We’re playing Petersburg roulette in Russia! That’s our local version of Russian roulette. You know that game of chance or fate – you place a single bullet in a revolver and spin the cylinder. Players sit around the table, fortified with vodka, and take turns placing the gun to their head and pulling the trigger. You’ve only got a one in six chance of losing the game – or is it winning?
[originally published 10 December 2011]
So why Russian? Supposedly that’s where the game originated although hard evidence is lacking. And why roulette? The cylinder spins like the roulette wheel going round and round. Where will the ball land in this game of risk? Who will be left to tell the story?
So we’re playing Petersburg roulette in Russia. Metaphorically, of course. But life is roulette for desperate souls caught amid broken dreams and shattered illusions. Is it chance? Is it fate? Where is Russia heading?
Meanwhile, Datcha Sergei insists we’re in a state of pre-revolution. Demonstrations are being organized in St Petersburg and across Russia for this Saturday, 10 December, to protest the recent, apparently rigged, elections.
But Berlin Rainer predicts nothing will change. The state will intimidate the people, because there are still too few who dare to speak out. Back then, in 1989, in the German Democratic Republic there were so many, so many....
The wheel keeps on spinning.
[originally published 10 December 2011]
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