Sunset Boulevard

There we were, on Sunset Boulevard. I must say that Adobe was an entertaining and gracious host. You could sense the intelligence and the care, the thoughtfulness and restraint, much like the effort that goes into his productions.

It has never been about Stalin, in the long run; it has always been about the rich and beautiful country that he ruled for a while. Despite the ruins and the anti-intellectualism and the unstable cronyism and the misuse of cultural capital, the country is a great one. It has been a sad one, a devastated one, a nation whose sons died by the millions in service of the Motherland. But it is still great, and Stalin was just one episode in its long and colourful life.

And so, we pray for the Rodina and the space and time it occupies. Sometimes, as a wise man noted, we pray for the wrong things. It is no wonder then that we get the 'wrong' answers to our prayers.