Instant Potemkin village
November 22, 2013 1:10 AM   Subscribe

Suzdal awaited the Emperor's arrival... So the ancient Russian town had to acquire a duly imperial lustre, somehow, anyhow.

Translation of the post:
In early November the squalid houses in Suzdal have been wrapped in banners. On the banners were painted not just the façades, but also flower pots, cats and even the green foliage of trees. (Why haven't they pictured the happy faces of natives in the windows?). Such trivial preparations as painting the fences and repairing the road are not even worthy of mention...

All this bother because Putin was expected to visit the town on 7-8 November to take part in a meeting of local government heads. However, tsar-batyushka did not deign to grace Suzdal and the heads of some "local government" with his presence.

How much public funds was lost on this show?! (Question to the public prosecutor's office).

In case of investigation (smiley) photos of wrapped-up ruins by o_dimitrios:

Same shack, view from behind:

Banner on the lower part:

From the front:

From THE BACK:

This house has a crooked moustache dog's ears.

Pinned to the window frame:

The same house from the front and from the back:

Note the painted birch branch:

The cat looks almost alive:

It was:

It became:

Update 1. Suzdal is the most beautiful and well maintained town of Vladimir Oblast. It's a museum city visited by about a million tourists each year. The majority of townsmen are well-to-do and live in nice detached houses. The shanties exist, most of them is for sale (a cottage in the city centre costs from 5 to 10 million roubles!), in some of them live their last years the frail elderly people who can't maintain them.

Believe me, each town in Russia (except Moscow, but it's not Russia) is chock-full of miserable shanties that are unfit to live in. And the villages are worse...

2. A Suzdal citizen explained "why haven't they pictured the happy faces of natives in the windows": the houses along the planned route of the president have been visited by the employees of the special agencies who warned the residents not to approach the windows during the passage of the royal personage. After all, they could've shot even at the drawn face...

3. And a word about why the homeowners don't repair their houses: all the buildings in Suzdal are historical and are under the state protection, so every repair counts as a renovation. Even to paint the façade, the owner has to pass through a lot of red tape and collect a shitload of permits.
posted by hat_eater (6 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don't know if this is a great post for MeFi without lots more context. The majority of people here are far from the events. The vast majority can't discuss historic renovation policies in the Russian heartland. Pretty much the only conceivable comments as the post stands are hyuk-hyuking about Potemkin villages.
posted by Nomyte at 1:51 AM on November 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


This sounds almost like a postmodern version of Nikolai Gogol's classic play of a small corrupt Russian town sucking up to more senior officials: The Government Inspector (or The Inspector Genera), which pretty much defined the "The Inspector Is Coming" genre (warning: TV Tropes link).
posted by zachlipton at 1:57 AM on November 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Of course, this kind of stunt isn't just reserved for Russia: remember when the UK painted in fake storefronts in Northern Ireland for the G8 summit a few months back (previously on MetaFilter)?
posted by zachlipton at 2:05 AM on November 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


I like how the fake Church windows have fake clouds painted on them.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:39 AM on November 22, 2013


My house could really, really use this treatment. It's about what I can afford, too.
posted by kinnakeet at 6:53 AM on November 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


> I don't know if this is a great post for MeFi without lots more context.

Actually, this is an excellent post for MeFi and has exactly as much context as it needs. Thanks, hat_eater!
posted by languagehat at 8:02 AM on November 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


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