Most people don’t bother paying attention to news out of Russia these days, unless it’s news about how Russia poses an imminent threat to the Western puppet regime in Kiev. We keep hearing scare-stories about how Putin is going to invade Western Europe, conquer it, and reestablish the old Soviet Union. I don’t like to waste much time with such garbage, simply because I’ve lived in Russia, I know the Russian people, I speak a bit of Russian, and I understand a little something about economics and military logistics. (Not much of the latter, mind you – just enough to sound sort of halfway intelligent.)

However, one thing that I DO know about the Russian people and government – and greatly respect – is that they absolutely will defend the True Faith, even from their own people.

There has been a rash of stories in the Russian news – which of course the Western media has resolutely ignored – about how the Russian government, and the people of the country, have turned quite decisively against those who insult the Christian faithful.

The St. Basil Blow

For those of you who don’t follow news coming out of Russia, The Moscow Times is probably not the best place to start. It is an “independent” journalism site, to be sure – which basically means that it follows the exact same neo-liberal, globalist line of stupidity and nonsense that comes out of the anuses of the Western presstitutes and whorenalists. And their product is almost as noxious as a result. But, they do have a different perspective on the way things are in Russia than most Western news outlets, simply because they stick close to the source.

Recently, they ran a story noting a rash of prosecutions against Russians (and other FSU citizens) who post provocative or insulting anti-Christian photos and memes on their social media accounts. The details contained therein are… enlightening, to say the least:

Russians are increasingly facing prosecution for posting provocative photos of themselves in front of religious landmarks in what analysts say reflects the Kremlin’s intensifying focus on defending conservative values.

At least four cases have been launched in recent weeks against young people, mostly women, for posting sexually suggestive content on social media near places of worship. 

Last week, blogger Ruslan Bobiyev, 23, and his girlfriend Anastasia Chistova, 19, were each sentenced to 10 months in prison on charges of “insulting religious feelings” over a photo that shows them simulating oral sex against the backdrop of St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square.

The sentence was criticized as overly harsh as many expected a slap on the wrist and a fine. 

The pair “are the first people in a long time to get real prison time under this article,” Alexander Verkhovsky, an analyst at the Sova Center rights group, told The Moscow Times. 

“I think they received prison time because the girl had ‘police’ written on her jacket, so it’s the police’s feelings that were insulted,” he said, referring to the mock police uniform Chistova was wearing in the photo. 

The court also handed Bobiyev, a Tajik citizen, a deportation order. In a video published by the Interior Ministry, Bobiyev can be seen asking the Russian nation for forgiveness.

Here is the photo and the couple in question:

The man in that photo is a Tajik named Ruslani Murodzhonzoda – trust me when I say that it’s almost as complicated to write in Cyrillic – and his, genuinely hot, girlfriend, Anastasia Chistova. (Rather ironically, Ms Chistova’s last name comes from the Russian root word Чистый, meaning “clean”.) And that photo genuinely outrages a lot of Russians, with very good reason.

Think about this for a moment.

St. Basil’s Cathedral is a wondrous sight. I’ve been there numerous times and can personally attest to the magnificence of its construction and overall architecture. It sits right in the corner of Red Square, at the very heart of the most important city in all of Russia, as a symbol of the spirit and pride of the Russian people.

The Russian police are very much an institution in their country. They may be underpaid and, in some cases at least, corrupt, but for the last 20 years or so, ever since the Neo-Tsar came to power, they have been increasingly seen as a force for social cohesion. The Russians consider it a great honour to be accepted into the Federal Police – and the training that they receive is not easy. (I’ve met a number of their former members – and I’ve visited one of their training academies in the south of the country. It is a tough life that they lead – but there are some serious perks involved in the form of pensions.)

Given these things, are you surprised, then, that the Russians react with outrage when a foreigner and his Russian girlfriend hint at a sex act in front of one of their most sacred icons?

And yet, in the West, such a thing would be called “stunning and brave”, while the Western elites would call for the defunding of the police – the very people who keep society safe and sane.

That, alone, should illustrate to you just how different the Russians are.

The Sacred Flame

If you’ve never visited Red Square or the Kremlin, just on the outer wall of the citadel lies the Russian equivalent of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is known as the “Sacred Flame”, and it consists of a never-quenched fire that has a 24x7x365 honour guard on either side.

Those guards stand there in all weather conditions, including the ferocious Russian winters, to guard the memory of those who died in defence of the Rodina through the ages. If you walk a little bit farther to the right, orienting by that photo, you will come across a series of blocks on which are written the names of the greatest battles ever fought in Russian history. Here’s a photo that I personally took of it, years ago:

Stalingrad. Kursk. Leningrad. Moscow. Belgorod. Oryol. Voronezh. Polyarniy. Rostov-on-Don. Krondstadt. Pskov. Bryansk. Vladivostok. Tver’. Sevastopol. The list goes on, and on, and on, noting the many, MANY battles – going all the way back to the Crimean War, unless I’m very much mistaken – in which the Russians have fought and died.

That is the place where two empty-headed Russian women decided to stage a lesbian kiss:

A Russian model has publicly apologized for filming a kiss in front of Moscow’s Eternal Flame, a sacred war memorial to the Soviet Union’s casualties in World War II, located near the Kremlin in the center of the capital.

Writing on Instagram, model Alyona Efremova claimed that the video was old and was not made with the intent of insulting anyone. She is currently under investigation for breaking the law around “desecrating symbols of Russian military glory,” which carries a potential punishment of five years behind bars.

“Please accept my sincere apologies for the video filmed three years ago. It was not made to insult or desecrate,” she wrote.

