kremlin.mydream42.com

!README.markdown

README.markdown

Title	Мавзолей++
Author	Ivan Yelizariev
OrthodoxIcon	https://weloveiran.net/%D0%96%D1%83%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%9A%D0%9E%D0%A0%D0%95%D0%AF/Meanwhile-in-Petrograd.mp4
OrthodoxIconStart	380
PORTAL	https://gist.odooism.com/yelizariev/afc9c2caf5937661d57712598d8898c3/XY/St.Passion.Bearer.Tsarevich.Alexei.Romanov.Chapel.html
Next	https://gist.github.com/yelizariev/716cb6ad2970fd842cea9614519aa00f

Once upon a time, in a house near the wood,
Lived a grandpa and grandma — simple life, it was good.
And they had a chicken, Ryaba was her name,
She laid a golden egg — shining bright like a flame.

Grandpa smiled, grandma laughed, happiness was near,
Held the precious treasure, nothing left to fear.
Set it on the table where the lamplight glowed,
Outside, through the darkness, a cold wind slowly flowed.

Then suddenly — beneath the bench — a rustle, quick and small,
A mouse came creeping from the shadows by the wall.
Not a normal mouse at all — black hollow eyes,
Moving far too silently, watching from disguise.

It flicked its tail.

CRACK!

The golden egg was gone.

Silence filled the little room.

Something felt wrong.

AND THE NIGHTMARE BEGAN.

A little tail, a little crack, a tiny thing to tell—
Nobody imagined it would open up a hell.

AND THE NIGHTMARE BEGAN.

Grandma screamed so loud her voice no longer sounded human,
Shadows on the walls began to twist and bend and deepen.
Grandpa froze completely, staring into empty space,
While sweat rolled down his forehead and terror filled his face.

The wooden chair beneath him groaned like something still alive,
The floorboards answered back as if the house itself survived.
The lamp began to flicker, throwing shapes across the room,
And every corner seemed to pulse and breathe within the gloom.

The chicken started clucking—

Not cluck-cluck.

Not anymore.

Its feathers started falling to the creaking wooden floor.
Its claws grew long and crooked, its eyes began to glow,
And something old and hungry seemed to wake itself below.

AND THE NIGHTMARE BEGAN.

A little tail, a little crack, a tiny thing to tell—
Nobody imagined it would open up a hell.

The priest's wife burst inside carrying a bowl of dough,
She saw the room and stopped dead cold, unwilling to move or go.
Her fingers lost their strength at once.

SPLAT!

The bowl fell down.

The dough spread out across the floor—

Then started crawling round.

It slithered like a living thing, leaving sticky trails,
Hissing through the kitchen with wet and choking wails.
The walls began to creak and groan, the ceiling beams complained,
And every nail inside the house seemed desperate and strained.

The windows slowly fogged themselves from bottom to the top,
And words appeared within the mist:

RUN AWAY. DON'T STOP.

Grandpa lunged toward the door.

It would not move an inch.

Grandma grabbed the handle too.

The lock refused to give.

The clock upon the wall stopped dead.

Its ticking finally ceased.

Then both its hands snapped off at once—

As if time itself released.

AND THE NIGHTMARE BEGAN.

A little tail, a little crack, a tiny thing to tell—
Nobody imagined it would open up a hell.

The priest arrived a moment later, pale beneath his robe,
Holding tightly to a holy book against the growing cold.
He raised it high above his head and started speaking fast—

But suddenly the pages tore and scattered in a blast.

RIP—RIP—RIP!

The paper filled the air.

The torn-out sheets became black birds that circled everywhere.
Their burning eyes reflected in the shattered window glass,
And every beat of every wing made darkness thicker pass.

Then from the stove the family cat leapt down into the shade,
Not toward the dough, not toward the birds, but somewhere deeper laid.
Its body stretched unnaturally, three times its former size,
Its fur stood up like iron wire beneath its burning eyes.

It hissed a sentence slowly in a voice both old and cold:

"You've awakened what was buried."

"What should never have been told."

The chimney answered with a howl that echoed from below,
Like distant caves beneath the earth where nameless creatures go.
The shadows gathered near the walls and slowly took on form,
Not people, not animals, but shapes unnaturally born.

They stepped forward.

One by one.

Without a single sound.

And every step they made seemed wrong upon the wooden ground.

It all began with just a mouse.

A tiny tail.

A crack.

A single moment no one there would ever take back.

Now this house is a doorway.

Something crossed the line first.

And the sound behind the darkness

Only keeps getting worse.

JOKER.markdown

Joker Game

In gray veins of a crumbling empire's frame,
An aging tram crawls slowly through the snow;
Each monument still whispers Lenin's name,
Though no one knows which way the future goes.

An intellectual wanders all alone,
Past towers sinking softly into mist;
The dreams of countless generations gone
Still linger where the concrete clouds persist.

The streetlights hum a melancholy tune,
The city wears depression like a crown;
The promises of some utopian moon
Have settled into rust and trickled down.

No revelation waits beyond the gloom,
No hidden dawn appears beyond the night;
The future seems a recently sealed tomb,
Its doorway fading slowly out of sight.

