Both here and in the neighboring country, wits do not fetch happiness. Brains flow to the West, and stupidity throngs from the East in the shape of grass and life philosophy. The filters civilization has put up right beyond the Carpathians are designed in such a way that intellectual potential can seep through, while brawn, except that of athletes, remains behind in this country. These processes have brought forth the word “vatnik” [literally, “rough quilted cotton-padded jacket.” – Ed.], a new term in the non-scientific classification of homo sapiens. In Ukraine, this word applies to people who have given in to Russian propaganda and are taking a dimly stupid view of the world. In Russia, this meme is applicable to bellicose jingoists. Since early 2014, the word has been occurring as a neologism on official linguistic websites. The article was titled “Rushka, a Rectangular Vatnik.” But soon, under the pressure of noble Russophiles, this material was deleted from Wikipedia as Russophobic. Aleksei Navalny, who personifies the rebellious spirit in Russia, considers this a right decision, for it is wrong to call the government’s followers vatniks, you know.
Let us try to go into the history of this meme, an important unit of cultural information. Maybe, vatnik emerged as a result of imitating the German designers of the blond beast, as was the case of the Moskvich car that “stole” the Opel’s body. They used the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche to raise patriots and supermen. But when the scheme went bust, “blonde Bestie” was long applied to all kinds of scum with racist persuasions. It looks very much like Putin’s Seliger lake monster, but does not quite meet the color and eye shape standards. Vatnik is a Mongolian, rather than an Aryan, type.
If official Russian statistics is anything to go by, the character types we are trying to understand account for 80 percent of the big country’s population. Tramps and doctors, workers and poets, film directors and State Duma members speak and, maybe, think like vatniks. They are not exactly “sovki” [lit., “scoops.” – Ed.] in the classical psychological typology of homo Sovieticus, for the “sovki” were ideologically-committed people who honored the Criminal Code and the Moral Code of a Communism Builder. They were just cogs in the machine, and they feared and prayed for the state. By contrast, those who favor Putin and support all his dangerous fantasies have no fear or shame and could not care less about laws.
Some call them lumpens and fringe people, which I agree to when I see a Russian or, alas, a Ukrainian economy-class railroad car. But the same vatniks also travel business class – they have university degrees, MP badges, and people’s artist titles. The most successful ones, who are called presidents of companies and states, even fly on personal aircraft. They can hardly be called lumpens – only perhaps when they were in their early youth.
I am not the only one who can see tail coats, tuxedos, and European-cut suits showing from the wool-padded quilted coats that stand in close ranks. I think it is a tribute to fashion. In Russia, the vatnik is a symbol of public authenticity, as is the embroidered shirt in Ukraine. Simply, we wear insignia under the jacket and they do over it – mostly in their homeland. This also kindles interest in their wardrobe. Why should the intellectuals, who have signed a letter in support of the war against Ukraine, put on prison wear if they can don the clothes of Russian pop stars and walk around in red pants without arousing suspicions? But the vatnik is not only a piece of outerwear, but also, in Andrei Platonov’s language, a loud course of secret thoughts. In the opinion of the writer V. Yerofeyev, the author of The Foundation Pit and Chevengur expressed the spirit and flesh of an “Inquisition-bent” population that chants “Crimea is ours,” gloats over a downed Boeing plane, and feels a burning desire to conquer half the world and make it look like Russia. Indeed, vatniks’ faces show a lot of traits of Platonov’s heroes who dig the foundation pit of civilization. “Each of them hit upon the idea of his future rescue from here – one wished to boost his record of service and apply to an educational institution, another waited for a suitable moment for conversion training, still another preferred to make his way into the Party and hide himself in the bureaucratic apparatus – and each of them was zealously digging the earth, always remembering his idea of rescue.”
This kind of people emerges when the idea of rescue becomes more important than reflections on life. They wear crosses on the neck but have no God deep in the heart. They are ready to die for an idea, but they are unable to explain it. They are different – drug addicts and criminals, film directors and writers, managers and politicians. What unites them is a vatnik, the outfit of convicts from a parallel reality of the Russian World. Everything is home-made here, like in the cellar of a pensioner’s dacha. The laws, morality, and religion were designed according to home recipes. The globally-known wrongdoers are considered heroes here – they are popular inside but unknown outside the country. What is fatal to the surrounding populace is of benefit to them. Whence is this anomaly?
From the Tatar-Mongols who occupied the Kremlin in the Middle Ages? From tsarist despotism, when people were being led across the wilderness of serfdom for 300 years so that they could finally forget freedom? From the Bolsheviks who drowned shiploads of the educated to vacate places for the ignorant? From Putin who has raised rudiments to the status of conquests?
We will perhaps find threads of different times in the cotton pad stitches. But what remains unchanged is the label. It has always indicated narrow-mindedness.
A vatnik is pleased with the environment, the government, and his own life which seems to be happy against the backdrop of terrible outside events which he can see on TV. Aleksandr Asmolov, head of the Individual Psychology Department at Moscow State University’s Psychology School, recently told me about a survey his colleagues had conducted in Belgorod oblast. The academics analyzed the basic life needs of villagers, and some results really struck them. A half of the respondents said they did not need a toilet in the housem, 28 percent of those polled need no shower, and 35 percent would do without a car, 60 percent would not enlarge their private business even if there were an opportunity to do so, 60 percent confessed openly that they do not think it is shameful to steal.
Although no polls were conducted in Rublyovka [a VIP residential area in a suburb of Moscow. – Ed.], it may be presumed that local residents do not object to house WCs and are quite happy with what little they have. But, like everywhere, 60 or more percent of them also support stealing. Renowned actors are not striving to become world stars, politicians are quite happy with their own “fiefs,” and even billionaires occupy a separate place in Forbes, having no desire to stand next to Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, David Rockefeller, and many others who have supported the Giving Pledge.
For this reason, vatniks fear no sanctions. The ragged have nothing to lose – they have had enough money to buy vodka and cucumbers in any times. The fat ones have stocked up all they need in good time – they are so far more afraid of the ragged than of “sector-targeted sanctions.” It is the middle class, a thin stratum outside the pubic sector, that has turned out to be vulnerable. Their behavior will soon show how many hardcore vatniks there are among them. So far, they all like the vogue trend – it is no wonder because restrictions are their own element.
