How has new media or the access to more media influenced modern Russian culture especially youth culture?
JF: Television in the Putin years was turned back into a propaganda tool. It once again plays a role similar to that which it did in the Soviet era. Young people working for television studios – as Olga once did herself – have access to power, relative wealth, a glamorous lifestyle. These tend to be “beautiful people,” who live in a world apart. They affect fashion trends of all kinds. They form a small, but relatively powerful elite class. Since most tend to be quite young and they often get these jobs without having to actually do anything, it skews the way they see the world. Think, for instance, of the girl in Yaroslava Pulinovich’s play I Won. She becomes a TV host after a simple interview. The boy she falls in love with is on the verge of becoming the chief sound engineer at a TV studio at the age of 21 and without any training at all. Chances are the people in Olga’s Flying got where they are by similar routes. What that means is that they begin to live with an impression that l
