When I worked at a military newspaper as chief of the combat training department, the editor often told us journalists: don’t write critical articles, more pozitiv, write more about good things… But the times were such that everything all around was collapsing: the country after perestroika, the combat education of the fleet at zero, the laws aren’t working, everybody’s thinking only about money and about how to survive… In response to the wailing of the editor we proposed to him to create in the editorial staff a department of «pink elephants» – a group of journalists who would write only about the positive, through a prism of rose-colored glasses.

More than ten years have passed. All this time they’re telling us: stability, development, democracy…But you can’t fool people’s moods. And you won’t fool the facts. All around in Russia – those same signs of uncertainly that had been in the years of postperestroika: the economy at zero (the oil price has fallen drastically), the laws aren’t working, everybody’s thinking only about money and about how to survive…

And those same calls by the leaders of the state: everything’s fine, be calm, attune yourself to the pozitiv…