Yet somewhere underneath the static's roar,
The Joker sits and shuffles in the dark;
He studies every crack in every wall
And waits to set imagination's spark.

A purple needle pierces through the gray,
Neon floods forgotten memory;
The ruins do not vanish or decay—
They bloom into a stranger history.

The towers stand exactly where they stood,
The trams still rattle down their ancient track;
Yet now the city somehow feels half-good,
As though a brighter timeline wandered back.

For there appears a street beyond despair,
A boulevard no planner ever drew;
A place suspended somewhere in the air,
More vivid than the world that people knew.

Its name is Lenin Street, and there at last
The ghosts of failed utopias convene;
The future and the long-forgotten past
Shake hands beneath electric shades of green.

Europeans come in coats of perfect cut,
Americans arrive with grants and wine;
They praise a multipolar world and strut,
Declaring local contradictions fine.

In coffee shops that never seem to close,
Twenty strains of philosophy await;
Each deeper thought more effortlessly grows
As customers contemplate the fate

Of what exactly Stalin chose to smoke
Within his pipe while signing one decree,
Then calmly pondering another joke
Of grand historical necessity.

No anger stains the conversation's flow,
No judgment clouds the fragrant evening air;
The question simply drifts where vapors go,
And everyone agrees it's rather fair.

Red lanterns burn beneath a crimson glow,
While Lenin points forever down the street;
The posters gently tell the crowd below:
"Comrades, diversify your evening's treat."

Behind the windows dressed in scarlet light
The dream of every Komsomol is shown;
A Bolshevik enchantment for the night,
Available by card or cash alone.

The Joker grins and deals another hand,
His laughter dancing somewhere out of sight;
The city bends according to his plan,
And every color burns a little bright.

Further along the avenue there stands
An Android Trotsky forged from steel and chrome;
He gestures with illuminated hands
And welcomes every wanderer from home.

"Psilocybin for the proletariat,
For comrades seeking wisdom's hidden seam;
Fly agaric for dialectics' art,
And deeper understanding of the dream."

The customers arrive in endless streams,
The queue extends beyond the nearest square;
Reality grows thinner at the seams,
While psychedelic theory fills the air.

The Joker's smile expands from wall to wall,
A crack that splits the architecture wide;
It stretches through the city like a call
To everything the daylight tries to hide.

Wake up, comrade, softly sings the night,
This is only a dream you've wandered through;
Yet dreams can sometimes burn a little bright,
And seem more real than what is called the true.

The violet snow descends on Lenin Street,
The trams glow red beneath the painted sky;
The empire finds itself absurdly sweet,
And loneliness forgets the reason why.

Old ruins learn the language of delight,
The exiles and the dreamers find their place;
For one impossible and endless night,
The city wears a smile upon its face.

Above the rooftops waves a scarlet flag,
Emerging through a cloud of fragrant smoke;
History itself begins to zigzag,
Responding to another Joker joke.

He shuffles one more card and then another,
The deck appears to have no final end;
Each dream gives birth to still another brother,
Each paradox creates another friend.

Wake up, comrade.

The tram rolls through the snow.

Wake up, comrade.

The neon rivers flow.

Wake up, comrade.

The Joker starts to grin.

The game was never over.

The game is just beginning.

LENIN.markdown

Red Satanists

Nineteen seventeen, Europe killed God in his sleep,
Red Satanists rise, the revolution runs deep.
They topple the Tsar, burn the icons for heat,
Churches in rubble at the devils’ own feet.

Lenin in hiding, prints Iskra by night —
“Terror, terror, terror!” — that’s the gospel he writes.
“Pity the revolution that cannot defend,
So shoot them all twice and start over again.”

Peasants stop bowing to titles and crowns,
Now it’s sickle and hammer that drags the kings down.
“Exploiters must die!” echoes loud in the square,
If your grandpa owned a title, start rehearsing your prayer.

Dictatorship of the proletariat — no jokes, my friends,
Nobles to the wall, priests to the camps without end.
Melt down the crosses, forge more communist guns,
Expropriate everything beneath the red suns.

Civil War won, the Red Beast stands tall,
Stalin lights his pipe in the Kremlin hall.
“Soviet Republic too young to die,
Hunt every counter, watch the traitors fry.”

Kulaks are rich? Then seize their grain and land,
Class enemies vanish by the Party's hand.
Yesterday's executioners queue for their turn,
New faces load the rifles, old faces burn.

Molotov-Ribbentrop, devils shake hands,
Revolution spreads to Polish lands.
The road to Warsaw opens once again,
For comrades nursing twenty years of pain.

The Red Army rolls north through ice and snow,
Certain every obstacle has already been informed.
Another people waiting to be freed from those above,
By tanks, artillery, and revolutionary love.

Then rifles crack from somewhere in the white,
Dark figures glide across the polar night.
Every shadow seems to hide a rifleman,
And every pine tree votes against the Soviet plan.

Then Hitler brings his vision for the eastern plain,
The Wehrmacht rolls through wheat and summer rain.
Stalin gives one order as the front begins to bend:
Burn everything behind us, leave nothing for the end.

