Decay.

These quotes are from a beautiful article^[1] about a part of Russia that is dying off:

Vasily Rasskazov is the only person who lives in in the village of Vorobevo, which is located in the Vologda region. "The village council used to be here. There was a feeding base here for 300 calves here. I was a herder here, during the Soviet years. Now everything has gone to rot and fallen apart. Somehow this all could have been done more gently. I understand that it shouldn't be like it was in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union didn't do a single goddamn good thing; it collapsed. But everything could have been a bit more gentle," Vasily says.

And this about

Sergey Filenko from Karelia leads his boat along the waters of the Sukhona river. In 2002, Filenko in his boat left Lake Onega and sailed down the Vodla river, retracing the routes of medieval fur traders in the Ob River basin. His boat might be the only one in history to travel from Lake Onega to the Arctic Urals by oars alone. "Stalin used up Russia," Sergey says. "The Russian people used it up. And everyone else finished off the village. And now no one is left. It's the pyramids that can stand 40 centuries, and then another 40, and nothing happens to them. But a wooden house, Russian culture, the village—these things depend on the people. Without people, it all disappears in a matter of years. It burns down, rots, and in five years all you've got is forest again. And nothing more."

The photos, also by Denis Sinyakov, are beautiful.

Nothing is forever.

State-of-the-art Western politics.

Draw your own conclusions about whether Western people are being as improvident as the Soviets. They played with preposterous notions of changing government and man for the better and succeeded mostly in murder and waste.

In the West, globalism, multiculturalism, and sheep-like acceptance of Totalitarianism Lite are on the menu now. People seem to like it. The fairy tales. And being someone's bitch.

We shall see.

Notes
^[1] "A civilization built on rivers Russia’s increasingly deserted countryside and the rivers that once were its lifeblood." Denis Sinyakov, Meduza, 9/9/15.

H/t: Russian Insider.