52 Lock Up: Generation Pe’s Bombingof Vladlen Tatarsky

Welcome back to 52 Lock Up, I am your Appletini Cadma of Bitten Apple TV. 52 lock up is a series I started to talk about one of my biggest passions of true crime. A new episode on every Cadmaniac Monday for 52 Mondays, 52 crimes. Hope you guys enjoy, be sure to like, leave some feedback and subscribe; Viewer discretion is always advised.

Heading back across the pond and further; we’re back in Russia. Let’s begin with Maxim Yuryevich Fomin or more formerly known as Vladlen Tatarsky. Maxim was born 04/25/1982 in Makiivka, Donetsk Oblast Ukrainian SSR Soviet Union to his mother Ravilya Ibragimova. In 2011, Maxim was part of a bank robbery in Ukraine and was captured and convicted and sentenced. For those who may not know, March 2014 is when the Kremlin Vladimir Putin began their invasion into Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea; and people chose to mind their business and let Putin do his thing like the Munich agreement of 1938. During the beginning of this war, Maxim was like this could be a good opportunity to break out of prison and then joined the military of the Russia backed Donetsk People’s Republic. He would eventually be caught and imprisoned again; I wonder if this is how Yevgeny’s Wagner Group was coming up with “test ideas” for the future Suicide Squad.

Maxim being imprisoned again would be pardoned by Alexander Zakharchenko who was the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic; and he was then presented with the opportunity to fight against the Ukrainian army along side the Vostok Battalion during the war in Donbas. Around 2017, Maxim would decide after his military career he should try blogging; haven’t we all right? However, Maxim didn’t want to use his real name and he would use the pen name of Vladlen Tatarsky which is an allusion of Vladimir Lenin the Russian Marxist that proposed the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishment of communism; which is titled Leninism. Oh my global history teacher would be so proud of me right now; Hi Mr. Philp. I’m digressing, but his pen name was a blend of Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Satirist Victor Pelevin’s character Babylen Tatarsky from Generation P which stands for "Generation Pizdets," which translated roughly as "Generation Screwed."

Generation Pe leads the protagonist Tatarsky who is a student and poet encounter tribulations on a self discovering journey after being tossed onto the streets after the fall of the Soviet Union. The protagonist begins to create Russian versions of western advertisements and thrive in their success for it. The protagonist begins to question and try to define culture but is losing themselves in their material possessions and self-indulgence. Tatarsky begins to see patterns in life and interprets it as hidden meanings behind the chaos of life. Part of this hidden purpose is through reading about Mesopotamian religious practices and they connect with Goddess Ishtar who is the goddess of war, love, sexuality, fertility; and responsible for all life. Speaking of Ishtar, Hope everyone had a happy Easter.

The lead protagonist Tatarsky begins to experiment with different hallucinogenic drugs, vodka & a ouija board to connect them to Che Guevara; yes the Argentinian Marxist whose face is often on t-shirts at gift shops. Tatarsky begins to comprehend that politics and life events on television are digital creations but struggles to see what is the ultimate driver of these fabrications. After a ritual sacrifice Tatarsky becomes the Goddess Ishtar’s new regent but their “electronic double” become a ubiquitous presence on Russian TV. It is in that moment they realize that as much as they saw past the “fake” presentation on tv; that they were just as much as part of the problem or illusion. I explained the book only because it seems Maxim’s life seems to replicate it in it’s own way of the journey they embarked on and the speculation of the future of humanity.

In Maxim’s writing they reflected on the war in Donbas and wrote “Thousands of Russian Officers served in the region since October 2014”. The blog became profound amongst Russian military bloggers; a group known for their undying support of the Russo_Ukrainian War. His popularity would grow in February 2022 and would be invited to political shows on the state television. He was known for his criticism of Russian military commanders and Vladimir Putin being “too soft” in their approach. The Ukrainian invasion would catch the world’s attention in February 2022, Maxim’s article about thousands of Russian officers serving in the region since October 2014 would contradict the Russian Federation claim that “There was no military in the mainland Ukraine before 2022”; for those who are watching the war. Maxim or Vladlen Tatarsky moved to Moscow in 2019 until this year.

Said Putin was being too soft?

Person A: “Hey I want your house!”

Person B: “Um, no”

Person A: “Why not?”

Person B: “I live here”

Person A: “I’m taking it!”

Person B: “What the…I was just existing why are you here?”

Person A: “Because power over people is what I deserve!”

Person B: “Says who?”

Person A: “Well uhhh me!”

Person B: “Not good enough, I’m going to fight back”

Person A: “Does everyone see how they are treating me!!!!”

I digress. Maxim also wrote about their interviews with field commanders and what was happening on the front line, alcohol and drug abuse amongst the orcs/ or soldiers in Donbas. Orcs is what he would use to describe the fighters. By 2022, he became more and more aligned with the Kremlin and advertised more optimism than most pro-Russian writers on Telegram like where he believed Russia could keep control of Kherson.

