In a society where medals have always been associated with patriotic fervor, a badge is among the heaviest loads a person can bear.
Many years ago, in what now seems a far-distant era - all red flags and fiery rhetoric - state decorations were tokens of honor for the recipient; mementoes of the Soviet experiment; symbols of prosperity and social benefits.
Two decades after the Soviet collapse, they have been largely relegated to kitsch throwbacks to a regime that had promised to defeat capitalism by 1980 but fizzled out like nothing very much a few years later.
During the 1990s and the 2000s, new insignia proliferated - badges portraying the Beatles, Che Guevara, or Eduard Limonov. Sported by the many subcultures that sprang up after perestroika, they were a celebration of freedom from ideological controls.
But for some people - mostly old men in ugly suits - the medal still retains its totemic status.
My coat has long been adorned by a badge with the number 31 on it - so long in fact, that I sometimes forget about it. But I was given a sharp reminder last night, when I was accosted by precisely that type of fellow mortal.
I was walking down (or up) a street when he saw the numbers, which refer to the Strategy 31 opposition movement of which I happen to be an aficionado. Coming up, he beckons me to stop. His face breaks into a slow, anticipatory, crackling jeer; water comes from his rheumy eyes.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" he says, somewhat menacingly, pointing at the badge. "You don't mean to tell me that you're with that crowd?"
I observe him. He means every word he says. He looks a bit like a shrunken version of Lenin, what with the goatee and all. Still I'm so floored I can't make even a perfunctory protest, not even when he begins to tug away at the badge, with an apparent design to tear it off.
"Don't you understand? They're all bullshitting us - Putin, Medvedev, Nemtsov, Limonov!" he hisses. "They're all liars, hypocrites! Don't you see?"
"Sorry, I..."
"Shut up, you're a hypocrite yourself, you hear? I fought in the war. I seen them. I know them. They've never done any good to this country, and neither will you, nor any of that crowd!"
And before I could think of any rebuke, he was gone. He gawked back at me when he crossed to the other side of the street and made some gesture I was unable to decipher.
Quite how to handle this encounter, I still have to figure.
I resumed my journey feeling a bit depressed, and worrying. Yes, worrying. What if the old geezer was right? What if they're all bullshitting us?
The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
