- The young, headscarfed woman glares fiercely out from
the billboard, her finger to her lips. Below, her message to passers-by
is stark and somewhat menacing: "Swearing isn't our style."
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- Welcome to Belgorod, a medium-sized Russian town 400
miles (650 km) south of Moscow, where austere Soviet values are still,
miraculously, intact. As the nightclubs, restaurants and shopping malls
of the capital embrace Western hedonism with gusto, Belgorod is trying
to recreate a strictly ordered world which most Russians have forgotten
existed.
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- In Belgorod, a public outburst of foul language is punishable
by an on-the-spot fine ranging between 500 rubles (£10) and 1,500.
The size of the penalty depends on which neighbour overheard the obscenity.
Foul language in front of a child, naturally, carries the highest price.
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- At the town's nightclubs, such as the Art Studio, dancers
and clubbers must - by law - limit their numbers on the dance floor to
no more than two people per square metre. Sweaty group love-ins are banned
and clubs are, in any case, ordered to shut down at 10pm. Disc jockeys
are constrained to abandon modern play-lists in favour of a set quota of
traditional folk songs for the enlightenment and edification of punters.
-
- St Valentine's Day, which carries obvious dangers of
licentious behaviour, has long been replaced by a wholesome celebration
of the town's Christian youth.
-
- Anyone under 18 is subject to a 10pm curfew in winter
(11pm in summer). The owners of discos and internet cafÈs are routinely
fined for "harbouring" minors after those hours. Given the long
list of rules, regulations and restrictions, it comes as no surprise that
Belgorod, with great fanfare, recently elected a traffic policeman as its
"model citizen".
-
- The main architect of Belgorod's social planning is Pavel
Nikolaievich Bespalenko, an adviser to Yevgeny Savchenko, the region's
somewhat authoritarian governor.
-
- Sitting beneath a sober portrait of Russia's President
Vladimir Putin, himself a stickler for discipline, Mr Bespalenko, the town's
regional head of youth policy, is happy to defend a way of life that, to
Westerners, seems rooted in the mores of the 1950s . His eyes light up
as he describes the Belgorod vision.
-
- "We're working on an ideal of a young person. They
are patriotic, sporty and healthy, respect the motherland and their parents
and know the history of their country."
-
- This is, says Mr Bespalenko, all about improving people's
quality of life, injecting a sense of religion and spirituality, promoting
strong family values and making the populace understand that they must
love and respect their country. In fact, he admits, his policies amount
to a bit of good old-fashioned social engineering.
-
- Although Mr Bespalenko accepts that people can be trusted
to make their own moral choices, he believes that the state should play
a role in the moulding of the individual. "It's important that a person
feels the government is worrying about him," he says. "We must
create a decent environment, an environment that people deserve. It's our
duty. Plants don't grow if you don't water them and it's the same with
people. They need help."
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- Thus, parents are held accountable for their children's
conduct. The fines for breaking the curfew, swearing at school or general
anti-social behaviour are heavy. In order to ensure that standards are
maintained, the police keep 30 per cent of fines. The rest is ploughed
into the regional budget.
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- Amazingly, most townspeople, even among the young, do
not seem to object to Mr Bespalenko's role in their lives. "It's all
good," says an 18-year-old girl called Ira. "I've got nothing
against it at all. I just wish they'd ban smoking too."
-
- Other youngsters do mutter darkly about the music they
are forced to endure. DJs are instructed to play "highly artistic
compositions of Russian and foreign classics, folklore, pop and bard music,"
and are supposed to have completed their secondary education - and be familiar
with Russia's laws on culture.
-
- The music must be morally uplifting. Courses are being
organised to help Belgorod's DJs improve their qualifications and cultural
awareness. Sound levels are also capped at 120 decibels. But few adolescents
are prepared to complain in public, risking the wrath of Mr Bespalenko
and his colleagues.
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- It is similarly difficult to find an openly hostile adult.
For most, it seems, Belgorod's "model citizen", the now deceased
traffic policeman, Pavel Kirilovich Grechikov, is an inspiration.
-
- "Pavel Kirilovich was the most honest guy that ever
lived," enthuses Yevgeny, a taxi driver. In the middle of a roundabout
on a particularly bleak stretch of road, stands a bronze monument to Grechikov.
Known as the "unbribeable" copper, the traffic policeman is portrayed
next to his motorcycle and sidecar, with a whistle in one hand and a baton
in the other.
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- "He even fined his own wife for jaywalking once
when she was crossing the road to buy his dinner," says Yevgeny. "He
never took bribes either. Never."