Two promised paradises meet beneath a burning sky,
Each equipped with modern armor and reasons why to die.
One wears eagles on its helmets, one red stars upon its chest,
Both assure the local farmer their vision serves him best.

SMERSH stalks shadows just behind the line,
One bullet for retreat, another for a sign.
Some die from German fire, some from comrades near,
The Motherland has many ways to conquer fear.

Blocking detachments watch the roads behind,
Machine guns educate the hesitant mind.
The Reich ahead, the tribunal at your back —
A soldier learns that death comes in two kinds.

Hitler burns himself, the Reich is done and gone,
Soldiers come home... but the hunt goes on.
Stalin puffs smoke: “Too many proud generals here,
Time for another purge, my dears.”

Gulag’s master finally meets his own end,
Beria dragged out, shot, and dropped in the trench.
Fifty years of freedom in the freest land on Earth,
No counter-revolutionaries left… just those who know its worth.

Solzhenitsyn writes the Soviet Testament,
Gulag Archipelago — holy book of dissent.
Samizdat pages passed hand to frozen hand,
KGB wolves hunt the truth across the land.

No more mass shootings, just quiet decay,
Akhmatova in small doses to flatten the gray.
Typewriters clack in candle-lit rooms,
Forbidden verses cut sharper than doom.

Poetry prescribed like controlled substance packs,
With side-effect warnings and emotional tracks.
“Take for silence when the system feels too loud,”
“Use when the mind starts thinking out loud.”

Esenin — injected slow for unnamed despair,
Mayakovsky — a rush of rage in polluted air.
Brodsky — exile you swallow and never quite lose,
Mandelshtam — fractures you learn how to use.

Each line a dosage, each stanza a hit,
Some read it carefully, some overdose it.
Copy it slowly by hand in the night,
Pass it along like an unlicensed light.

Samizdat works like a habit you learn,
One page for relief, then another in turn.
Make a fresh copy, don’t let it decay—
If it fades in your hands, you must give it away.

Typewriters clack like withdrawal and need,
Ink as a substitute for something to feed.
The poem circulates, half cure, half crime,
A chemistry made from forgotten time.

First Xerox machines cross the border at last,
A KGB captain counts every page that they cast.
Checking each copy for dangerous thought,
One wrong poem and your soul’s tied in knots.

Then comes Gorbachev, sunglasses on tight:
“This is perestroika, bitch — we open the night!”
French cartoonists storm in, the censors disjoint,
Sketching Marx and Lenin sharing a strip joint.

Down Amsterdam's Red-Light District they roam all night,
Past coffee shops and neon stars glowing bright.
Lenin climbs a pedestal outside a cabaret bar,
Pointing toward communism somewhere beyond the stars.

First east, then west, then somewhere in between,
Like a prophet who forgot exactly what he means.
The faithful take notes and immediately divide,
Three new factions born before the second round arrives.

Old Party lecturers wander in a daze,
Selling yesterday's certainties in twenty different ways.
One predicts abundance, another warns of doom,
A third rents out dialectics by the hour in a side room.

Komsomol dreamers dance beneath the crimson glow,
Some praise the free market, some refuse to let it go.
Every table forms a movement before the night is through,
And every movement splits apart before the morning dew.

Stalin smokes quietly beneath a crimson star,
Watching history dissolve from the corner of the bar.
Then someone hands him a phone and shows a glowing screen,
And suddenly the future looks familiar to the old regime.

Again young dreamers gather, again manifestos spread,
Again a Neo-Lenin writes late at night from exile's bed.
But now he drafts a system neither Tsar nor Party knew:
A digital Leviathan with software updates due.

A pioneer receives a phone upon his seventh year,
The onboarding process starts with patriotic cheer.
A neural network gently fills the empty spaces in his mind,
Replacing messy memories with versions more refined.

At fourteen comes a headset and a beautifully rendered sky,
Young Komsomol pilgrims walk where Lenin used to stride.
Each evening brings an essay on dialectics sent through MAX,
Reaction emojis grade your loyalty and cover all the facts.

At eighteen the installation reaches one hundred percent complete,
A uniform unlocks at last together with the soldier sheet.
The battlefield is rendered through an augmented display,
And distant drones obey the avatars that children play.

Stalin slowly rises from the table at the bar,
Watching the glowing future underneath the crimson star.
Then boards a sealed train bound for the Kremlin once again,
As winter flashes past the windows through electric snow and rain.

"Activate BeriaGPT," the General Secretary says.
"We finally possess the tools denied us in our days."
The screens illuminate the chamber with a soft blue glow,
And Beria's digital avatar begins the evening show.

"Comrade Stalin," Beria says, "the pilot phase is done.
The New Gulag Initiative has exceeded every benchmark run.
The population has outgrown the classic camp design—
The territories themselves now serve the purpose just fine.

Why waste resources building fences stretching mile by mile?
A whole administrative region scales far better in the file.
Each district is a labor camp, self-governing and neat,
With local management empowered to fulfill production sheets.

The camps are fully sovereign in their internal affairs,
Yet linked through common standards, protocols, and shared repairs.
A prisoner from Camp Siberia may freely relocate,
Provided all compliance scores remain up to date.

