly anticipated 2014 Sochi Olympics are around the corner, and I’ve decided to raise awareness for equality in Russia in my own way, by making a series of artworks depicting President Putin in various Olympic disciplines. To live a just and harmonious society we all must do our own little part, and in my case that happens to be satirical art. As I pointed out before, I don’t personally agree with an Olympic boycott, but that’s not to say people like Stephen Fry have their hearts in the wrong place. There are positive solutions that don’t involve hurting other people, but that’s a different discussion entirely. I respect the various viewpoints and motivations for change, and now it is time is now to do something about it.

In a way, the boycott will happen anyway. Most people won’t be going to Sochi simply because Russia has already enforced its own embargo on tourism by the preexisting draconian visa process. It’s easier to go to North Korea than to get a Russian visa for most people. Although I applaud efforts by Putin to further relax the visa nightmare by signing visa free treaties with various countries, it still will be decades of various dictators before anything substantial changes.

This work my fly well over the head of your average southern dwelling American (It is definitely forgivable!), so I will explain what is going on.

Putin is doing a third-world squat right in the middle of a curling house (that’s what you call the target area in curling). He’s dressed up as a gopnik in the staple fashion complex of Adidas, shiny shoes, and a toothpick. Gopnik culture is ingrained in lower-class Russian life and is directly responsible for the generational turnover of extremely homophobic and generally hateful psychology. Gopniks could be compared to American white trash, English chavs, or Australian bogans, but it really doesn’t translate directly. You have to understand something about Russian society to truly understand what this subculture is about.*

If anyone truly wants equality in Russia, they have to first figure out a way to remove the voting power of gopniks. There is a reason President Putin is fond of prison slang in his words…it is because it resonates with their simple-mindedness. You cannot reason with this type of person beyond basic slogans. They are the cancer of Russia. They alone created a positive feedback loop of ignorance and hate that supports the power base of the elected officials. Putin tends to be pretty moderate actually, and that’s what people tend to overlook. It is sadly worse than most people think when it comes to LGBT rights in Russia, as the lower level politicians (and not just Milonov) can be absolutely terrifying.

I felt it was appropriate to lower President Putin to the gopnik level, because he has lowered himself to this dubious distinction when it comes to the issue of equality. I choose the sport of curling to depict him as a gopnik simply because the broom symbolizes sweeping the trash of our country away, and the stones on the curling sheet represent the initial hard push we must make to change things. I am not talking just about gopniks when I speak of trash, I am talking about people like Vitaly Milonov, and the system in general. In Russian language, the word for trash is musor. (This artwork might be visual, but the concepts still translate best to Russian!) It is the correct and most common slang word for police or rogue authority figures. The musora definitely must now go.

*Here are some videos to get you started on your internet gopnik journey. You may have already seen or heard some of the songs. If you like satire, then you’ll really love Rapper Syava  (really they all look and act like this ), and this crazy gopnik party .

If you like to keep it real, then these horrifyingly homophobic tunes should help you understand better the ingrained culture of hate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAu7WAAhMd0  With lyrics like, “You should fuck him in the ass with a broom until he dies.”, and “How could you forget a woman’s pussy?”, where could it possibly go wrong?  It is so hateful it almost funny, almost.

:-(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EMtaS9Wk4Y  Another ridiculously homophobic song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAyQO7dh_Zs  Gopniks loves these sort of lyrics.

These songs don’t exist in the Western world. In Russia people actually post these types of videos on their youtube channel because the worst most hateful speech possible is the absolute norm there. You can compare this to racist music made by Johnny Rebel. It is that disgusting in tone and attitude.

**Update**

Again it so happens my art actually has already happened. Just like JFK actually having a strong fascination with Cuban cigars, and Kim Jong-Un actually importing McDonalds into North Korea, Putin has already been spotted curling while squatting. He really has done it all!

Мой личный сайт

logoВладимир Путин