However, being pro-Kremlin is one thing but Maxim demanded for more attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure that would result in more Ukrainian casualties. Ukraine would be referred to as a terrorist state; this is weird the propaganda seems familiar but again who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. There is a video of Maxim saying “We’ll defeat everyone, we’ll kill everyone, we’ll rob everyone, we need to. Everything will be the way we like it.” Maxim’s Pro-Kremlin status gathered many followers to his words because we all know that war is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength; right?

Maxim became so popular that he would sanctioned by Ukraine and banned from ever entering the country for 10 years and any of his assets that were in Ukraine were confiscated. I get that, that’s like someone disrespecting you in your home and then expecting to be able to come over again; like what do you mean I can’t back?

Well Maxim was a guest speaker at a popular Saint Petersburg cafe that used to be owned by Suicide Squad The Wagner Group Yevgheny on April 2, 2023. Allegedly a woman named Darya Trepova would enter the cafe and brought a box with a bust of Tatarsky; the Trojan horse of his supercilious pride. The bust would carry a bomb inside. Maxim would be killed and 24 others injured with 6 of them in critical condition according to Russian authorities; the bombing and his death would be caught on camera.

Who is Darya Trepova? Well this is the little bit that I could find about her. She grew up and attended school in Pushkin which is right outside of Saint Petersburg. She would later enroll herself at St. Petersburg State University; although it is believed that she had not completed the schooling but yet to be confirmed. While she was there she did work at a vintage clothing shop in the city but left her job a month prior to moving to Moscow of this year. At some point she would Dmitry Rylov but it is unclear of when they met and when they would eventually marry.

When Putin made it clear he was invading Ukraine in 2022, Darya and her husband Dmitry would protest against the war; and both of them would be arrested for the protesting and allegedly ignoring the police requests for the the crowd to disperse and stop protesting against the war. In short for disagreeing peacefully. Darya was detained for 10 days. Her husband was also a member of a small fringe opposition group called the Libertarian Party, which was involved in the demonstrations. The same party announced on the Telegram channel SOTA that Darya was not part of the party and they condemned the killing of Tatarsky.

Of course due to marriage there have been reports of interest in her husband Dmitry as a connection to the bombing. Her husband Dmitry Rylov even suggests to news that his wife may have been duped & too incapable of committing murder; meaning she didn’t know what she was giving pro-Kremlin blogger with the bust. He said "Yes, it's true that neither of us support the war in Ukraine, but we believe that such acts are impermissible…I'm 100% sure that she would never have agreed to anything like this if she had known about it."

There are reports stating that Russian investigators have not completely ruled out the possibility that Darya did not know what was inside the bust.

The incident would be criticized by Maragarita Simonyan who is a Russian journalist that has been sanctioned by the European Union as a “central figure of the Russian government’s propaganda” and being responsible for actions and policies that undermine Ukraine; who would also impose sanctions on her as well for her support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In October 2022, Margarita encouraged Russian citizens to choose death over defeat in Ukraine.

The incident was also criticized by Tina Kandelaki a Russian-Georgian journalist, television presenter, producer, and a co-owner of the company Apostol who is pro-Kremlin. Of course, The Russian television presenter, journalist and activist Anton Krasovky criticized the bombing as well and if you don’t know who Anton is they created a political scandal by statements on October 20, 2022 stating Ukrainian children who hate Russia should be drowned and burned. It’s giving…Eastman vibes.

Bombing a cafe of the image of pro-war; what do you think about that? Is it a horrible crime? Is it a necessary evil? Is it like the question have been asked if they could go back in time and kill Hitler before he comes to power? Military historian Kimberly Kagan’s American Research group assessed that the bombing may be an act as a warning to other Russian commentators or to even intimidate Wagner aligned actors. After the bombing Maxim would be granted the Russian state Order of Courage; remember that from the suicide squad episode. It has been reported that hundreds gathered for the funeral for Vladlen/Maxim.

Would you stop Hitler as a child? Would you encourage their art to prevent a major travesty from happening? If someone is attacking you and you are defending your home; then you apply the Stand Your Ground law, the Shoot First law, the castle doctrine; would that person be reprimanded on the levels of morality?

Tatarsky blogged about the substance abuse that soldiers were diving themselves into from being in the front line. What happens to us when war happens? Sure there’s unity amongst the community when there is a “common enemy” but whose truly the enemy. After years of war the result creates broken health systems, a damaged infrastructure, and shatters the economy. Soldiers will develop PTSD and try to cope with it with the resources they have even if it is substance abuse. Soldiers protect civilians and do more than what anyone can ask; and it’s unfair to be sent out to die for the sake of appeasing greed.

