When tanks were rolling into Moscow on August 19, 1991, all TV-channels were transmitting Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake (similarly, during the Timisoara massacre Romanian TV transmitted folk dances). At that moment Russian audiences realized that something serious had occured. This icon of Soviet traditionalism (Stalin's favorite ballet as well as the most desirable official package of nostalgic Russian exotica for the West) was not only considered the least upsetting for both the people and for the members of the Emergency Commitee, it also signaled the return of the old commonplaces of stagnation. When again crossing the Western-Russian border, the outmoded Swan Lake has nothing to do with "camp" preferences for bad taste, for in Soviet Russia very few people would choose to be voluntarily "in the camp". Self-imposed aesthetic exclusionism here turns into its opposite - a memory of enforced political isolation. Besides, nowadays Russian aesthetes might prefer Terminator 2 to Swan Lake.