Global Courant
Reuters
Millions of Russians woke up Saturday to shocked social media posts and baffling memes featuring images of a full civil war.
Tania Krasnova, a single mother of two in Nizhny Novgorod, put her cup of coffee on the table in amazement. Telegram was full of videos of tanks in Moscow, the headlines said “Wagner soldiers captured Voronezh” just 300 miles from the capital. “I thought, that was fast, they were in Rostov just a few hours ago.”
It was when she saw it Putin’s furious face talking on television about a “betrayal” and an “armed uprising” that she realized this was serious. Oh, this isn’t just a joke, she thought.
First the pandemic, then the war and now a coup. Krasnova knew exactly what to do: withdraw money from the bank account, buy buckwheat – Russia’s favorite food during crises – and go to the dacha; many Russians have some kind of summer house in a quiet village, even if it is extremely modest.
Putin admits to ‘armed mutiny’ as Prigozhin advances on Moscow
The next question if she had to hide to ride this out, for how long? “How much buckwheat should I stock?” she asked.
Olga, a retired doctor in St. Petersburg, also said it was Putin’s unexpected TV appearance that made the breakthrough. It was the words “Prigozhin stabbed Russia in the back” that hit her. Yevgeny Prigozhin had been one of Putin’s closest allies for many years, leading the notorious Wagner mercenary group, which carried out the president’s darkest missions. On Saturday, Putin announced to the world that Prigozhin — and 25,000 of his battle-hardened men — had turned resolutely against their master.
“I think Putin scared most people, his own words worried Russians more than all these videos of tanks in Rostov, since before his speech many thought it was a show, a staged performance for some weird reason” , Olga told The Daily Beast. . “I’m going to see if there’s any buckwheat left in my grocery store nearby — that would be a sign.”
Story continues
A woman in Moscow started off with a joke: “My arsenal of good wines is quite large, I can last 3-4 weeks at the dacha,” she told The Daily Beast.
Then she added seriously. “But I think it’s time to fly to Turkey while the airports are still working.”
To Russia’s top Kremlinologists, Prigozhin’s coup attempt came as no great surprise. The author of All the men of the Kremlin, Mikhail Zygar, foresaw it and tole The Daily Beast Putin’s reaction to the mess was remarkable. “We haven’t seen Putin this furious in a long time. It seems that there will be a real war and real blood – Putin has no other choice: if he does not put down Prigozhin’s rebellion in the most brutal way, it will mean the end of his power,” said Zygar, who has interviewed most of Putin’s allies and pocket oligarchs over the past two decades.
People in Russia’s Southern District, where Wagner apparently took control of the Russian military headquarters, were confused and concerned. “There was shooting, but otherwise nothing special happened, except that tanks blocked the road to Moscow,” Lyudmila said in Rostov-on-Don via telephone interview. “We hope that our army quickly gets the situation under control and that it doesn’t end in a long version of the Chechen war or a bloodbath like in Ukraine.”
Municipal services on Saturday quickly worked to remove ads for the Wagner design – they were all over the billboards in the Voronezh region, an area where the mercenaries themselves are now on their way to Moscow.
In Sochi, a seaside resort in southern Russia, this weekend would be all about the beach. Instead, everyone is hunched over phones and laptops. The 36-year-old ski instructor Maksim said he watched both the independent media and the Kremlin-loyal television news.
Much of what he saw was surreal. He really enjoyed the image of a tank stuck in a circus gate published by a propaganda website, Life. “I’m glad YouTube is still working, we can follow the news,” he told The Daily Beast.
Local politician Vladimir Chrykov said that Nizhny Novgorod was still quiet. “Our region is silent if not for Putin’s speech: people are all worried about his words. But my sources tell me they agree that Wagner is withdrawing.”
What you need to know about Prigozhin and Putin’s twisted relationship
Moscow-based Transparency International founder Yelena Panfilova told The Daily Beast that friends and colleagues were urgently discussing the scenarios that could unfold next, drawing historical parallels. Some compared Prigozhin to Stenka Razin, the leader of one of the four great uprisings that Russia experienced in the 17th and 19th centuries, others to General Lavr Kornilov and his failed Putsch of 1917.
Others wondered why Prigozhin was so calm and speculated whether some major Moscow generals, including Special Operations Forces commanders, supported his rebellion against the Kremlin and his swift movement towards Moscow. “I don’t like historical parallels,” Panfilova said. “No one had the Internet then, and now people are making videos of Prigozhin and tanks in Rostov. No one can be secret, the news spreads instantly.”
Panfilova said she had not yet seen anything strange when she looked out of her large window in the high-rise building in the heart of Moscow. The city had to be ready for the big annual weekend of proms. “Imagine how many teens are pissed off, they’re talking on TikTok and other social media right now — a lot of girls are preparing their dresses, waiting for the party tonight,” she said.
“For the time being, the graduation balls have been postponed for only a week, moving in Moscow is partially restricted.”
Even in Nizhny Novgorod, 500 kilometers east of Moscow, the news that the balls would be shut down made waves. “My friends in Moscow say that the graduation balls have been canceled this weekend,” Krasnova said. “This is really a huge crisis that no one expected.”
Get the Daily Beast’s biggest scoops and scandals straight to your inbox. Sign up now.
Stay informed and get unlimited access to the Daily Beast’s unparalleled reporting. Subscribe now.