The other woman in the video is rapper, model, and actress Anna Mikheeva, known professionally as Hofmannita. Mikheeva is best known for starring in the popular reality show ‘Patsanki’.

About the only American equivalent that I can think of, would be for someone to shoot a porn movie in Arlington National Cemetery. (For which, as far as I’m concerned, the punishment should be on-the-spot execution. Go on – tell me I’m wrong.)

The Russian government is aggressively pursuing legal action against these women. And, as far as the Russian people are concerned, by and large, they support what their government is doing.

The Case of the Church-on-Blood

These are not isolated cases in Russia. Another recent case involved a Russian OnlyFans star – let’s just call her a porn actress and be done with it, because that’s what she is – flashed her breasts in front of the Church of the Saviour on Blood in St. Petersburg. (Yes, I’ve been there too.) She didn’t get away with it either:

A Russian OnlyFans pornstar is reportedly under criminal investigation for “offending the feelings of believers” after a video of her flashing her breasts outside Red Square’s iconic St. Basil’s Cathedral went viral.

The criminal case against the pornographic model, going under the alias Lola Bunny, was launched by Moscow investigators, TASS reported Saturday citing sources within law enforcement.

The girl is reportedly suspected of showing “open disrespect” toward society and “offending the feelings of believers.” If found guilty, the model, known for her pornographic works at the adult website OnlyFans, may land up to one year behind bars.

The ill-fated saucy video was published earlier this week, promptly going viral. The short clip shows Lola Bunny strolling past the world-famous Orthodox cathedral while showing off her breasts.

And the Russians aren’t just playing favourites with Christianity, either. A TikTok, uh, “star” posted a video of herself shaking her (quite shapely) rear end in front of a mosque in Kazan, which sits squarely in the heart of Tatarstan, a very heavily Muslim area:

A young Russian Only Fans model, and Tik Tok personality, has been blasted online after posting a racy TikTok video outside a mosque in Kazan, the capital of the country’s predominantly Muslim Tatarstan region.

Daria Pepelyayeva angered locals by suggestively posing in skin-tight pants outside the Kul Sharif Mosque, news website KazanFirst reported.

According to the outlet, the woman took down the TikTok video after people online called her behavior “shameful” and said she should be prosecuted under the law that bans insulting people’s religious beliefs. 

The Common Denominators

What are we to make of these stories?

The first thing that each of the perpetrators have in common is that they are IDIOTS. That’s not merely my opinion, either – the Russians that I have asked about this express the exact same view, only rather more strongly and with a few more utterances of блять and пиздец thrown in. (Russian is a great language to use for profanity, by the way – and insults in it are considerably more creative than your stand English F-bombs.)

The second thing, though, is that there is a profound difference between the Russian response to these insults, and the likely equivalent Western ones. And they show us the key to defending our faith here in the West.

Russia has very clear laws on the books against insulting religions. We would call them “anti-blasphemy laws”. Those laws still exist in Western canon, too – it’s just that Westerners refuse to enforce them. But if Western nations actually applied them universally – instead of selectively, in order to preserve the feelings of Muzzies and Izzlamists every time someone draws a cartoon that results in someone going all Allahu Akbar on random strangers in the street – then we might actually get somewhere.

Crucially, the Russian Orthodox Church has not been vengeful or spiteful in any of this:

Remorse for wrongdoing should be taken into account by courts deciding whether to punish people under law protecting religious believers’ feelings, the Russian Orthodox Church has said, after a series of high-profile cases.

Speaking to RIA Novosti on Monday, Vakhtang Kipshidze, a top Church official and spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, said that judges should consider whether defendants are sorry for their actions. Under the law, deliberately offending religious communities can carry hefty penalties, including up to a year in jail.

“The Church isn’t interested in the person being punished,” he said. “If a person repents, regrets what happens and wants to make amends, we always see this as the basis for them being exempted from criminal prosecution.”

His comments came just days after the latest in several police probes launched into social media stars posting revealing and sexually suggestive pictures in front of holy sites.

“I don’t see an established trend in taking provocative photographs in front of cathedrals,” he said. “Some people have a desire to gain popularity using famous places, objects and people – they want to become famous by any means necessary and they’ll stop at nothing, seeing religious symbols as a way to boost their popularity and increase their numbers of subscribers.”

According to Kipshidze, the number of prosecutions under laws designed to protect the feelings of believers in Russia is small, which he chalks up to its success as a deterrent, adding that the rules apply to all faiths.

And therein lies the simple, profound, and direct solution to all of our problems here in the not-so-Christian West.

Vigorous defence of the faith. Prosecution of those who insult it. And – critically – immediate forgiveness for those who express clear repentance for their actions.

That is the Christian way. It is one that we appear to have forgotten, to our great discredit.

And before anyone goes around bleating about “MUH FREE SPEECH!” – do you really think that we have “free speech” in the West anymore, if indeed we ever did?

Free speech was always an illusion. It was always a thinly disguised, but very effective, attack on the Church. It is high time that we started taking the Church back.

Conclusion – the Return of Christianity

I have stated several times before that I genuinely believe that Russia will become the centre of a strong and resurgent Christian world. What I am seeing there strongly supports this view. Churches are opening up and under construction all over the country. The Russian people are rediscovering their ancient and glorious faith.

And while I, as a non-denominational Christian, have more than a few reservations with the way that the Orthodox Church goes about things in terms of rites and rituals and additions to Scripture, I find them decidedly more masculine and less pansified than their Catholic and especially many of their Protestant brethren.

We could do much worse than following the Russian example. Indeed, in my view, it is the only way forward. The faithful MUST prosecute those who blaspheme the faith – and also forgive those who show genuine repentance and contrition. Only then can we have any hope of restoring the True Faith to its rightful and glorious place as the foundation of our society.