The author treats schlubdom (from the word schlub) as a vulgar, plebean disregard for reasonable rules of conduct, stupid, ugly egocentrism of uncultured, tactless behavior.
The author only just starts to research this fascinating and practically unlimited subject – Russian schlubdom – and so proposes to any interested parties to enlarge and supplement this list, modest as of yet.
So, schlubdom is:
1. Driving an SUV in the city.
It’s well-known that the SUVs – cars designed to be driven where there are no roads – fulfill a compensatory role that wasn’t intended for them in Russia. They compensate their male drivers for all of their psychological and physiological shortcomings. The shabbiest little bloke feels like the Savior of the Universe after getting into such a tank-like monster and proudly commutes between his office and the nearest supermarket. SUVs are the chief source of danger on the city streets. Judging from many years of experience, these monsters very rarely hit the brakes near the pedestrian crossings and often behave with outstanding cheek. Because re-education of men with complexes is not gonna happen in the foreseeable future, the world being not perfect enough for that, driving SUVs in the city should be reasonably limited and, better yet, banned altogether. It’d be good if that was by their own free will, but if it’s lacking, the law should be like that: you get out of the rugged country and you leave your tank at a parking outside the city border.
2. Building a continuous fence higher than man’s height around the dacha plot
Continuous, uninterrupted fence is an evidence of a heightened aggression of the plot’s owner. Why are they fencing themselves off, eh? What have they got to hide? Are we in the Middle Ages or something? Perhaps we should start digging moats with pendant bridges? There aren’t and there can’t be any deformities like this in cultured dwellings. The thing that’s used there is quite wonderful – hedge-row of decorative shrubbery. OK, as a matter of upholding Russian traditions wooden fences with wicket-gates should be permitted, or wire netting that can support some plants. But continuous fence two meters high is pure schlubdom. Behind such walls it’s good to binge-drink or beat up poor relatives – no-one’s gonna see that.
3. Using red and yellow simultaneously for ads or signs
You must have absolutely no understanding or feeling for St. Petersburg to hang a red rag with yellow lettering over your shop (or yellow rag with red lettering for that matter), but in fact this colorful brigandage, this tastelessness has filled the city! If someone’s going to argue with the author on this question, that doesn’t mean the author is. The Northern city on water that has once maintained most noble color scheme hasn’t been so aesthetically defiled even in the Soviet times. The commies have been painting their Martian slogans with white paint over red calico, not yellow over red. There hasn’t been yet a more schlubbish and plebean color scheme here up north.
4. Destruction of the environmentally clean tram transport
The Leningrad tram has been killed, has been destroyed! Wonderful, convenient, cleanest type of transport. Instead of improvement and modernization it was almost completely rooted out. Gentlemen, the author has recently been to the city of Zurich, the world’s richest city, where the unclaimed deposits are kept in the basements – the amount is comparable to the Russian budget for 100 years. Well, trams are going around Zurich, quickly, elegantly and noiselessly, there are several routes, it’s beautiful, quiet, it produces no fumes, creates no traffic jams, shakes no buildings. Why was the St. Petersburg tram destroyed? Was it so that the smug nouveau riches could unrestrictedly trample the city on their SUVs? Was it so that the stinking express busses would breed, driven by foreigners who sincerely don’t understand what’s “stopping by the Yeliseyevsky” means? And so that these very express busses that somehow provide the people with transportation means would be fought against with equally schlubbish methods?
Demolition, destruction, eradication are schlubdom. Improvement, development, assistance are the strategy of reason.
5. Buying flats in newly constructed apartment blocks that were built in the historical center after fill-in construction and demolition of old houses
Of course we can’t forbid it to anyone. They can keep using the fruits of the great aesthetic crime of the 21st century, namely the destruction of St. Petersburg’s historical center. But we can’t be forbidden to think what we think about those who buy these flats as we walk past these dead, dull facades.
6. Starting repairs of main roads, architectural monuments and station platforms in the peak of the tourist and dacha season
Do we need any more comments, my friends and fellow Petersburgers? Those who saw the Peter & Paul fortress in June and Nevsky prospect in July won’t forget that soon. Which Egyptian force has prevented the works in March, in April, there was practically no winter? When will the leadership of the Russian Railways comes to senses, stops counting their incomes and quit taunting the people by fatally repairing platforms and rails in the summer? When will ever some sort of reason at least make a short stop in this city?
7. Permitting the citizens litter in the city and around it with impunity
Every human being is a potential reptile and a saboteur. Leaving heaps of rubbish in one’s wake isn’t schlubdom, it’s sincere expression of the vile and loathsome nature of mass man. Schlubdom is leaving said earnestness without any consequences. As if it’s none of our business. But every conscious citizen can take feasible measures to restrain the unconscious reptiles. Even a simple admonition (“Why did you bastards throw the bottle into the water, maybe you want your hands broken?”) can go a long way.
8. Rushing about on boats and water jets in the zones where citizens are taking a swim
By the way, this type of schlubdom is bordering on crime because the creatures who break the surface of the lakes dangerously close to the swimmers’ heads usually have gotten something to drink first thing in the morning, so they can easily break skulls. It’d be okay if the skulls were just theirs but innocent swimmers are also in danger. I also suspect those who trample the water on their fart machines of using SUVs exclusively when ashore.
Aren’t they the ones who build continuous fences around their dachas – or move into the newly built houses in the center?
Doesn’t my sketch depict a recognizable portrait of our homegrown schlub?
Don’t you see one like that every day?
I sincerely hope that it’s not the mirror where you see it!