{"id":5789,"date":"2014-03-19T10:34:13","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T16:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=5789"},"modified":"2014-03-19T10:34:13","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T16:34:13","slug":"watching-gogol-in-simferopol-life-imitates-art-in-crimea-where-nothing-seems-real-anymore-except-the-tears-and-the-vodka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=5789","title":{"rendered":"Watching Gogol in Simferopol  Life imitates art in Crimea, where nothing seems real anymore except the tears and the vodka."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A href=\"http:\/\/www.foreignpolicy.com\/articles\/2014\/03\/17\/watching_gogol_in_simferopol_crimea_referendum\">Dimiter Kenarov<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine \u2014 On the eve of the Crimean referendum, while the world anxiously awaited the climax of Ukraine&#8217;s political drama, I went to Simferopol&#8217;s Crimea Russian Drama Theater to see a production of Nikolai Gogol&#8217;s The Government Inspector. In spite of the tension in the city, in spite of the insolent men in military fatigues patrolling every street and intersection, the house was still half-full that Saturday evening, with families, couples, and groups of high-school students occupying the plush seats under a gorgeous, blue-edged, floral-and-butterfly-themed ceiling.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>&nbsp;The plot of The Government Inspector is classic bitter Russian satire: A new arrival in a provincial, corrupt town &#8212; an imperious young man named Khlestakov &#8212; is mistaken by local officials for an important government inspector from St. Petersburg, sent incognito to examine the town&#8217;s affairs. The terrified mayor and his cronies immediately grovel before him, offering bribes and favors. The town merchants, believing Khlestakov a real inspector with the power to finally clean up their town, also court him. At the end of the play, the ruse is revealed, but too late: Having taken advantage of everyone, Khlestakov suddenly departs, never to be seen again. In the final act, the real government inspector arrives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dimiter Kenarov: SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine \u2014 On the eve of the Crimean referendum, while the world anxiously awaited the climax of Ukraine&#8217;s political drama, I went to Simferopol&#8217;s Crimea Russian Drama Theater to see a production of Nikolai Gogol&#8217;s The Government Inspector. In spite of the tension in the city, in spite of the insolent men [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5789"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5790,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5789\/revisions\/5790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}