Issue 1. March 2025

Rallies

From time to time, I go to rallies in Berlin. But my feelings aren’t the same as they were in Moscow when I believed I participated in something important. More than ten years passed, and the war, exile, research of Europe... Now I know that contemporary rallies are similar to street theatrical processions. In the best way, the power will give an imitation of an answer.

But I keep going because such meetings in public spaces allow me to see a highly diverse range of social roles and comprehend a collective portrait of 21st-century society.

I think that such street actions would be much more useful if we use them not as another futile attempt to reach out to some people with power but for a dialogue with each other. I remember my participation in different occupy- and protest camps: in the beginning people want to protest and hope for dialogue with the government. But there wasn’t and there isn’t dialogue, so, people started drinking tea together, sharing their home food, making music, drawing, organizing free libraries, supporting their neighbors... learning to understand others, to give, to experiment and to create.