Issue #23/78, November 18 - December 2, 1999  

By Edward Limonov

It is an open secret that Russia's population is declining. 146 millions it is now, but it was 150 only few years ago. Reasons for depopulation of Russia are many, such as: poverty, low wages, insecurity, psychological unstability of Russian society, etc. But it seems to me that main reason for a lack of babies on Russian soil is absence of desire for babies amongst Russian girls. That absence of desire to become a mother concerns all parts of population, but Russian city-girls are obviously ahead. Examples are numerous. My ex-girlfriend Liza once counted that ten years after finishing school only two of her nineteen female classmates have had married and only one had a baby. One baby for 19 girls in ten years! Chechens and other Caucasian men call our Russian girls "prostitutes". Apart from some uncorrect use of word "prostitute", I am agree with Chechens. Contemporary Russian girl is pleasure-seeker, she has no enthusiasm for creating a family. Strangely enough, she is attached strongly to her parents' family and receiving all necessary human warmth from it. But she doesn't want to have her own family. She is easy-going as it concerns sexual contacts with a men, she may honestly fall in love every week, or at least once a month, she may easily settle to live with her chosen man, but babies--oh no! She will choose an abortion, if pregnant. To Russian girl babies are dirty, stinking, squirming creatures who piss and shit and who will eat up her own life. Female village dwellers are little bit less anti-children but it is less and less villages in Russia.

Why is it so? My opinion that all Russian culture, or to be exact both cultures, high and popular, are not family-oriented, they are love-oriented. It is enough to count in how many Russian films or novels author deals with a family. Maxim Gorky's Mother deals with a revolution. Dostoevsky's novels deals with all kinds of unhappy, crazy creatures, but no family life in it. Leon Tolstoy's War and Peace only in the end of that enormous work give to us a glimpse of family life of Pierre Bezukhov and Natasha Rostova, portraying it... with disgust! Natasha is wearing dirty night gown, she is pregnant and ugly because of her pregnancy. Anna Karenina married to older man have unhappy family life, ended by suicide. For comparison, American culture is traditionally family-oriented. Hero goes to frontier to kill the Indians, to meet a girl and to start a family. Even contemporary American horror movies have happy small town family background. Russian culture glorify LOVE. Dostoevsky's women are prostitute Sonitchka Marmeladova, call-girl Nastassya Filippovna (OK, she was a kept woman), Tolstoy's adulteress Anna Karenina. I, Edward Limonov, is no exception--my books are also populated by such women. Elena of It's Me, Eddie is adulterous, childless pleasure-seeker.

That is why only handful of children can be seen in Russian city parks and gardens. That is why our population is rapidly declining. By Kairo's demographical conference statistics, 4 million of abortions have been done every year in Russia. That is not in statistic, but sadly enough, ugly pregnant girls usually kept pregnancy and have babies. Beautiful girls choose an abortions.

In 1995 National-Bolsheviks Party have produced project of law prohibiting abortions. It said:

"Others opposition parties only complaining and crying. National-Bolsheviks Party proposing concrete solution to low birthrate of Russians.

"We all know that we Russians are dying. For a numerous years mortality amongst Russians have overpowered natality, nation is shrinking catastrophically. That is the fault of capitalist revolution, who have thrown majority of Russians into poverty. But also guilty are Russians themselves: men and women, cowards, refusing to have a babies. We know that today in Russian hospitals are made four million of abortions--pre-meditated murders, per year. Conclusion may be the only one: In the situation when Russians are dying, an abortion permitted to be done by Russian woman is not only moral and physical crime against human being, but is a crime against Russian nation.

"We are demanding from Government to prohibit abortions! We are demanding from timid Russian Church to rise its voice for prohibition of abortions. We are demanding from a State Duma to vote for a law to ban abortions to Russian women. We also demanding that already today the doctors would be obliged to give to local newspapers the lists of women who have undergone an abortions, in order to be punished. Punishment for first abortion would be: boycott and psychological pressure at their place of work and by their neighbors, the wages of those who undergone first abortion should be sliced in half by their employers. Second abortion should be punished by imprisonment. Exceptions should be made only for uncurably sick women, for victims of rape and for those women with hereditary and mental diseases. We demand to prohibit abortions immediately!"

Five years after I am signing that text again with my both hands. If individuals are irresponsible because of negative influence of culture, it is reasonable for a state to correct society with a proper law. Of course, it is a breach of a human rights of individuals. And so what? When Nation is dying, human rights of individual should be neglected. And what about the rights to live for babies. You, bitch, have killed your baby--Russian citizen. So, go to prison. It is fair.