Pollice Verso by Jean-Leon Gerome,
1872, Phoenix Art Museum, public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia
It’s been a busy summer of play for the citizens of Moscow.
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It is all part of a monthslong festival called Summer in Moscow, a shining emblem of the government’s multibillion-dollar efforts to turn the Russian capital into a giant carnival and keep Muscovites in a state of perpetual distraction from the grinding war in Ukraine.
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The invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin appears determined to continue despite U.S. diplomatic exertions, has sent tens of thousands of Russians to their deaths, strained the country’s economy and further isolated Russia from the West.
But for a majority of Russians, life has never been better.
In Moscow, home to 13 million people, more than a decade of immense investment has turned the city into one of the world’s most modern metropolises. Events like Summer in Moscow keep the focus on these improvements and push the war as far as possible from the public mind, even as Russia bombards Kyiv with missiles and drones and continues pursuing its maximalist goals in Ukraine.
In July, 57 percent of those surveyed by the Levada Center, an independent Russian pollster, said they were satisfied with their lives, the highest number since such polls began in 1993, two years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Still, the pact between the government and Russians that has produced such sentiment cannot last forever, Ms. Khrushcheva said. There are already cracks. The government budget to prop up the appearance of plenty is running low. Pro-war radicals encouraged by the Kremlin, she said, have grown increasingly angry that most Russians don’t care about the war. “This summer might be the turning point,” Ms. Khrushcheva said.
Slava Ukraine!
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