CHOCOLATE FACTORY

As a child, during the long Russian dinner ceremonies, I remember observing grown-ups play with their bob-bon wrappings. They would sit at the table, discussing things with one another, sipping on their endless cups of tea, but the focus of their concentration would actually remain on one monotonous activity: the flattening of the bon-bon wrapping with a fingernail. In the beginning every wrapping preserved the unique shape of the chocolate it once carried inside and even some nostalgia of its heavy aroma, but eventually all of them turned into shiny identical squares, often ripped in the middle.

Now I've grown up, but I still have the feeling that the bigger people at the large Russian table are busy flattening the wrappings.

Two days ago another outspoken opponent of the current Russian regime died. Later British intelligence agencies claimed that the death of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko carried the mark of a state-sponsored assassination, that is to say that Litvinenko fell victim to state terror. To the mainstream Russian media however, the other definition of this case appealed much more, that of Scotland Yard saying they are treating Litvinenko's death as suspicious, and not describing their investigation as a murder inquiry . Perhaps Scotland Yard should know better than feed the partisan Russian media with such a treat.

Russian television, who only broke their silence about Litvinenko after the whole topic had filled independent on-line and printed media to the brim one day prior to his death, restrict themselves to quoting Putin and other Russian officials on the little influence that Litvinenko had and the little damage he could make to even consider killing him (similar remarks had been made after Anna Politkovskaya's murder last month). Following this logic, killing a more influential Russian could be considered?

Russian national TV channels NTV and Channel 1 also suggest that Litvinenko purposefully both fell ill and died on the dates of important international political events and that London PR company Bell Pottinger had taken part in the show. Litvinenko is being referred to as an eager actor in a thriller and a sacral victim for the sake of discrediting modern Russia . It is hinted that the director of this blockbuster is Boris Berezovsky, a London-based tycoon, much hated by the Russian crowd. To make Litvinenko even more disagreeable to the mainstream Russians, who are being actively shoved into the controlling fold of the Russian Orthodox Church, some Russian media even wrote that Litvinenko had adopted Islam shortly before death and would be buried according to a Muslim ritual.

This smooth and simple wrapping, all set to be consumed by the common Russian viewer, will no doubt make its way into the old Soviet-style string of logic, somewhere next to this year's finds of British espionage equipment in Moscow.

Just like in the years of my childhood, all the thinking has already been done for the news consumer, and the simpler and flatter the shape, the shinier the wrapping, the better.