Russian spies/agents/collaborators have not been arrested here for decades. (That's why everything is the way it is, a cynic will say.) So the current action is somewhat new to the local public.
Before that - from 1948 until somewhere in the middle or end of the eighties, there was no more difficult label in Montenegro than "Russian spy". All doors were immediately closed to anyone who heard that, and suspicion followed him for the rest of his life. That's the time when it is Izet Sarajlić reacted lyrically to such circumstances - Loving Russia is not profitable... And it wasn't, then.
And then, suddenly, overnight, the years came when "loving Russia" here became "lucrative", and one could almost say popular. Entire squares echoed: We want Russians. What is perhaps Montenegrin specific is the fact that you remember the same political figures who spread irrational love for Russia, with the same passion with which today they call for caution and alarm. Which has a place, a long time ago. Because, that time when there was "lucrative" love for Russia in Montenegro shaped a good part of the positional-oppositional so-called political elites in the past thirty years. But all this is just one of the faces of Montenegrin political schizophrenia.
Another reminder, which, at least a little, clarifies the whole picture with the Russians and their customs in this sphere of activity. At one time, the statements seemed comical and insincere to informed people Josip Broz and others of his generation that they did not cooperate with the NKVD, the infamous Soviet secret police, the forerunner of the even more infamous KGB. All of this was funny to those who knew one detail: Communists of the time, anywhere in the world, by becoming party members assumed the obligation to cooperate with the NKVD. It was, therefore, a gladly accepted political obligation. That's why the later bragging about party seniority unsullied by cooperation with monstrous services was, as we said, comical and, of course, untrue.
I remembered all this, because it is obvious that (even) today there are Montenegrins who believe that they are already born with the obligation to - work for the Russians.
Although the first impulse in the entire current episode will seem ideal for humorous registers, intonations like those from Bećković "A spy in Rovci" (after all, what do spies do here when everyone knows what they think and who they are for), this story is neither naive nor so funny. At least we don't see her off to the end. Including getting to know all the characters...
And that kind of political darkness has a lot going for it.
We read that the government decided to allocate 900.000 euros for the opening of two religious schools?
One side of the problem is whether the government should even participate financially in the opening of religious schools. That in this way it helps the Church that does not pay taxes and whose finances are not controlled by anyone? While through text messages we collect money for seriously ill children, and one of the important reasons for rebalancing the budget is the lack of medicine. I want to say - surely they could have been spent better and more noble.
The long side of the problem is also the question - what is the social logic in all this? Or are these pre-election tributes? Who and why has the right to such pre-election exhibitions? We strongly criticized the previous government for such moves.
Interesting: we still don't have complete judicial bodies, a full Constitutional Court, which were, may it be recalled, the key promises of the so-called minority government, but we have signed the so-called Basic contract and two newly opened Orthodox schools? If it is Joannikius the prime minister could hardly do better...
And not only in that sphere. The educational zone seems to be particularly vulnerable. Just as I am finishing the text, the news about a gruesome event appears. Much scarier actually, than bruises. In an elementary school in Podgorica, three boys beat one of them because he said he supported Ukraine.
It seems that in Montenegro the training for "Russian people" starts very early...
Bonus video:
