Heroes of a mediocre time By Grigory Pasko, journalist Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда. A joke: The Russians have a saying – Какая держава – такие и победы. Which translates roughly as “What kind of country you have tells you what kind of victories you can expect from it.” In the past, we felt proud because Gagarin had flown into outer space. Nowadays – it’s because Dima Bilan has taken first place in Eurovision… If a government official in Russia has done something shameful, has committed a crime related to his position, has manifested blatant incompetence, but at the same time has remained loyal and true to the ruling establishment, then you can be sure that they will not remove him and will not punish him. Furthermore, most likely he will be promoted or transferred to another cushy cash-generating job. It is precisely to such a conclusion that one can come after analyzing certain personnel reshuffles in the Russian establishment of recent days. And yet another important conclusion: Putin continues to run the country. And the personnel reshuffles also bear witness to precisely this. Let’s talk about but a few of the personages on whose example these conclusions are clear and understandable.