This is shocking and clickbait, but it should be understood about Russia

Alexei Sorokin
2 min readFeb 19, 2024

Like I said in one of my recent stories, I wasn’t shocked about Navalny’s death. Tragedy and darkness — yes. But his sacrifice was expected.

However, I was more shocked by one of the videos that emerged in the aftermath of the tragedy. Well, it’s not much of a tragedy for these people as you can see:

This video is only available on Telegram, I think. It’s titled “Beautiful Russia of the Future”. If you can’t access it, let me explain — it’s very simple. It shows a nightclub in Moscow. A crowd of people is chanting joyfully тромб оторвался (“a blood clot got detached”) referring to the reported cause of Navalny’s death (blood clot).

On the day of Navalny’s death, I asked my close friend who’s still in Moscow, how the mood is in Russia and whether anyone is still protesting. I just don’t know.

He replied, “No one knows for sure”.

“Well, you’re there. What do you feel?”, I insisted.

“Fascism”, he replied. “During Hitler, were there protests moods in Germany? Hell knows.”

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Alexei Sorokin

A Russian immigrant in America, father of 4, Cambridge and Harvard Business School alum. I run and write every day. https://runningwritingliving.substack.com/