Did you know that this Russia-Ukraine war has led to the increase in prices of several commodities including fertilizers, food products, and oil and gas. The supply chain disruptions have increased freight charges, created container shortages, and lowered the availability of warehousing space. At the bottom of the supply and demand chain are you and me. The NIMBY ideology of “it’s not in my backyard” is dangerous because it is in all of our backyards; but it’s not seen until it is.

Did you know that right before World War 2 the second Sino-Japanese war was initiated and Japanese were snatching up Chinese territory and then the infamous rape of Nanking/Nanjing the Chinese capital occurred. To breakdown the spirit of Chinese resistance, Japanese General Matsui Iwane ordered that the city of Nanking to be destroyed. The city would be burned, soldiers committed terrible acts against civilians like butchering an estimated 150,000 war prisoners, an additional 50,000 male civilians and raping at least 20,000 women and girls who were also mutilated or killed during the process.

The U.S. government would put pressure on Japan over the rape of Nanking but also called the “Allison Incident”. The Japanese occupying force in Nanking apologized to John Moore Allison an American diplomat and placed the officers and soldiers involved in the incident under court-martial. The incident was thereby resolved, BUT when Hitler was threatening a European war unless the Sudetenland, a border area of Czechoslovakia containing an ethnic German majority, were to be surrendered to Germany. The leaders of Britain, France and Italy agreed to the German annexation of the Sudetenland in exchange for peace with them. No one from Czechoslovakia was in the meeting by the way; this would be the Munich Agreement of 1938.

Person A: “I want that”

Person B: “No this is my home”

Person A: “If someone doesn’t give me what I want; I’m coming after everyone”

Person C: “Hey you can have that, can you just leave my house alone?”

Person B: “I’m sorry what?”

Person A: “Agreed”

Person C: “Thanks”

I presume Hitler saw that no one was willing to get involved and began to do a little more and more and more and more; and as we all say “the rest was history as we know it”. History truly does repeat itself and the victor always gets to rewrite the history

Stay Safe & Stay Vigilant

References

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-rape-of-nanking

https://www.nytimes.com/1938/01/28/archives/diplomat-slapped-by-tokyo-soldier-john-m-allison-american-in-charge.html

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00094633.2017.1413265

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/timeline-event/holocaust/1933-1938/munich-agreement

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/st-petersburg-bomb-cafe-military-blogger-vladlen-tatarsky/

https://www.icrc.org/en/document/global-trends-war-and-their-humanitarian-impacts-0

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201403/the-psychology-war

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-ooze/201601/the-psychology-going-war

https://www.apa.org/international/united-nations/un-matters/rathi-war.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladlen_Tatarsky

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65161900

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65155075

https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/ptsd/what-is-ptsd

https://www.everytown.org/shoot-first-stand-your-ground-laws-are-dangerous/

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/castle_doctrine

https://www.ncsl.org/civil-and-criminal-justice/self-defense-and-stand-your-ground

https://www.newsweek.com/alaska-republican-touts-benefits-children-being-abused-death-1782972

https://www.gep.com/blog/mind/russia-ukraine-war-logistics-impact

https://abcnews.go.com/International/1-year-war-ukraine-affecting-food-supplies-prices/story?id=97320422

https://alaskapublic.org/2023/02/22/alaska-house-censures-rep-eastman-for-comments-about-the-economic-benefit-of-child-abuse-deaths/

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/21/alaska-republican-jan-6-oath-keeper-00082550

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarita_Simonyan

https://www.state.gov/disarming-disinformation/faces-of-kremlin-propaganda-margarita-simonyan/

https://www.forbes.com/profile/margarita-simonyan/

https://oc-media.org/rt-head-margarita-simonyan-and-senior-russian-official-banned-from-armenia/

https://roscongress.org/en/speakers/krasovskiy-anton/biography/

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-tv-presenter-says-sorry-faces-probe-call-drown-ukrainian-children-2022-10-24/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63378613

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60763494

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_P_(film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Pelevin

https://iztok-zapad.eu/en/viktor-pelevin

https://discover.hubpages.com/literature/8-Novels-by-Victor-Pelevin-to-Add-to-Your-Reading-Lists

https://web.stanford.edu/~gfreidin/Publications/columns/Pelevin_generation2000.htm

https://www.abebooks.com/9785699795987/Generation-P-Victor-Pelevin-5699795987/plp

Generation "P": https://a.co/d/14p6Plr

https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/27006/Stakun_ku_0099D_15558_DATA_1.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/movies/victor-ginzburgs-russian-satire-generation-p.html

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-simonyan-defeat-western-world-1787223

https://www.thedailybeast.com/margarita-simonyan-urges-russians-to-choose-death-over-defeat-in-ukraine-on-kremlin-state-tv

https://news.yahoo.com/rt-simonyan-russian-propagandist-armenian-095900580.html

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vladimir-Lenin

https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/vladimir-lenin

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Vladimir_Lenin

https://www.bl.uk/people/lenin

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/8/russian-vladren-tatarsky-laid-to-rest-in-moscow

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65161900