Russia's oil cursed blessing
Was there really anything special about Putin’s power, or was Russia simply powered by oil? On EU's Russian oil embargo
This post is going to be as short as it gets. The EU leaders reached a deal on a Russian oil embargo. The celebratory decision made me recall the infamous axiom Russian Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin offered in October, 2014: “there is no Russia today if there is no Putin”. Not that the man was ever brighter than a pumpkin on the Halloween day, but the phrase he coined proved catchy. Since then, many of the things that happened to Putin’s Russia have been judged against Volodin’s axiom. At times, I thought that, indeed, Putin is Russia and Russia is Putin, so to speak (even though in 2014 I went out to protest against Putin in Moscow holding a sign “Russia is us, not Putin” which I honestly and probably naively believed in back then).
However, apart from the blessing of having the lodestar of the 21st century, the greatest man who ever lived and eternal bosom of hot love as Russia’s supreme leader, the country was also blessed with natural resources such as oil and gas. Russians proudly referred to their country as The Oil Power (The Saudis and Kuwait never counted, I guess).
But was oil really a blessing? Or was it a curse? Oil led to the collapse of the USSR, which undoubtedly was a good thing for humanity and the civilized world, but not such a great thing for a country that ceased to exist.
So today, I judge the EU oil embargo against Volodin’s axiom. What is true: there is no Russia today if there is no Putin, or there is no Russia today if there is no oil (trade)? Which of the two proves more vital?
We already know that Vladimir Putin himself is no brighter than a pumpkin on the Halloween day with his fatal miscalculation on the Ukraine invasion. After February 2022, Putin will categorically be written in history as a curse for Russia.
So was there really anything special about Putin’s power (I never for a second thought there was), or was Russia simply powered by oil? Could the country have been governed by a pumpkin all these twenty-two years with the same success?
Russians often use “black gold” as a euphemism for oil. That reminds me of the Soviet cartoon “The Golden Antelope” based on Indian fairy tales. A poor Indian boy saves a magic antelope that can produce gold with its hooves. After a greedy Raja learns about it, he orders to bring him the antelope - or die. Taking the boy hostage and threatening to kill him, Raja requires the antelope to produce gold. The antelope asks how much gold Raja wants, to which he responds there can never be enough of it. The antelope makes a condition: she will produce as much gold as Raja wants, but if he says “enough”, the gold will turn to shards. Brainless greedy Raja happily agrees. Soon enough, there is so much gold that Raja is getting buried under it, which forces him to beg the antelope to stop.
That is to say: the EU embargo turns Russian “black gold” into black shards and Vladimir Putin into a cartoonish greedy Raja. Sadly for him and luckily for the rest of the world.
**Go, oil!
Russia's oil cursed blessing
Good Job, Karine! Thank you!
Brilliant, Karina. Thanks from Ukraine 🇺🇦