Imagine you are a Russian normie aspiring to the oscaryat. You live high life in Moscow, you work for a German corpo-ivanex and so far you have earned a monthly salary of 125,000 roubles, or about 1,500 euros. Good money in Russia. It wasn't your only income because you played the stock market a bit. You did quite well. So you blew the equivalent of some €5,000 in roubles. But fuck it, you know your business and you traded in such a way as not to lose. Just a week ago your shares were worth the equivalent of 20,000 euros in roubles.
You've already booked a holiday in Spain, but you're thinking of going to the Dominican Republic... because you can fucking afford it and your Yulka would love to post a photo on Instagram with a palm tree and the local man. At the same time you're laughing at the rotting West, especially at Poland and that PIS or whatever, and that crazy Dudu. Zdravstvuy, zdravstvuy, zhizn krasivaya.
War breaks out in Ukraine. You are happy that your country will finally liberate Malorossia from Nazi rule. Zdravstvuy, zdravstvuy, zhizn krasivaya. Suddenly you find that the rouble exchange rate is falling dramatically. You still earn 125 000 roubles, but that is the equivalent of 1 000 euros. You think it's temporary, because it's Velikaya Rossiya, but you don't know how to tell Yulka that you won't be going to the Dominican Republic. Meanwhile, she's crying because they might turn off Instagram in Russia.
You log into your brokerage account. It doesn't work. Eventually it does and you find that the value of your investments has dropped to €30. Cyka blyat. You think it's a mistake, but Alyosha calls and says it's the same for him. You think to yourself: fuck it, there was a drop, there will be a rise, you have to live on. You go to work in Ivanex. You think to yourself: this is a company with foreign capital, so you don't give a fuck, but they're going to give you a valorisation increase or you're leaving Ivanex.
You remind yourself that you're supposed to buy a Russel Hobs "3 in 1" toaster because Yulka is switching to cooking content on Instagram. You've overheard Malafeev telling Arapatov that there's no cash in ATMs. You look in your wallet and there's 4500 roubles. Fucking hell. Enough for a toaster and a kilogram of "Autumn Waltz" sweets. On your lunch break you go to Media Markt and see that the toaster costs, yobanny bitch in rot, 18 000 roubles. You can't explain it to yourself. You know that the rouble is falling and all, but why are prices rising disproportionately to the fall of the rouble? You think to yourself: oh, that Gayropa and the Americans, they want to make your life miserable.
You go back to the office and your boss calls you. You think to yourself: well now I'll show Ivan, a raise and fuck. Ivan tells you that Ivanex is leaving Russia today and all the branches are being liquidated. You are out of a job from tomorrow, in fact from now on. Ivan tries to ask you out of the office by joking and says "Russki voyenny korabl, idi nahui". You don't know what the fuck he means because you haven't heard those words on TV or the internet. Perhaps some new boomer meme.
You return to your flat to find Yulka crying in despair because the travel agency called and, due to sanctions, Russia's exclusion from the SWIFT system and the closure of airspace to Russian planes, they are afraid that you and Yulka will not be able to pay the rest of the bill and take advantage of the offer, so they cancel it. They take the advance because there's no way to pay it back anyway. You think: No fucking way... You console Yulochka, saying that it will be fine. When she finds out that you lost your job in Ivanex, she starts to pack up and says that she is going back to her village in Severodvinsk. You try to convince her to stay, but she only replies "you shto? yebanulsya?".
You see that she is packing your belongings with her: a smart watch, a laptop and Air Max crossovers. She says it's compensation for her iPad, which you destroyed yesterday with a hammer on her live stream as a protest against the sanctions. Yulka leaves you and goes to Sevropizdetsk, you're left with fuck all, and Russia still can't get Kharkiv and Kyiv. Zdravstvuy, zdravstvuy, zhizn krasivaya
