Nostalgia

Recently, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney lashed out at... nostalgia. True, he never bothered to clarify what he personally understands by this term, but in principle it is clear to everyone that he is talking about longing for the normal times of the not-so-distant past.

This reminded me of the distant year of 1979—the year I served in the Soviet Army, and of a speech given by the commander of our unit, Colonel Nikitin, during yet another nighttime roll call.

“So,” the colonel began, interrupting his speech with bouts of drunken hiccups, “recently, among you, there have been cases of this... what’s it called... nostalgia!”

The perpetually drunk commander’s use of this “learned” word prompted restrained snickering among the ranks, to which the colonel responded with the following tirade:

“For those who don’t understand—I’ll explain! When a soldier goes AWOL, buys a bottle of vodka at the railway station, drinks it straight from the bottle in the woods on his way back to the unit, and pukes on our unit’s grounds—that is NOS-TAL-GIA! And we will fight it!”

Victoria,
October 6, 2026