The H*hol Diaries - Chapter 4: A Week in the Lvov Reich

I went to Lvov last summer and had a good time. There, I met some ardent Galicians who I hung out and we enjoyed the city together. Going into it, I was given two conflicting predictions of what I should expect to happen. The pro-Russians had nothing good to say about them and believed that Lvov was a Reich-occupied city. And, naturally, the Liberals I knew said it was the complete opposite - a very European city.

Well, credit where it’s due, the Liberals were right.

Lvov is a cute town. Cafes everywhere, baroque architecture and so on. The locals are very relaxed and you hear Russian being spoken in the city proper. I’m a second-city kind of guy myself, always preferring Boston to New York, St. Petersburg to Moscow and, finally, Lvov to Kiev.

There were literally no fascists anywhere in Lvov and I doubt that they’d be tolerated by the genteel SWPLs who run the city. In Kiev, in contrast, actual Nazi battalions would come in on the weekends to protest on the Maidan. I noticed no difference between Lvov and any other historic European town that I’ve visited over the years, right down to the swarms of Arabs in hijabs and burkas milling around during the tourist spots during the day and the odd Nigerian drug dealer who approaches you at night, only his gleaming Cheshire smile visible in the dark.

The Galicians are quite proud of being Ukrainians and look down on Kievans and Ukrainians in other parts of the country for not being as Ukrainian as them. I don’t speak the mova, and I got a lot of grief for that at first, but they relented when I explained that I hadn’t ever actually lived in Ukraine and had no occasion to learn it. Unlike many people in Kiev who flat-out refused to speak with me in Russian, the Galicians I spent the week with would talk in Ukrainian and I’d reply in Russian instead of demanding that I speak English instead. I found that I could understand their dialect better than the Ukrainian I heard in Kiev and when I brought this up, they said that Kievans spoke the mova improperly, so it was to be expected. They stressed the importance of them being more European than all the other parts of Ukraine and were quite proud of the fact that many Belarussian Liberals had fled Minsk to hide out in Lvov following the unsuccessful overthrow attempt that Lukashenko quashed. The locals’ attitude was that this was proof of the superiority of their city - that right-minded people had chosen it as their refuge from their tyrannical dictator, essentially.

When I asked about the whole Nazi thing, they turned their noses up and declared these sorts of people to be forest and mountain bumpkins. Yes, they too hated Russia and Putin, but they wouldn’t want to be seen in the same company as the yokels from the provinces. Furthermore, they believed in diversity and European values, unlike the Russians who were the real fascists. Most of their conversation consisted in making fun of the older, poorer and more provincial population. In this regard, these Millennial Lvovians were identical to their counterparts in St. Petersburg, Minsk, Kiev, Boston, New York and pretty much every city I’ve ever been to.

I was sorely disappointed in the cultural life of the city. Our outings consisted of going to hipster or hipster-adjacent bars and cafes, getting drunk, going to MacDonald’s to sober up and then going out to a club to cap off the night. The girls were quite eager to go to a BDSM-themed bar where, for a tip, the staff would paddle you while your friends took pictures. Thankfully, we never got around to going there.

Almost everywhere I’ve ever travelled, I’ve had the same conversations with the same people and been mired in the same global monoculture. The only meaningful divide I’ve noticed is the urban/rural one. Many so-called right-wingers that I’ve met who were city-dwellers were virtually indistinguishable in their behavior from their Liberal supposed enemies. The city folks are more cultured, I suppose. They’ve seen more foreign films and are better at witty banter, which is about the most you can expect out of people these days. But, the ruralites aren’t exactly salt-of-the-earth types. They tend to be fatter, slower and dumber. This is reflected in their tastes and their idea of a good time which revolves around eating and drinking a lot as well as doing meth on the side. In some countries, they’re also more religious in the sticks, but it doesn’t really seem to have a positive effect on their day-to-day behavior. No sermons seem to be able to get country folk to start taking their diet seriously, unfortunately.

Anyways, the Nazis.

Well, there weren’t any in Lvov. If there were, you’d think they’d do something about the vibrant diversity, at least. No, main source of the animus towards Eastern Ukrainians and Russians isn’t based on Nazism, but on SWPLism. The Russky hordes are preventing the Westerners from being able to enjoy the same lifestyle as the EUropeans, see? That is the main accusation that is hurled at Russia - that it is Mordor, a dark place full of brute soldiers and alcoholic factory workers who want to enslave the entire world.

In other words, the Red period of Russia’s history is still fresh in their minds.

