Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries

Enjoying free-for-all and not seeing the edge, officials do not understand that they are left in absolute solitude.

There is a certain stage of intoxication, as the saying goes: "see no edge". it is when a person being under the influence of drunken chest-thumping does not realize that he drank too much and looks not even ridiculous, but disgusting and does indecent acts in public. Yesterday I came up with a feeling that the Belarusian government along with its personnel - from rural to Lukashenka one - suffered that permanent state. They see the edge neither in the morning nor in the night. And they constantly keep dipping the bill not to get sober and start thinking.

A strange man among Belarusian Paralympians takes out a Russian flag all of a sudden and unfurls it during the Opening Ceremony. And holds it with a big smile on his face. He does not see the edge, of course. Sure, he is not a Paralympian, buta mid-level bureaucrat in the Ministry of Sports and Tourism. He knows that he can do whatever he likes, because it falls within behavioural line of the Belarusian government: to be stupid and mean, and to be constantly in the state "see no edge".

He was probably not aware of putting athletes on the line. Well, he was deprived of accreditation and expelled from the Games. But not from the Brazil - now he can spend some time not on the stadium with Paralympians as a member of the delegation, but on the Copacabana Beach as a special state-financed guest, sipping local cachaca, God forbid, in order not to see the edge. He feels good. Does a bureaucrat care that the entire team could have been expelled?

Brothers Russians have announced this dude a hero and invited to the country. Local bureaucrats-colleagues called him "athlete" - well, how it empowers, when a raging drunkard is called an athlete. Lukashenka confirmed through his press secretary: yes, this is our position - our bureaucrats are allowed to everything they like both within the country and abroad. The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mironchyk swept questions about the possible punishment under the carpet: if there is any fine, the government will pay. Shop till you drop. No edges - freeedooom!

The state might have as much money as it is coming out of ears, and it makes no problem to pay huge sums for shameful behavior of bureaucrats. What a problem, guys? Teachers will refill the budget with mandatory payments, doctors will "twist" on three jobs, the way bureaucrats say, then Makaeu with Vinyarski once again issued huge fines - that will be the pay for bureaucratic uproars abroad.

Enjoying free-for-all and not seeing the edge, officials do not understand that they are left in absolute solitude. Well, they called him a hero and invited to Russia. That was not official invitation - the head of the Russian Paralympic Committee Vladimir Lukin told journalists asking for comments: tell him to come to us. That is, "if you find yourself in the Kolyma - drop into." Nothing more.

A Russian general producer of "Match TV" Tina Kandelaki said that the channel would not broadcast the Paralympics, because the Russian audience had no one to support there. So, they will not even support you, guys. What was the ground?

Iryna Khalip, especially for charter97.org