The Bariga Generation - An Addendum

I got pretty deep into explaining the criminal and prisoner culture that dominated the first post-Soviet generation and the 90s in Russia. I failed to mention what happened to the criminals that survived the 90s and had to readjust to the Putin stability period that followed.

In short, many of them converted to Orthodoxy.

That cult film about bandits that I linked in my previous post, Жмурки, even touches on that in the final scene where the “heroes” end up occupying posts in the government in Moscow and discuss plans to build a church.

Many bandits were indeed under the impression that building a church or turning to faith with their ill-gotten gains would act as a sort of monetary indulgence that would cleanse them of their sins. Do metaphysics really work that way though?

I suppose that’s between them and their god.

But this became a common trope and a recurring theme in bandit and post-bandit culture - the need to repent and become Orthodox. I think it has something to do with the fact that criminals and prisoners and bad people often turn to religion, regardless of what country they’re incarcerated in and what religion they end up settling on. So long as the deity in question promises them total absolution of their sins in exchange for obedience, it has a certain appeal for those with guilty consciences, wouldn’t you agree?

Other than that, I thought I’d mention a funny conspiracy theory in Russia about Patriarch Kirill (to be fair, there are many). Disclaimer: I have face blindness as a side effect of drinking too much plastic and birth control pills from the tap water in the US. That means I couldn’t possibly comment on the following, so cut me some slack. But some conspiracy people say that the patriarch is actually a gangster with the nickname Япончик (means “Japanese guy”) in disguise.

Me, personally, I don’t think he’s Yaponchik in disguise (lol) but I do think its funny to mention and anyways, my true religion has always been conspiracy theories - the crazier the better - so I figured I’d mention it here. Russia is a heaven on earth for conspiracy theories and theorists and I believe that conspiracy theorizing is the one true religion of the Russian people which cuts across all castes and creeds.

There are actually a lot of conspiracies surrounding Kirill, some of them even somewhat well-founded, but I wanted to do an entire write-up about the state of organized Orthodoxy in Russia some other time.

Overall, I suppose gangsters reinvesting their hard-earned money into churches is a form of “patriotic corruption” and as such I have no real problem with it. Better they build churches than ship the money to London or Tel Aviv. If anything, the turn to Orthodoxy, however misguided, is probably the one and only redeeming feature of the gangster generation of the post-Soviet period.