Russia returns to moral high ground

[Perun]

Russia returns to moral high ground after sexual
revolution hits new lows


A backlash against the ‘sex sells’ culture has seen
Russians embrace the old Soviet values, finds Andrew
Osborn in Moscow



Moscow’s increasingly conservative city fathers have
had enough – of sex, bare flesh and profanity, that
is.
Fourteen years after the Soviet Union collapsed, along
with its stuffy moral precepts, Russian politicians
have decided the country’s fabled liberality has gone
too far.

Moscow’s deputies believe they have the remedy: a law
that would ban advertisements featuring swear words,
genitalia and “filthy gestures and poses”.

And their concerns are far from isolated. Right across
Russia, from St Petersburg to Vladivostok, the calls
for a renaissance of Soviet-style puritanism and a
return to moral order are being voiced with increasing
frequency.

Once a drab, neon-free and asexual zone, Moscow itself
has metamorphosed into a city where anything goes.

Sex is shoved in your face, no matter how old you are
and whether you like it or not.

Billboards featuring soft lesbian scenes stare down on
dusty Communist statues, underwear adverts for women’s
thongs leave almost nothing to the imagination and
sexual double entendres are used to sell anything from
cars to phones.

Deprived of commercialism for years, experts say
Russia has embraced the old adage that “sex sells”
with gusto but with little regulation, a phenomenon
that has at turns shocked, offended and titillated.

To add insult to moral injury, strip clubs and
brothels line many of the city’s main avenues,
hardcore pornography DVDs are on sale at most of the
city’s metro stations and sex shops sit cheek by jowl
with schools.

Young people who have only vague memories of
Soviet-style morality, where sex was rarely referred
to in public, do not bat an eyelid at any of this.

But middle-aged and older Russians find it distasteful
and are beginning to realise that democracy and
capitalism do not have to go hand in hand with sex.

After one Muscovite complained that she had caught her
five-year-old grandson watching a pornographic video
he had bought from a sex shop near his school,
lawmakers decided enough was enough.




Under a law drafted by Moscow Duma deputy Ludmila
Stebenkova, sex shops will soon be prohibited in
residential homes, markets, airports, railway stations
and from within 500 metres of schools, cemeteries,
theatres and hospitals.

The clean-up battle is also being waged on TV.
Nationally, lawmakers are trying to ban the broadcast
of violent images or images of an extreme sexual
nature between 7am and 10pm.

For the authorities, efforts to promote clean living
and high moral standards often go hand in hand with
patriotism, and a new “military-patriotic” channel
called Zvezda aired in Moscow for the first time
recently with the backing of the defence ministry.

Its director has said he wants to produce content
suitable for his five-year-old son.

The famously conservative Russian Orthodox Church is
also doing its bit. It is in the process of setting up
a nationwide channel to promote Christian morality and
oppose “the cult of consumption and pleasure”.

Church leaders, who have the Kremlin’s ear, say that
television adverts should not promote sex, alcohol or
cigarettes, and the government has fallen into line.
Beer ads have been banned from radio and TV between
7am and 10pm, the consumption of beer is to be
prohibited in many of public places such as hospitals
and schools, and children under the age of 18 have
finally been banned from buying beer, traditionally
considered a soft drink in Russia.




The Church says the media have much to answer for,
notably for the fact that some eight out of 10
marriages end in divorce and that an estimated
one-third of births take place out of wedlock.

“It is they [the media] who sow the seeds of
licentiousness, selfishness, the cult of comfort and
freedom from morality,” says Patriarch Alexei II. As a
result, he adds, “an increasing number of married
couples do not have children at all”.

A Kremlin-backed youth group called Walking Together
is trying to turn the tide. With a nationwide
membership of 100,000, it urges its members to adhere
to a strict moral code which urges respect for one’s
parents, no drunkenness or drugs and respect for core
family values.

It has recently been joined by another
Kremlin-inspired youth association called Nashi, or
“One of Us”.

Nashi’s aims are more political, though. Its goal is
to ensure that a velvet-style revolution of the type
seen in Ukraine and elsewhere never comes to pass in
Russia, where anti-Kremlin youth groups and a
fervently pro-democracy opposition are beginning to
stir.

In the eyes of the authorities, morality is closely
linked to national security.

The Kremlin is said to be concerned that young people
are becoming too fond of the single, promiscuous,
commitment-free lifestyle at the expense of Russia’s
falling birth rate.

The current average birth rate is 1.25 children per
woman. A rate of 2.13 needs to be attained if the
existing population level is to be maintained,
something that is regarded as vital for Russian
national security.

06 March 2005

[Cristoforo]

Finally some good news from Russia. This move was long overdue imho.

Unfortunately, the anarcho-capitalism & materialism that hit Russia in these years did some unrecoverable damage to the Russian youth.

[Ederico]

Go Russia, this is good news. All of Europe needs such measures.

[Dr. Solar Wolff]

Well, guys, I have a alternate view of the Universe. Sex aside, in my mind, Vladimir Putin has had a profound impact on issues I consider important. When Putin jailed the Zionist controlling Yukos Oil, he spoiled the Big Iraq Party for Bush, Cheney, Sharon, the Neo-Cons and Zionism in general. Putin, in jailing Whatever His NameWas, busted up a scheme to redirect an old oil pipeline, build a new one (Halliburton), allow Yukos to merge with a Western Oil Giant (Exxon, Shell etc.) and run the pipelines to Haifa for refining, allowing the Israelis all the oil they wanted for themselves and their war machine. This was a done-deal between Yukos, the Bush Administration, and Israel. The only problem what that nobody told Vladimir Putin. Putin put an end to all of this and for this he has my gratitude.

[Rusalka]

Somehow I have difficulty trusting a guy who was a devoted communist, a fan of the system and a KGB agent turned Orthodox conservative. Reminds me of one Mister Chugashvili whose career had started in the Tsar's secret police service Okhrana. He is better known as the Bolshevik revolutionary and the hero of the biggest personality cult of our times, Stalin. Like him Putin doesn't give a rat's ass about any ideology and only cares about the power. Today conservative views sell in Russia. If tomorrow something else worked, I'm sure he'd 'move on' with the times as well. A shameless opportunist, and a very good politician if one cares for that sort of thing.

Besides, Soviet-style puritanism meets Russian Orthodox orthodoxy? How weird is that?

[Kernunnos]

The only hope we have is Russia, and Russia is getting back to be an empire.

Most notably, it is the only european country with oil.

Russia cannot be blackmailed.

If only Russian political elites started reaizing the potential l they could have in european right wing nationalistic parties, they could set the base for a strong Europe freed from immigrants multiculturalism, invaders and projected again into a primary world role.

[svin]

Your view of Russia & its current political system is quite romantic, but is not true. What we have here is much, much worse. And these "moral values" are false values that just replaced old communits beliefs in Lenin, Stalin & Marx. They are not sincere and come from populist politicians.

I don't want others to speak of my moral values, there's no need. They have to do their work but instead they keep speaking of "unique & mysterious Russian soul" and still do nothing.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by svin

Your view of Russia & its current political system is quite romantic, but is not true. What we have here is much, much worse. And these "moral values" are false values that just replaced old communits beliefs in Lenin, Stalin & Marx. They are not sincere and come from populist politicians.
They have to do their work but instead they keep speaking of "unique & mysterious Russian soul" and still do nothing.

This phenomenon is so widespread in all Slavic countries and in Eastern Europe in general, not only in Russia. You have always an abundant crop of populists blathering about glorious past, about the national soul, without doing anything to improve the present situation.