-
- In the absence of a popular revolt, Belgorod seems set
to become a lesson in manners and decorum to the rest of Russia. During
a tour of the town last week, Belgorod appeared to be an ideal setting
for a very Russian version of The Stepford Wives. The streets were unnaturally
clean. Drivers, unlike in Moscow, happily give way to pedestrians. Young
mothers strolled around the town centre pushing prams past the immaculate
statue of Vladimir Lenin, which still has pride of place in front of the
government headquarters on Revolution Square.
-
- Beaming faces on giant posters looked down, instructing
citizens to be proud of a town "of rich earth and kind people".
The town's beautiful green and white cathedral was a a hive of activity.
-
- A steady flow of young women and office workers dropped
in to church during the course of the day to light candles beneath the
icon of their favourite saint and say a short prayer.
-
- Mr Bespalenko, who had a damascene conversion of sorts
when his 10-year-old son told him to "piss off", an incident
he puts down to his playing too many violent computer games, is satisfied
that the authorities' efforts to reform Belgorod are beginning to pay off.
-
- "In the beginning it was tough," said Mr Bespalenko.
"But now my own child tells me that kids are starting to swear less
at school. Playgrounds and yards have become quieter and we've shown people
that it's not fashionable or attractive to swear. There are other words
you can use. People need to understand that they are responsible for their
actions."
-
- Swearing, he added, is an outlet for negative energy.
According to research which has found its way to Belgorod, Japanese scientists
have proven that people who swear a lot undergo chemical changes in their
bodies - in a bad way. "It's a vicious circle. First a girl swears
with her friends, then she swears at her husband and then at someone in
the street."
-
- The town authorities are delighted that their experiment
in social engineering means that Belgorod is insulated from the decadence
of Moscow. In the council's brave new world, Moscow, and Muscovites, are
looked upon with horror and disdain.
-
- One widely used poster encapsulates the sentiment. On
one side, a smiling father plays with his children in a green meadow while
his wife picks flowers. The gleaming spire of a Russian Orthodox church
can be seen in the distance along with nice, new, well-built houses.
-
- On the other side is Belgorod's vision of Moscow: Piles
of money, ripped dollar bills, and dark forbidding streets filled with
sinister-looking villains, half-man, half-beast. Each is looking for a
victim, probably one from Belgorod.
-
- Predictably, the Orthodox Church supports the council's
punitive stance on anti-social and dangerous behaviour. In the gentle semi-darkness
of Belgorod's 19th-century cathedral, Father Nikolai, a black-robed octogenarian
cleric, explains that, from what he has learnt of discotheques outside
Belgorod, their effect on the soul is corrosive.
-
- "I've never been to a disco in my life," said
the cleric. "And I don't know exactly what goes on there, but nothing
good, that's for sure."
-
- As for St Valentine's Day, outlawed by the local authorities,
Father Nikolai states witheringly: "It is not an authentic feast day,
it's artificial." Mr Bespalenko agrees. "It's all about advertising
and greeting cards. That's all. Russian people like holidays but we gave
them something different instead: The Day of Orthodox Youth." This
year, in an apparently acclaimed 14 February production, an allegorical
rock musical called The Master, about good and evil, was performed.
-
- After listening for so long to happy citizens and evangelical
politicians, it was a relief to finally come across some voices of dissent,
albeit muted. One resident, who would only speak on condition that he not
be named, said hypocrisy is rife in Mr Bespalenko's model town. "The
police who impose the fines should start with themselves because they never
speak without swearing," he said. Others talk of widespread corruption,
accusing the police of being too keen to enforce the ban because they get
to keep 30 per cent of every fine. There are also rumours that nightclubs,
when the police are looking the other way, are cranking the volume and
turning a blind eye to breaches of the space regulations on the dancefloor.
Are Belgorod's many rules and regulations an excuse for the unscrupulous
in positions of power to make a quick buck?
-
- Viktor Odenets, a Belgorod police officer, admits he
and his colleagues are not beyond reproach. "Of course we swear ourselves,
like in every country. But if you're telling an anecdote over a few beers,
well, it's not serious is it? If you're swearing between yourselves then
there's no problem. The problem arises when you insult someone else or
when a passer-by, a mother or a pensioner, is affected."
-
- For Belgorod, Mr Odenets's words amount to a startling
admission of human frailty. His honesty is refreshing. But the headscarfed
woman in the poster, which first appeared as a warning against loose talk
in the Second World War, would certainly not approve.
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- ©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=622112
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