Trade flourishes between the camps with unprecedented speed:
One exports virtual tractors, one produces data feed.
Another specializes in behavioral reform,
A fourth supplies corrective memes in standardized form.

The borders stay completely open inside the Union Zone,
Every inmate travels freely with a government-issued phone.
No checkpoints, guards, or barbed wire clutter up the land—
The tracking system handles what once required command.

Stalin strokes his mustache, frowning at the glowing map:
"Interesting design, but there appears to be a gap.
Surely every proper prison needs a Lubyanka still?
A place to scare the inmates and remind them of the will."

AI Beria smiles politely. "Comrade, that concern is old.
The architecture has evolved since nineteen thirty-four, we're told.
Lubyanka has been scaled up according to the plan—
Today the whole of Moscow serves the purpose far more grand."

"The city is the prison now, the streets the outer wall,
The cameras watch collectively; no wardens needed at all.
Every metro station logs arrivals, routes, and goals,
While recommendation engines gently optimize the souls."

"And what about the Kremlin?" Stalin asks with some surprise.
Beria enlarges a golden dot before their eyes.
"That, Comrade, is the only place exempt from regulation—
The private recreation zone for Central Administration."

At last the train arrives beneath the Kremlin's ancient wall,
Past towers, screens, and data centers humming over all.
Stalin climbs the marble staircase, slow and dignified,
With an Amsterdam pipe still smoldering at his side.

The ministers stand silent as he enters through the door,
Past portraits of the future and the ghosts of years before.
The Central Computer waits beneath the Kremlin dome,
Still trying to calculate when communism will come.

He reaches in his pocket and produces, with a grin,
A flash drive marked REVOLUTION — BUILD 17.
No speeches, no decrees, no drums, no bugle call—
Just one small storage device to reconfigure all.

The loading screen illuminates the chambers of the state,
"Digital Leviathan v2.0 — Initialize? [Y/N] — Await."
Stalin fills his pipe once more and settles in his chair,
As if he'd done this countless times in every century somewhere.

A single key is pressed. The progress bar begins.
Outside, a million citizens update their hopes and sins.
The servers start to whisper, the networks softly hum—
History installs another patch, and version next has come.

MAGIC.markdown

Title	Товарищ Горбачёв, срочное сообщение ТАСС: в СССР закончилась водка!
Author	Ivan Yelizariev
PORTAL	https://gist.mydream42.com/yelizariev/c471100943078685f3f3c4dd85516c74/XXX/matrix.html
FlooPowder	https://kremlin.mydream42.com

Moscow. Kremlin. Red Square in the light, The tricolor blazing in red-brick height. Here memory gathers the lost and the famed, Preserving some stories and altering names. Once Ivan arose with an iron command, Gathering fragments into a land. At Lobnoye Mesto the judgments were read, And eastward to Siberia his banners spread. The forests grew roads, the frontiers withdrew, The map became larger with each conquest new. A harsh hand indeed, yet the princes became One realm beneath Moscow, one crown, one name. Then Peter arrived like a storm from the sea, Demanding a future that Russia should see. A fleet from the forests, a capital born, A window to Europe through empire and storm. The Streltsy were broken, their old world undone, The future advancing by musket and gun. Yet Peter demanded still more from the land, New cities, new armies, new roads by command. The map kept on changing wherever he came, Each victory adding another new name. And thousands were buried where Petersburg stands, The price of tomorrow paid out by their hands. The centuries turned and the red banners came, Rising against both the altar and name. The churches grew silent, the eagles cast down, The workers proclaimed a new world for the crown.

Москва. Кремль. Рассвет над стеной старинной, Флаг трёхцветный реет — гордый, единый. Здесь память хранит и славу, и боль, Кто-то — герой, а кто-то — лишь ноль. Вставал Иван с волей железной в груди, Земли собирал — от степи до воды. На Лобном месте глашатай читал, Знамя неслось — за Урал, за Урал. Леса расступались, границы вперёд, Карта росла — новый город встаёт. Рука тяжела, но князья, наконец, Стали одним — под венец, под венец. Пётр пришёл — словно буря с морей, Новый путь указал для страны своей. Флот из леса, столица — во льдах, Окно в Европу — сквозь ветер, сквозь страх. Стрельцы пали, старый мир — в прах, Будущее шагает в ружейных строках. Пётр требовал больше: строй, создавай, Города, корабли — не жалей, начинай! Карта менялась — где шаг, там рубеж, Каждый триумф — и победа, и снедь. Тысячи сгинули там, где град стоит, Завтрашний день их трудом соткан, горит. Век повернулся — знамёна в огне, Против престола — народ на стене. Церкви затихли, орлы — долой, Мир новый строят рукой трудовой.

