One is a childminder in the suburbs of Nizhni-Novgorod, on the Volga. The other punches tickets in a tram, in Perm, in the Urals. The first, Svetlana, “patriot”, unreservedly supports Vladimir Putin’s war. The second, Elena, has doubts. For more than a year, Iegor Gran, essayist, keen observer of Russian society and son of the dissident Andreï Siniavski, followed the Twitter accounts (now X) of these two very real women who, day after day, recount their daily lives ( 1). Through their rants, their convictions and their questions, a worrying portrait emerges, that of a Russian population nostalgic for the Soviet era, synonymous with stability and greatness, which is becoming radicalized in its support for Vladimir Putin. Interview.
L’Express: In your previous book, Z for Zombie (POL), you put forward the idea that the Russian people were not hostage to Vladimir Putin and his propaganda, but that they wanted, at least in part, confrontation. You haven’t changed your mind…
Yegor Gran: When I wrote, a year and a half ago, that the Russian population felt strong resentment towards the West and that they wanted this war, I came under heavy criticism. Today, where are we? There is not the beginning of an anti-war movement in Russia. The mothers greet the coffins of their sons killed at the front in tears, but they are proud of their sacrifice. In the provinces, support for the conflict is massive, which is confirmed by Elena, the ticket puncher, who one day posts this disheartened message: “100% of my tram is for the invasion”. And when she has the chance to meet a traveler who is not totally enlisted, she rejoices.
What did you want to show by following the Twitter (X) accounts of these two women on a daily basis?
They are not literary, not even bloggers. It’s about two simple women, very alone, who, each on their own, recounted their lives every day on Twitter (X), with the secret hope of finding a husband… What struck me was that is their sincerity, both in their favorites and their claws. Sensing what people in deep Russia think about the war is vital to understanding what is happening there. These two “columnists” also have approximately the same profile. They are around forty years old and live frugally, on the edge of poverty. When, last summer, the price of cucumbers exploded, the subject immediately became crucial for them, because this vegetable constitutes one of the pillars of Russian food along with potatoes, cabbage and onions. Both have difficult ends of the month. A household appliance that breaks is a disaster, because you have to pay for replacement parts, and they only earn the equivalent of 400 euros per month. They are on the economic razor’s edge.
Tell us about Svetlana, who embodies, for you, the pro-war population…
Svetlana is a vatnisa [le féminin de vatnik, littéralement veste en coton matelassée]. This term refers to all Russians who spout Kremlin narratives without asking any questions. Initially despised by the elites, they gradually appropriated this term, to the point of claiming it. Above all, the vatniki are nostalgic for the USSR, which they never knew – Svetlana was nine or ten years old when the communist regime collapsed. What fascinates them? First, the stability of daily life, which their grandmothers told them about. At the time, they said, there was no ostentatious wealth like in today’s Russia of the oligarchs. We could count on social security coverage, the doctor came to the house, the apartments were free, the electricity was worthless. Everyone was in the same boat. Communism offered a social contract. The fascination of vatniki for the USSR, comes from there. They want to rediscover the sensations of their grandmothers.
Today, what social pact is the regime proposing to the people? It’s being able to say to yourself: “We’re scaring the whole world!” – a warlike rhetoric that has existed since the mid-1990s, with the Chechen wars. And that’s a pleasant feeling for Svetlana. “I live in a small apartment in Nijni Novgorod, I get up at 5:30 in the morning to take a sluggish bus that takes me to the nursery where I work, but I tell myself that Westerners are afraid of us, because we are a great nation.”
If we look at Russian history over the last twenty years, I am convinced that Putin only very slowly realized that it was not the splendor of the West, their technologies and their way of life that motivated the Russian people, but rather resentment towards them. It was only when he understood that the Russian people needed something else to dream of, the feeling of domination and the return to greatness, that he changed his rhetoric. When the Kremlin declared, before the war, that it was going to cut off gas to Europe, the Russians were delighted…
In her messages, Svetlana even goes so far as to criticize Putin. She sometimes finds him timid…
Yes, she is fuming, she wonders what he is waiting for to go further, and raze kyiv… Which also puts into perspective the role played by propaganda with the Russians. Svetlana despises presenter Vladimir Soloviev, one of the country’s most famous faces of disinformation. She finds that her posture is overplayed, false, hypocritical. And she’s not the only one who thinks so. As proof, the audience rates for Soloviev and other propagandists are falling…
In fact, she takes from propagandist speeches what suits her. For example, the idea that Crimea has always been Russian. Or, again, that the people of Donbass were oppressed in 2014, and that it was therefore necessary to intervene… Moreover, let’s recognize it: to continually assert, in a completely false way, that Nazi Ukraine and the West relentlessly bombed Donbass since 2014 is an absolutely brilliant find in Russian propaganda. In Elena’s tram, all the passengers repeat this statement like a mantra: “we could not leave Donbass under the bombs”…
What was she thinking by Yevgeny Prigozhinthe leader of the Wagner group who died in August 2023?
She likes him and doesn’t like him. She admires him, because he is on the front, but she doesn’t like his “unclean” side. Thus, she does not want to believe in the execution of a traitor, his head smashed by a sledgehammer [vidéo attribuée au groupe Wagner qui a circulé sur Telegram en novembre 2022, NDLR]. She thinks it was invented by Ukrainian propaganda. She also cannot conceive of Prigozhin sending common law prisoners to the “meat grinder” in Bakhmout. For her, a soldier cannot behave like that. His reference is the Soviet warrior, a knight, an upright man, always smiling, who never criticizes the system, happy with himself and with order.
Conversely, Elena criticizes power in a barely veiled way…
In 2014, she celebrated the annexation of Crimea. She loved that moment because everyone around her was happy. But since then, she has had the incredible strength to discover herself sensitive to others. Of vanitsa, she became an opponent of the war. It’s an astonishing human journey.
Unfortunately, his life is a constant disappointment. Every day, on her tram, she wonders why these travelers who seem so friendly, so ordinary, can repeat propaganda clichés and say such abominable things about the Ukrainian people.
Recently, his sarcastic comments got him in trouble. She was reported and ended up in court. She risked a lot, but she got away with an administrative fine. The judge saw that she was a simple little woman, who had no prior record. Her criminal record is clean, she has never demonstrated. She has been released, but she is very expansive. She’s going to do it again and she’ll end up getting caught…
Ultimately, these two women became radicalized, one in her humanity, the other in her outrageous nationalism. Who will win” ?
I think the current situation will last a very long time. Putin is still convinced that he will conquer Ukraine. He has the impression that time is on his side, that Ukraine will run out, like Western support. There are certainly some indications that this scenario is possible. That being said, Putin nonetheless remains incredibly weakened by Prigogine’s murder. For what ? Because there is, within the Putinian system, a system of loyalty which is based on an unwritten pact of subordination and allegiance. However, Prigogine did not rebel against Putin, he rebelled against the placing of Wagner under supervision by the Minister of Defense.
What does that mean ? That it was not Prigogine who betrayed Putin, it was Putin who betrayed Prigogine. By coldly liquidating someone who was loyal to him, Putin made a big mistake. You should know that Putin is someone who makes his decisions incredibly slowly. He never rushes. He hates it. Besides, the KGB worked like this: no one made rapid decisions without referring it to the center. I am sure that Putin regretted having said publicly, the day after the Prigozhin mutiny, that “traitors will be punished.” Because now, the entire clique that revolves around him, in the Kremlin, has understood what that means. Putin no longer keeps his word. And that is very dangerous for him.
(1) “Clandestine journey with two talkative women”, by Iegor Gran (POL éditions, €16)