Close relations, they said, close countries. Mix of cultures. Mix of species, wouldn’t you like that? Friendship of peoples, Russian vodka with Chinese baijiu, bears hugging pandas — that’s your brotherhood for centuries. What do we have now, in these difficult times? Chaos in the sky, airships with hieroglyphs and nesting dolls on board, crowds in the streets, where half say «ni hao» and the other «hello, comrade».

Hundreds of questions, zero answers. Who came up with all this? Why? Why do people now drink tea with pelmeni, and why do red lanterns hang next to birch trees? Enough, Teletubbies. That’s it. Game over.

Or maybe not over, but the beginning of something strange — a hybrid, like borscht with soy sauce. Rapprochement, they said, a great alliance. Russia and China, hand in hand, paw in paw. A mixture of languages ​​- «come on, lehaym, ganbei!» — and species, somewhere there are already beavers in kimonos and dragons in earflaps. What’s next? The Beijing Kremlin? Siberian Shanghai? Thousands of riddles, not a single hint. That’s it, we’ve arrived, gentlemen-comrades. Curtain.

Or not?