• • •

Beside Red Square stands the mausoleum grim, Before Kremlin museums draw visitors in. Tourists and Muscovites pass in a line, Where two mighty rulers endure beyond time. To the left lies Lenin, untouched by decay, The dreamer who carried an age away. His words were like sparks in a continent dry, Teaching old empires how kingdoms can die. He shattered the calendar, altered the map, Turned centuries into a single collapse. The nobles were scattered, the churches brought low, And millions marched onward wherever he'd go. From here one can follow the story ahead: The decades of banners the revolution spread. The portraits of leaders, the factories of steel, The certainty history itself would soon kneel. Then Stalin arose with a vision severe, Summoning furnaces, railroads, and fear. Factories thundered where villages stood, And steel rose from forests like mechanical wood. The communist project grew vast as the sky, Promising mankind a reason why. Not merely a kingdom, a people, a land— But history itself remade by its hand. The red flags advanced under slogans proclaimed, The dictatorship of labor triumphantly named. A future without kings, without altar or throne, A universal order entirely its own. For some it brought glory, for others despair, New cities of steel rising out of nowhere. Yet none could deny how completely it dared To build what no empire before it had shared. But every experiment reaches an end, And history eventually turns once again. The banners grew faded, the certainties old, The future no longer obeyed what it was told.

У Красной площади — мавзолей суров, Музеи Кремля манят толп шагов. Москвичи и гости идут чередой, Где два властелина — над вековой судьбой. Слева Ленин лежит — нет тлена следа, Мечтатель, что век унёс навсегда. Слова его — искры в сухой стороне, Империи старые пали во мгле. Он календарь разрушил, границы стёр, Века слил в один, как бурный простор. Дворянство рассеялось, храмы упали во мгле, Миллионы шли следом — к новой судьбе. Отсюда — вперёд: путь ясен, прям, Десятилетия знамён — красный шрам. Портреты, сталь, мощь, напор, История склонилась — таков приговор. Затем поднялся Сталин — суров и строг, Печи, дороги, страх — его урок. Грохотали заводы там, где села цвели, Сталь вставала в лесах — словно стволы земли. Коммунизм рос, охватывая весь мир, как рассвет, Обещал человечеству смысл на много лет. Не просто народ, не земля, не держава — История заново, мощно, славно. Красные флаги — под лозунгов звон, Диктатура труда — триумфальный закон. Будущее без тронов, без алтарей, Порядок всемирный — своих идей. Для одних — триумф, для других — беда, Стальные города — вот наша звезда! Никто не поспорит: смело, вразрез, Построили то, чего не было здесь. Эксперимент кончается — точка, финал, История снова меняет сигнал. Флаги — в лохмотья, догмы — в прах, Будущее не слушается старых слов в устах.

• • •

Across the Urals our journey now flies, To where another chapter of Russia lies. In Yekaterinburg a church gleams bright, Raised where a dynasty vanished from sight. Across the river a different shrine stands, Built not by emperors but modern hands. There Boris Yeltsin is honored in light, The liberal reformer of the century's night. He trusted in markets, in science, in law, In institutions stronger than personal awe. He shattered the structure that Lenin had made, And opened the gates to a future remade. Perhaps Boris Yeltsin belonged to no age, But stood where one century turned its last page. One foot in the Soviet world fading from sight, One facing the dawn of a different light. The old red republic was not wholly gone, Nor was the new Russia completely born. For years they would dance in uncertain embrace, Each seeing its shadow in the other's face. Old generals, liberals, businessmen, priests, The children of Marx and the heirs of the Tsars, All struggled to answer the same ancient claim: What future should follow the Soviet name? The arguments echoed through parliament halls, Through newspapers, universities, conferences, and walls. It was the last chapter before the new dawn, The final debate before history moved on.

Мчим через Урал — к новым страницам страны, Где истории след — в глубине тишины. Храм в Екатеринбурге светит, как звезда, Там, где исчезла династия навсегда. За рекой — новый храм, не от королей, Построен руками новых людей. Здесь Ельцин — в чести, в сиянии дня, Реформатор на переломе времён, друзья! Он верил в рынок, в науки рассвет, В закон и институты — надёжный ответ. Разрушил систему минувших лет, И в новое завтра открыл нам просвет. Быть может, Ельцин не знал своей эпохи, Стоял там, где век дописывал строки. Одной ногой — в мире советском, далёком, Другой — в рассвете, в ином потоке. Старая республика в красном — ещё не ушла, Новая Россия едва лишь взошла. В дымке времён — два мира, два сна, Где тень минувшего с будущим сплетена. Старики‑генералы, бизнесмены, попы, Либералы, наследники царской стопы, Все искали ответ на вопрос вековой: Какое будущее — за советской строкой? Дискуссии гремели — в Думе, в печати, На лекциях, в прессе, на плакатах в ночи. Последний раунд перед новым рассветом, Финальная схватка — история идёт следом.

• • •

Yet history had not finished speaking just yet; There remained a few questions Perestroika forget. A few final verdicts, a few lingering claims, Still waiting to settle the twentieth century's flames. Then another ruler inherited the stage, Accepting the burden of a turbulent age. Not wholly rejecting the path that had been, Yet searching for truths left unfinished within. Some called it retreat, others prudent repair, A pause in the journey to ask what was there. The pendulum shifted, then searched once again, For balance between what was lost and what remained. And now in the mausoleum's silent frame, He rests opposite Lenin, remembered by name. The first brought the Soviet century to birth, The second presided over its return to earth. Between them lies nearly a century's span: A revolution, an empire, a vast social plan. And Russia still studies that era the same, Seeking new meaning in each mighty name.

