Bad Talk

In Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal, Leonid Radzikhovsky writes with unconcealed distaste and irony about a recent edition of Vladimir Pozner’s news and analysis program ("Vremena") on the de facto state-controlled ORT television channel, devoted to the issue of racism and racially-motivated attacks:

For the broadcast discussion Pozner invited Krutov (the letter about the "prohibition of Jewish organizations"), Prokhanov and Zhirinovsky. From "the other side" there were a number of sane persons about whose appearances I will not write here - not my theme. Zhirinovsky, as always, shone. With his small town accent, witticisms and temperament, he explained with relish that a) the father of the murdered Tajik girl dealt in narcotics and the brother of the adolescent who killed the girl died of an overdose (the law court decreed that no killer was found), b) that the whole of Russia belongs to the Jews, c) that the poorest and most oppressed people in Russia are Russians d) that the former director of the CIA Allen Dulles issued a call to destroy Russian people and that the skinheads are fighting (with 9-year-old Tajik girls, agents of the deceased Dulles) for the survival of the Russian people. He also explained a few more things, just as interesting, but I was no longer able to take them in.

And Radzikhovsky wonders:

But to invite him on to the air - why?

And why do our pop singers - Khazanov and Galkin, Vinokur and Kobzon, Pugacheva and Gazmanov – invite him to all their get-togethers? As a table decoration? And – aren’t they ashamed?

There are more accounts of new racist attacks, this time in Siberia, here.