A STAIN ON A WHITE TAILCOAT

The Russians inherited their being in sympathy with the traditional English society, from books and movies of the Soviet times, despite the fact that Soviet pieces of art, inspired by Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle’s works, were rather far from the nowadays reality. The manifested antipode of the Soviet humanist ideals — "the British colonial imperialism" — took place in former Soviet schoolchildren’s minds without mixing up with sweet, although bourgeois Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes. That made substantial difference with the Tsarist age, when the educated part of the Russian society, even when they expressed their respect towards these or those aspects of British national way of life or British temperament, were judging it by their minds, not hearts. The Anglophobia was widespread then, and even Russian political emigrants, who had found their asylum in Britain, followed suit.
A period of being enchanted by the British traditions, evoked by the wave of perestroika, USSR dissolution and troubles caused by it, is over today. And one of the most obvious proofs of London’s self-interested hypocrisy which easily outweighs the mythology of "good old reputable Britain" is a man named Boris Abramovich Berezovsky.
The name of Mr. Berezovsky is used to confront the "English influence" in some lands which are economically and geographically closer to Britain. On February 6th 2008, representatives of the law enforcement agencies of Switzerland, France and the Netherlands, speaking at a meeting at Eurojust, stated the "major violations" of the international agreements of the criminal proceedings by the British Home Office. They also expressed their determination to raise this question again at various European institutions in order to discuss the destructive position of the British party when it comes to fighting the transnational organized crime. Taking numerous criminal cases against Mr. Berezovsky, initiated by law enforcement agencies of Switzerland. Brazil, Lithuania etc into account, it’s no wonder that this gentleman is depicted by the European press as a typical example of the cosmopolitan moneymaker, who uses the British protection and thinks that "money doesn’t stink!" Some Canadian online paper even supposed that Mr. Berezovsky is concerned in Muslim radicals’ attempts to get "dirty bombs" which were supposed to be used against the Western countries.
Some time ago Britain was an secure place for serious politicians, political writers, philosophers seeking an opportunity to develop their ideas. A famous Russian democrat Gertzen moved there, and "Das Kapital" was written there by Marx. But, as far as we can see, there is something deeply rotten in the British kingdom, if the same status can be obtained now by "godfathers" (as Paul Klebnikov called them) like Boris Berezovsky.
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