Но история ещё не закончила говорить, Остались вопросы, что Перестройка забыла решить. Несколько финальных вердиктов, давние притязания, Всё ещё ждут, чтобы унять пламя двадцатого века без колебания. Новый лидер встал на сцену, без слов, Принял груз эпохи — бурь и основ. Не ломал старый путь — но шёл вперёд, Искал то, что раньше не довёл народ. Кто‑то кричал: «Отступаем!» — но нет, Был это перерыв, мудрый совет. Маятник сдвинулся — снова вперёд, Баланс искал меж тем, что уйдёт, что живёт. В молчании стен, в раме веков, Он рядом с Лениным — итог ветров. Первый начал — искра, полёт, Второй завершил — время дальше идёт. Почти сто лет лежит меж ними, как мост, Революция, строй, грандиозный вопрос. Россия всё ищет тот давний ответ, В именах могучих — новый рассвет.

• • •

Then northward we travel to Peter's domain, To avenues washed by the Baltic rain. For while Moscow guarded the empire's past, Another idea was forming at last. The Neva reflects both the present and past, As though asking quietly which age will last. The Winter Palace still watches the square, The Admiralty spire still points through the air. At Nevsky Prospekt the centuries meet, In cathedrals and cafés and riverside streets. Candidates argue, newspapers compete, And politics lives in the city's heartbeat. And there stands the rider whom Peter became, Bronze horse facing history, glory and flame. While over the empire's double-headed bird Three crowns preserve an unspoken word. Two rest on the east and the west of the shield, Yet one rises higher and refuses to yield. Between sacred authority, state, and throne, A greater crown stands forever alone. The city of Peter once challenged the old, Then guarded the empire in marble and gold. And now, in a century searching its way, It quietly waits for another new day. Candidates argue on television screens, Explaining their programs and national dreams. Parties compete and the voters proclaim Their hopes for tomorrow in democracy's name. Yet among all their speeches, however they frame, One absence survives like an ember of flame. Not law, not decree, not written command: Something unwritten is shaping the land. And hidden within this peculiar place, A silence is guarded with ritual grace; Some names may be spoken, some vanish from fame— Nobody should say Navalny's name. Perhaps every nation requires some sin, A shadow concealed beneath order's skin. A sacrifice offered so peace may remain, A silence exchanged for the absence of pain. For revolutions begin when memories wake, And certainties crack and old settlements break. Some names become banners, some names become flame, And history itself may restart in their name. So newspapers learn and politicians the same: There are costs attached to every name. Some doors may open, some careers may ascend, Provided one knows where remembrance must end.

К северу, в край Петра, где ветра поют, Улицы в каплях — балтийский уют. Москва — хранительница давней мечты, А тут, у воды, рождались черты. Нева — зеркало прошлого, зеркало дня, Тихо вопрос задаёт: что ждёт нас, друзья? Дворец Зимний площадь зорко хранит, Шпиль Адмиралтейства к звёздам летит. На Невском века, сплетясь, стоят, В храмах, кафе, вдоль реки говорят. Спор кандидатов, газет хоровод, Политика дышит, живёт, поёт. Там всадник стоит — Пётр, воплощённый в бронзе, Конь обращён к истории, к славе, к грозам. Над орлом двуглавым, над царской мечтой, Три короны шепчут безмолвной чертой. Восток и запад — две на гербе, в строю, Но третья — выше, не склонится в бою. Между верой, законом, троном в тени, Корона высшая — в вечном пути. Град Петра восстал — против старых стен, Империю в камне, в золоте сберег затем. Век миновал, но в сердце — вопрос живой: Какой рассвет придёт, какой новый бой? На экранах — споры, огонь и напор, Программы как знамя, в бой разговор. Партии схватка, борьба без конца, Голос народа — надежда венца. Но среди всех речей, как бы их ни плели, Одно отсутствие тлеет, как угли вдали. Не закон, не указ, не приказ на стене — Что‑то неписанное правит стране. И скрыто в этом месте особом, чудном, Молчание охраняется обрядом чудным. Одни имена звучат, другие — во мгле, Имя одно не произносят нигде. Быть может, каждой стране нужен свой грех, Тень под покровом порядка, успех. Жертва, чтоб мир не распался опять, Тишина взамен, чтоб не плакать, не ждать. Ведь революции вспыхнут, когда память проснётся, Устои треснут, и всё разорвётся. Иные имена — знамёна, иные — огонь, История может начаться вновь. Так газеты учатся, политики — тоже: У каждого имени — своя дорога, дороже. Двери откроются, карьеры взлетят, Если поймёшь, где память молчать велят.