Here, I really have to take some time to explain that literally everything in Eastern Europe is part of a never-ending debate on the Soviet Union and its legacy. All politics revolve around this issue. Forget about the Western political system where there’s a center-right, center-left or whatever party - this isn’t what’s going on in Eastern Europe. The older generation, even in places like Western Ukraine, is largely pro-Soviet. Why? Well, because they were told to be pro-Soviet by the propagandists of their time. Then, when the Soviet Union collapsed, the new generation was told to be anti-Soviet by the new propaganda. Being dumb goyim who are unable to think for themselves, they went along with the new talking points as well. But, because the programming had already settled into the older generations’ heads, they remained pro-Soviet and a rift appeared among the peasants and proles of Eastern Europe. I keep coming back to this and I can’t stress this enough, but most people are little better than swine that have learned to walk on two legs. They do what they are told. Logic and critical thinking are very rare qualities whereas conformity, submission and stupidity are everywhere apparent. It’s not just Slavs - you have only to remember how your Western peers were ready to lynch you for not going along with the death-vax agenda to know that what I am saying is true about all peoples.

Knowing all this, let me point out that Russia gives Eastern Europe plenty of propaganda ammunition to use against it by constantly catering to the tastes and aesthetic appreciation of the Sovok generation. Remember: the accusation of Russia-haters is that the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin is the USSR reborn. Because the USSR is so hated by many people and by the regions who were conquered by it following the defeat of the Germans in WWII, every time that Soviet-era propaganda, aesthetics and talking points are trotted out, the Russia-haters have more proof that the dark tower in Barad-dur has been rebuilt and that the Nazgul have been deployed from Minas Morgul.

Also, the people in the Soviet Union’s various rust belts are indeed Communists. They are the proletariat of the USSR in whose name the USSR justified its ridiculous political ideology and when the USSR collapsed, these people lost everything. The Donbass is one large rustbelt of obsolete and decaying Soviet industry. This is one of the reasons why anti-Russians in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev and Lvov call pro-Russian Russians orcs. Follow the string of association? Here, let me spell it out for you: Communism ===> Proletariat ===> Factories ===> Orcs.

Funny enough, Tolkien did indeed imbue his work with an anti-industry theme and then the film-makers, amusingly, went on to give the orcs working class Bri’ish accents. This is one of the reasons why the USSR did its best to ban his work and then to only release edited versions. The USSR’s vocal anti-Tolkien policy then became a rallying cry for “Tolkienists” in the 90s who cosplayed as elves and hobbits and protested their parents’ generation.

Now, there is no heavy industry in Western Ukraine and as a result, Galicians are known for being remote laborers. They used to travel to Russia mostly, but also Poland and other parts of Europe to earn some money before returning for a period home and then setting out again. Despite their belief that Russians are actually orcs, they’re dark themselves and the Slavs on the other side of the Carpathians are noticeably lighter and more Aryan-looking than the Galicians are. So are northern Russians and Siberians for that matter. But don’t tell them that.

Most people in Galicia were not pro-Zelensky. Remember, Zelensky was literally a Jewish clown supported by a Jewish oligarch from the East - from Dnipropetrovsk. He even ran on a peace platform and positioned himself in opposition to Poroshenko’s so-called anti-terrorist operation in Donbass. The Galicians had their own preferred politicians and even declared independence from Kiev themselves during the events of Euromaidan - a fact that few people want to remember now. Kievans, many of whom are literally Russians, envy the Galicians for supposedly having a more authentic, European culture. They compare the beauty of the Carpathians and the very pretty town of Lvov to the rust-belt of Eastern Ukraine, with its mob-bosses and prison-culture and shudder. Galicia is the Shire and Donbass is Mordor, you see?

None of this matters though. None of this is pointed out or analyzed or stressed by anyone who has any reach or sway. What it boils down to is that Russia-haters call Russians orcs because a shtetl of Jews seized power in Russia and proceeded to massacre millions a century ago. Then, instead of just pointing out that Russians never ran the USSR, Russian sovoks thump their chests and call their opponents Nazis as they march with LGBTQ flags and talk about how great Liberalism and Democracy is.

So much progress could be made if a third narrative were able to emerge. If there were a group of people willing to break past the ideological constraints of the reigning debate and speak the truth about the USSR and about the Jews and about Liberalism and the West all at once. They could finally provide a unifying and powerful narrative that could guide the Slavlands forward.

Galicia isn’t an isolated problem. Galicia isn’t really even the problem. It’s a Soviet/anti-Soviet divide. A rural and city divide. A generation divide. Rich v poor. Fats v thins. Netflix v TV-watchers. Wine aunts v meth uncles.

Things would be so much easier if the Nazis were the only thing that we had to worry about.