That is why I am a Putin Troll.
Chapter XIII: Blown
“So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.”
When I finally set out to write about the people involved in defending Russia against the unjust lies of Western governments and media, I swore to myself, my wife, and my children I would reveal the absolute truth as I know it. From the onset of my involvement, I feared that my idealism would at some point run headlong into a pointy spear of reality. Now, at the end of the journey I wear my rusty Don Quixote suit with pride in knowing I’ve helped reveal the truth of Putin’s digital soldiers. The unembellished Kremlin Troll story reveals that even shiny armor can’t protect an impure heart. Even inside brotherhood of pro-Russia support there are those with mercenary intentions. Opportunists emerge from every good intentioned fight in either western or eastern culture. Time and pressure exert a strong influence on us, after all, and some of my colleagues in this war of dissent fell prey to the same old capitalist philosophies. In the battle against a catastrophic globalist scheme to unhinge Russia, fame and the promise of enumeration caused some so-called “Kremlin Trolls” to wander. This is the diplomatic way of saying that some really good Putin agents sold out in the same way our western media caved in. Journalists and broadcast people, academics and idealists, some of the mightiest voices for sanity lost sight of their original reasoning. They became victims of the same covetous beast that powered western mainstream media — self-interest. But these wayward Kremlin Trolls are few and far in between. The reader has already read about the most infamous Putin defenders right here in these pages. I mention these wayward sold only so that you can grasp the reality of the pro-Russia fight. Of the two or three hundred who took on the western media empire, only a handful became slaves to their newfound fame and fortune. So, compared to traditional media and activism in America, for instance, the pro-Russian side is not near so convoluted.
The most iconic Russia agents are here in full view. The people presenting their confessions in this book are emblematic of a few more who chip away day in and day out, battling the biggest lie in history. But there is one final cohort of Putin warriors I’ve yet to adequately profile — the genuine Russian comrades, men, and women who blow my cover as a Kremlin operative. Real hard-core Russians like my dear friend, Vladimir Vladimirovich Samarin, are the real reason for my fight. Once you read his story, and the story of my FSB comrade Stas, you’ll have a window into the soul of Russia, and the people we Kremlin Trolls rushed forward to defend.
V Means Vladimirovich or “My Life in Too Few Words”
According to my Birth Certificate, I was born on October 5, 1970, in Moscow. I don’t remember the fact exactly, so I have no other choice as to believe the document. My Dad Vladimir T. Samarin (then 25 — way younger than I am now) worked then as an interpreter at the building of Aswan Dam in Egypt and decided I must be born in Moscow. It was very wise of him — him, being born in London in 1945.
I remember myself since about 1975. My remembrances of the time are sweet and bright. And not only because the grass was greener then, and trees were higher, and my beloved parents were young, jolly and active. It was the time of worldwide hopes. It was the year of the EPAS program, which connected an Apollo with a Soyuz way above the Earth — and it was a true challenge for the both countries: even the atmosphere on the spaceships differed greatly, and it took both the USA and the USSR more than two years of hard work to settle everything and make the ships ‘compatible’.
It was the year of Helsinki Accords — and Europe thought for a while, that black pages of the WWI and WWII are over, forever.
I remember the very optimistic atmosphere of the time — I knew already I lived in the very best country in the world, and the world itself was firmly going to be better and better. And now I am a bit afraid that those who missed the time could call me a liar — but it had been just like I said. If there was a worldwide optimism at least once, it was in 1975.
In 1977, I went to school — a Soviet school, which undoubtedly was a part of the world’s best Soviet educational system. Just like millions of my compatriots, soon I became an Octoberite. Then — a young Pioneer, with that sacredly red scarf on my neck. And at 14 I was immensely proud to become a Komsomol (Soviet YCL) member.
Meanwhile, at 10 I started to learn English. I cannot say I gained some great success in the subject at school, but heritage, evidently, worked: my Dad was a highly skilled interpreter and translator, my Mom was a school teacher of English, my Granddad also spoke English good enough to work (well, rather serve, for he was a Red Army major, then colonel-lieutenant, an air force assistant to the Soviet military attaché) in London since 1943 till 1949.
Coming to my late teens, the difference between the taught ideology and existing life became more and more evident for me. Anyhow, I was an optimist still, and evidently a bit too much: I failed to enter the Moscow University right after the school, at 17.
Being jobless was a crime in the USSR. I can spell it: being jobless for 3 months and more was a crime that could lead to an imprisonment. Yes: it was a country that had some job for everyone (let alone some dwelling, some general education and some medical service — all those things you might consider communist propaganda and as such a lie; and wrongly so).
And I had a fantastic year working for the Moscow State Committee of the State Statistics. It did help me to understand things better, but still more useful became the fact that I failed at my 2nd try to enter the MSU. Now that I became 18, I had to go to Army.
And it was quite an experience. I started with 5 months of learning in a unit located in the Ukraine, and. having become a skilled specialist in electric devices of fighter planes, I was dispatched to a unit in Soviet Latvia.
All that was great not because I had a chance to seen various places, but because in our men only collectives I had to get along with representatives of (almost) all the Soviet ethnicities: Western Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Kazakhstanis, Kyrghizstanis, Azeris, Armenians — just to name a few (a few — for just in Russia alone there are about 250 ethnicities). Some of them were of Moslem background, some — of Buddhist, some — of Catholic, etc.
Sociologically, the USSR was an empire just like the former Russian Empire had been — but not because of those invented by Western propaganda, Soviet totalitarianism or whatever other ideological bullshit you called it. Just because it was a country that united peoples of various religious descendance. It’s that simple.
It was a strange time when I returned home, end of 1990. The country was seemingly collapsing, but I was young, and I had a task: to enter the University. And my parents had jobs, and I had not enough time to judge what happened. I made it to the Preparation Faculty, and thus secured my entering the 1st course a year later.