Pearly Gates : A Tour of Russia’s Hell by Alfred N.Muggins Part 1

7/3/23 (5/7/23, 26/7/23)

    “We’re waiting for you!” said St.Peter, as ‘comrade’ Vladimir Putin climbed reluctantly up the stairway to heaven and approached the Pearly Gates. He hadn’t wanted to be here at all. He wanted to be on his throne, at the end of his long table in the Kremlin, receiving the obeisance of the NATO leaders, having restored the Russian Empire (or the Soviet Union – whichever way he felt like looking at it?), but unfortunately his conscript army had broken, worn down by lack of supplies, and the determined NATO supplied Ukrainians.

    Finally there had been infighting amongst his supporters, and desertion and mutiny on the front lines! It had been like the First World War all over again; Germans and Poles pushing through, in the guise of Ukrainians, to capture too many of his soldiers!

    Oh well, here he was. At least he was here at the top of the stairs at last! God would judge him to have been the righteous leader of Russia, who merely tried to restore the fortunes of the natural Russian Empire or Union.

    He approached the Gates. Saint Peter (strangely he had the same name as Peter the Great, the founder of Putin’s own great city of St.Petersburg, sometime ago known as Petrograd, a more modern and less religious version of the same (although during Bolshevik or Communist times it was granted the name of another modern Saint, Vladimir Lenin (yet another Vladimir! For whom the young Putin may well have been named?), and the Saint had given his name to the city in honour of his Great Namesake Tsar Peter!) stood in front of him. Suddenly his way was barred!

    “I can’t let you in,” said Saint Peter, “You’re under arrest!”

    He was suddenly surrounded by many angels, who bore him up, and took him, by their wings, down to a large place, where he began to suspect he was being taken. Down, Down, to Hell!

“I have money!” pleaded the erstwhile Dictator.

“We thought you had given it all back? Said St Peter.

“Back?” said Putinpot, struggling with the concept that this indeed should have represented wealth for all Russian citizens.”

   “Anyway,” said St. Peter, “even if you have still got it, it won’t get you through the Gates of heaven. Have you heard the parable of the Eye of the needle?”

    “No I never actually read the bible, although there were times when I pretended I had!”

     Plutin was transferred to vicious looking thugs called ‘Hell’s Angels’, whom even macho Plutin was scared of lest they beat him with their long sticks. He didn’t mind thugs when he could control them himself, let them loose on innocent civilians, cause fear and caution amongst citizens so they would conform to his will. These fearful enforcers took him on a tour of the place called Hell!

    “Where are you taking me?” asked Putinpot.

    “ God has instructed us to give you a tour of a particular part of Hell’s confines!” explained a bearded angel of hell, who looked remarkably like the tall great writer and Russianologist Tolstoy (who had once served Great Russia in the Crimea against the Turks and the British and French Nazis of western Europe who came east to confound Mother Russia!) We will give you a tour of the parts of hell which you yourself, and your erstwhile servants, have created yourselves. You are the Great Demon who has created these miseries, when there was really no need to do so. You have created large sectors of Hell for your citizens and those of Ukraine to wallow in. Oh yes, as an engineer of Hell, you have created very effective Hellscapes for the citizens in your care and those in Ukraine and elsewhere to explore and inhabit!

    “Did you read my book, ‘War and Peace’? asked Tolstoy.

    “I have been too busy, defending our Grand Empire and trying to retake our lost colonies!” said the diminutive Dictator.

    “Ah. That is why you have learned nothing! Why oh why is it that they never put learned men in charge of nations?” That is all the great stalwart of Russian culture and civilization could say about him. Poor Vladimir Plutin felt somewhat dwarfed and discarded by this eminent representative of all that was best about Russia, and was left with an empty feeling!