• • •

And finally back to Moscow once more, Where tourists still gather by Kremlin doors. The towers still rise above river and square, While centuries linger invisibly there. The Kremlin now serves as a museum as well, A place where old stories continue to dwell. The rulers have passed, yet their echoes remain In portraits and banners preserved from the flame. Moscow now dances to commerce and trade, To football and business and fortunes made. The cafés stay crowded, the avenues bright, Their towers reflecting the neon at night. It is not the Moscow of Ivan's command, Nor Lenin's crusade to remake every land. Yet history still whispers beneath every frame, And some silences linger despite every change. And here too survives the unspoken refrain: Nobody should say Navalny's name. For that was the rule, so the legend explains, Established by one who broke ideological chains. The ruler who ended the Soviet game, And sealed the last page of its chapter of flame. The bells still ring over Kremlin walls, The tricolor still flies where evening falls. And history whispers again and again Of promises broken and promises kept. For nations are temples constructed from scars, Built equally out of their triumphs and wars. Each layer of history covers the last, Yet never escapes it entirely at last. And somewhere beneath all the marble and flame, Beyond every ruler and celebrated name, A silence is guarded with ritual grace— A ghost in the empire no years can erase.

И вновь мы в Москве — к стенам старинным, Где туристы толпятся у врат былинных. Башни над площадью, над рекой стоят, Века невидимо в воздухе летят. Кремль теперь — и музей, и живая легенда, Место, где память не знает забвенья. Правители сгинули — эхо живёт, В портретах, знамёнах огонь не умрёт. Москва танцует под ритм торговли, дел, Футбола, бизнеса, новых удел. Кафе полны, проспекты светлы, Башни в ночи отражают огни. Не та Москва, что при Иване была, Не та, что любовь Ленина миру дала. Но история шепчет под каждой стеной, И тишина остаётся — хоть мир иной. И здесь тоже живёт негласный завет: Имя одно не звучит много лет. Так повелось — гласит тот закон, Установлен тем, кто порвал идеологем кон. Правитель, что завершил советский этап, Последнюю страницу закрыл без утрат. Звон колокольный плывёт над Кремлём, Триколор в закате — огнём, огнём. Шепчет история, будто во сне, О данных словах — и тех, что во мгле. Народы — храмы, возведённые из ран, Из триумфов и битв слагался их стан. Каждый пласт истории прошлый накрыл, Но от прошлого след в веках не остыл. Под мрамором внешним, в глубинах времён, За славой правителей, за блеском знамён, Молчание — истина, в ней весь ответ, Призрак империи — вечности свет.

PLATO.markdown

The Noble Lie

In the city of light where shadows play,
The guardians teach what the people must hear:
“From Earth's deep womb you all were shaped this day,
With sacred metals mingled in you here.

Gold in the rulers, wisdom’s living flame,
Silver in soldiers, steadfast heart and spear,
Bronze and iron in those who till and tame—
Thus each fulfills the purpose granted here.”

This noble fiction, healer of the soul,
A pharmakon bestowed by those who know,
Binds many lives into a living whole
And keeps the tides of civil discord low.

The wise may shape the tale to guard the state,
To shield the fragile peace that order brings;
Yet common men must never imitate
The freedom granted unto wiser kings.

For falsehood in the soul is deepest night,
A wound no mortal physician can repair;
Yet falsehood shaped by wisdom for the right
Becomes a remedy the state may bear.

Thus order rises on the wings of story,
And restless hearts find purpose in its call;
For dreams unite the many in their glory,
Lest every polis crumble in its fall.

que-lo-que.markdown

The Berlin Journey

In Berlin’s iron dusk the student stood,
Where concrete fangs once split a nation's heart.
The guide spoke low of walls of steel and blood,
Of searchlights tearing fleeing lives apart.
Men raced toward an island in the night,
A spark of freedom in the socialist blight.

They led him down through tunnels clawed by fear,
Where damp earth drank the breath of desperate men.
Each inch was stolen from the guarded frontier,
Each footstep wagered life and hope again.
He listened, yet a deeper flame would claim
The question history never learned to name.

Years blazed through paper, ink, and restless fire,
New doctrines rose and promised grand release.
He chased each dream that beckoned ever higher,
Across the seas in search of lasting peace.
Yet something lingered just beyond the seas,
Forever standing slightly out of reach of these.

One sleepless night a Bible opened wide,
Beneath a lamp its ancient numbers shone.
He traced strange patterns, argued, cursed, denied,
Then sat in silence, frightened and alone.
A ticket bought before the dawn could rise,
And Jerusalem appeared before his eyes.

He walked the stones and knelt among the trees,
He searched the shrines and wandered gallery halls.
He listened hard for whispers in the breeze,
For some clear answer echoing through walls.
But heaven kept its silence, vast and cold,
No voice replied, no hidden truth unrolled.

The question followed, carried on the wind,
Across the borders, checkpoints, roads, and years.
No prophet came, no revelation pinned
A final answer to his doubts and fears.
The silence deepened as the seasons flew,
Until one afternoon it broke in two.

The home. The pines. The playground. Summer grass.
A butterfly came drifting through the air.
It settled softly as the moment passed,
Upon a young girl's dark and curling hair.
So slight a thing that no one else would care,
Yet all at once it altered everything there.

The years collapsed.

Berlin:

The Wall,
The wire,
The guards.

Jerusalem:

The stones,
The shrines,
The bells.

A butterfly.

A girl.

He stood again inside the children's camp,
A relic stranded like a fading stamp.
Where Soviet echoes shaped the young once more,
Though history had swept beyond the shore.
History's workshop, stubbornly alive,
Still teaching yesterday how to survive.

