PRESSING: BEHIND CONVERSATIONS ABOUT EASING THE QUARANTINE

I read yesterday that one professor said about possibility to resume construction because the probability of contamination in the open air is low.

First I did not trust my eyes – not only professor, but third year student cannot say such thing. Because he understands first the mechanism of contamination and second the nature of construction, which does demand physical contacts between workers. And after all – what is an urgent need FOR SOCIETY in construction TODAY?

But while reading a lot of other preparations to ease the quarantine my thoughts turn in other direction. I recalled after-Soviet time in Russia and everywhere else where USSR was.

The first consequence of the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991-1995 was overwhelming collapse of public moral. It started from business people, very quickly came to politicians and in few years continued to common people. It was a kind of epidemic – epidemic of moral sickness.

What were these changes? Lie became the norm of life. Murders and less brutal forms of violation became the norm of business life. Stealing everything that may be stolen with impunity also became the norm. Corruption became a norm. Blackmail became most human form of influencing decision-makers. The simple logic of businessmen and politicians become: if I cannot buy this man's behaviour, I'll kill him. The criminal law became a moral law.

In this way, ALL first Russian (in broad meaning – post-Soviet) fortunes were made. I do not know any exclusions.

Later the necessity in violence was reduced and the new tasks arose before new billionaires, which were former bandits, – legalisation and building reputations. These tasks brought bandits-billionaires to the West, including in such liberal harbours as Cyprus.

Now they behaved well first because of the absence of reasons to be bad boys. But of course their souls rested same: if something prevents me reaching my goal, this "something" must be removed by any means including war, murder etc. Simply under the normal conditions this logic did not need to be realised in their behaviour.

However, in the present conditions of crisis, the situation is changed. The quarantine and especially ceasing construction put some investments in risk. Or at least the investors may think so. In both cases they (with their psychological constitution) have to ease the quarantine not paying too much attention to such things as epidemiological situation, health and lives of Cypriots etc. In their picture of world all such things are chimeras. Own health, own lives and own money are what are real for them.

It is easy to reconstruct how they must behave. They must influence the decision-makers. There are 2 main instruments for this: money and threats. There are a lot of forms of bribes, which are safe for recipient. And there are a lot of forms of threats, which are effective and safe for attacker. This may be physical threats to children and grandchildren, for example. This may be blackmails in very different forms. Etcetera. And of course both an individual decision maker or a collective decision-maker may become a victim of such attack. Simply an attack on collective decision-maker demands more resources.

As you guess I have no facts and I intentionally do not want to name anybody. I'm simply reconstructing what MUST BE behind the scenes. The serious financial interests of former bandits are threatened. But rephrasing Putin's famous words, bandits cannot be former bandits. And they will not be stopped by such things as others' health or lives because they are bandits.