Communist kitsch is not yet dead.

May 2, 2002 3:06 AM

Communist kitsch is not yet dead.
posted by CatherineB (9 comments total)

the winner of the national beauty contest "Miss Belarus-2002" will be crowned in the capital Minsk in June.

Minx? Minks? In any case, an appropriate name for a place to crown beauty queens. Now if only they could have them ride in on tractors...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:06 AM on May 2, 2002

Ride in on tractors towing some ss-20's, oh how I pine for those long lost heroes of the revolution.
posted by johnnyboy at 4:26 AM on May 2, 2002

not the ss-20's by the way.
posted by johnnyboy at 4:26 AM on May 2, 2002

Lukashenko is a nasty, murderous fucker. I hope he dies of a heart attack while trying to have his way with the winner.
posted by pracowity at 4:31 AM on May 2, 2002

Tell us how you feel about him, pracowity.

Uh, anyway, this is a certain sign of a nation just ripe for a coup or governmental collapse -- staging feel-good events to put on a brave face while the infrastructure of your society crumbles. I can't imagine how Lukashenko thought that this would be seen positively by the world at large. Is he arrogant enough not to care, deluded enough not to recognise or desperate enough to try it anyway?
posted by Dreama at 4:38 AM on May 2, 2002

watch the reaction as we've switched Lukashenko's early morning cup of 'roasted moutain delight' with ayn rand's 'atlas shrugged'.



that's funny. he didn't even twitch.
posted by jcterminal at 4:57 AM on May 2, 2002

Sexism knows no cultural limits.
posted by Red58 at 7:14 AM on May 2, 2002

Belarus remains the most retrograde of all the former Soviet entities. (The only worse example, arguably, is the breakaway region of Moldova known as Trans-Dniester.) It was written up in Harper's a couple of years ago as a deadweight that might pull down Russia along with it. (Lukashenko has been notably annoyed at Putin for his rapprochement with the Bush administration.) It's been called Europe's rogue state. They seem to worship Great Russia even more than modern Russia does.
posted by dhartung at 9:15 AM on May 2, 2002

I can't imagine how Lukashenko thought that this would be seen positively by the world at large. Is he arrogant enough not to care, deluded enough not to recognise or desperate enough to try it anyway?

I think I'd vote for deluded. This is the man who'd like to re-integrate Belarus into the Russian Federation so that he can have a go at strutting his dictatorial stuff in the Kremlin too...
posted by CatherineB at 10:33 AM on May 2, 2002