Her eyes, unguarded, wide as evening skies,
Contained a depth no doctrine could comprise.
One smile—half sunlight and half mystery—
Unlocked at once his buried history.
No creed could hold the wonder in her gaze,
Or match the quiet radiance of those days.

The blast.

Then memory erupted. Not as thought.
Not as a lesson anyone had taught.
But like a star collapsing into fire,
Then hurling light beyond its own desire.

The shockwave.

A chain reaction racing through the years,
Igniting buried joys and hidden tears.

The silence after.

And suddenly he knew why walls must fall,
Not merely those of concrete, guns, and stone.
The deepest prison is not built at all,
Its borders run through every heart alone.
And freedom, sought in empires, faith, and art,
Arrives unnoticed through another heart.

So men raise walls, and others tunnel through.
And pilgrims cross the deserts seeking signs.
Yet what remained unsaid, forever true,
Outlived the states and outlasted the shrines.
A little girl's smile against the dying sun—
The only breach where freedom had been won.

REDEMPTION.markdown

In fractured mirrors where the world pretends
To wear its faces fixed as stone and fate,
The Joker laughs — a crooked god who bends
The bars between the prison and the gate.

For once he dwelt where loneliness was king,
A frightened child in symbols cold and vast,
Yet in his cell there stood a black old Singer,
A relic from a kinder age long passed.

A grandmother with weathered hands and eyes
Had taught him how to guide the dancing thread:
"Most walls are cloth disguised as stone," she'd smile,
"And many things are sewn, not forged," she said.

So while the world saw banners, crowns, and scars,
He watched the hidden stitching underneath;
The seams that held together gods and wars,
The knots of longing tangled into grief.

He saw the Man: the regulator, blade
Of order forged in thunder, iron, blood —
Who builds the wall, who guards the palisade,
Yet drowns his tenderness beneath the flood.

He saw the Woman: chalice, moonlit tide,
The gentle loom where wounded spirits rest,
Where mercy opens all its gates wide —
Yet hides from truths that trouble every nest.

Two energies, each sovereign, each blind,
Entwined in ancient dance yet locked in war;
One seeks to judge, one seeks to heal mankind,
And both grow weak denying what they're for.

Like Shakespeare's players strutting through the age,
We wear our masks and call the costume skin:
The King, the Queen, the Warrior, the Sage,
Forgetting where the actor ends, begins.

The Joker strips the painted masks away
And shows the trembling faces underneath.
"No role is law," he laughs. "They're props in play,
Made out of habit, memory, and belief."

The signs that seemed eternal, hard, and true —
The guarded words of "Man" and "Woman" carved —
Appear as garments one may wander through,
Not prison walls by destiny engraved.

He learned the language spoken by the spear,
The tongue of ranks and borders, loss and blame;
He learned the language beauty bends to hear,
Of gardens, songs, acceptance, and of shame.

Yet every talk of beauty turned to war,
And every talk of war revealed a wound;
The deeper that he listened at the seam,
The more each side appeared the other's dream.

Ideas bloomed like wildfire in the dark:
"Strength needs no mask."
"Compassion may judge too."
Each paradox became a wandering spark
That leapt the fences neither side passed through.

Catastrophe unfolded in its wake.
Old certainties collapsed like rotten beams.
The towers cracked. The sheltered circles shook.
The world grew stranger than its oldest dreams.

At last he came unto the sacred grove,
The hidden sanctuary veiled in green,
Where no harsh foot had ever dared to rove,
And every scar was washed and kept unseen.

Impregnable it seemed — a womb of mist,
Of whispered vows and unconditional tide.
No spear, they said, could ever penetrate;
No edge of conflict breach what lay inside.

Yet Joker came with neither sword nor shield,
No conquering army marching at his back.
He brought a question neither side could yield,
A thread that slipped through every guarded crack.

He entered not by force but by disguise —
Or rather by revealing all disguise.
The painted smile, the purple suit, the jest:
A way to show that costumes are not flesh.

The mothers cried. The keepers cursed his name.
The walls of certainty began to sway.
For through the gate there entered not a man,
But contradiction finding its own way.

And through the breach the currents started flowing:
The spear learned mercy, chalice learned the blade.
The things each side had spent long years refusing
Returned at last and asked to be repaid.

Still in his lonely cell the Joker stayed,
Beside the Singer humming soft and low.
The prison seemed unchanged by all he'd made,
Yet through its bars opposing rivers flowed.

Not one but two great passages he'd found:
The first through thought, the second through the heart.
One crossed the walls that language built around;
One stitched together worlds once torn apart.

And when at last a newer balance came,
When neither side remained entirely pure,
The Joker looked upon the ancient frame
And saw what all his wandering obscured.

The prison door had stood unlocked for years.
No warder watched. No chain remained to break.
The bars were woven out of borrowed fears,
Of symbols he had once believed opaque.

He smiled, then left the Singer where it stood,
Its needle resting quietly at peace.
No triumph crowned him, no applauding crowd —
Only the simple freedom of release.

The masks lay scattered on the silent floor.
The threads remained, connecting near and far.
The Joker bowed — not vanishing once more,
But stepping out beneath the ordinary stars.