Dmitry Glukhovsky: The omnipotence of the special services is always a harbinger of the last times. But Navalny decided

All your previous novels were about the future, but the new one talks about the present time. Why did you decide to change your approach?

Because the present has become interesting. About eight years ago, when I wrote “Metro 2034,” the present was boring, and besides, it seemed to us then that there was nothing to complain about. This was the time of Medvedev's modernization. It seemed that protest political activity had come to naught because Medvedev had taken over the protest agenda. He said very correct things, another question is that what he did had nothing to do with what he said...

But in the last 2-3 years, the official agenda has become so obscurantist that it is now very interesting to live, to watch how the system takes steps to ensure that everything goes to hell. One can observe how fascism is modeled at the state level. After all, you and I did not live during the formation of a totalitarian regime or even a simulation of such a formation.

Do you think that fascism is on the rise? Or that there is a simulation of its formation?

At certain moments it begins to seem that everything is very serious. Until some time it was postmodern, a parody of cannibalistic practices of the first half of the twentieth century, including television parody. Television is used to achieve a virtual effect - instead of dealing with reality. You call extras, Cossacks and vacationers, with their help you portray something, then with the help of TV channels and talk shows you replicate it throughout the country and create the “impression of what.” You create the impression of the formation of a totalitarian state in order to crush the protest. You create the impression of an absolute Putin majority in order to overcome all those who waver. Or (if) you create the impression of liberalization - in order to reassure people who are impatient for the future.

This is reminiscent of Guy Debord's theses about the "society of the spectacle." But why do you think the current authorities do not strive to develop a real ideology, and not just “pretend that”? No request? No ability? No interest?

These people are purely cynical and very pragmatic. And I have a feeling that they are completely insatiable, just some kind of Tim Tyler. Apparently, their childhood was so hungry that they just can’t get enough to eat. They stuff everything into themselves and cannot digest it, but they cannot eat enough either.

This is a tragic situation: people in power in the country are not government officials at all. Of course, businessmen cannot rule the country, but neither can special agents. In Rome, the coming of the Praetorians to power marked the onset of the “end times” and the pre-collapse state. Praetorians are excellent at preventing conspiracies, protecting the emperor, and catching villains, but they do not have strategic thinking. They act as guards. Power in our country is divided between security guards and businessmen.

Businessmen treat the state in which the people live as a commercial corporation that must be managed, extracting personal profit from it, without thinking about the interests of the people. For them, the people are largely a burden on the territory. They purchased an “apartment with encumbrances”, with a grandmother who lives there, and until she passes away, nothing can be done with the apartment. This apartment is called "Russian Federation". It seems that there is some kind of social contract and you cannot help your grandmother die, but there is no interest in helping her either. You just have to wait for her to die.

It seems that people are out of place. Nevertheless, they are very well entrenched in this place. But the only task they solve is the task of their continued stay in power. They are not trying to make the country better. They want to imitate getting up from their knees, imitate the revival of Russia as a great power, imitate confrontation with the West, imitate modernization, and so on. Any “state project” always has a specific beneficiary, most often from among childhood friends.

Are you interested in their logic or how it affects society?

I'm interested in the reaction of the population. I, too, am not the heir of some nomenklatura figure, who from childhood was introduced to the secrets of managing the masses. I, as a representative of the plebs, go from being one of the heads of livestock and gradually, with the help of friends and my own interest, I begin to understand what is behind this veil of propaganda and half-truths.

And what do you think is the reaction from society? OK? Resistance? Indifference?

At first the population simply survived. Then they gave it something to eat, and it was very happy about it, because it had not been given anything to eat for a long time. He was also allowed to have housing, a car and travel abroad. And this was enough for 10 years. As soon as these valves - foreign travel, housing, food - began to be turned off, it was necessary to distract the population with something. By preemptively simulating a siege of our fortress by Western forces of darkness and gloom, we ourselves initiated all these crises.

That is, for some time people had no time for this. While the level of well-being was growing, the mythology was working that we have never lived as well as we do now. What difference does it make, they say, how much they steal, if they do not steal from our pocket. And for the time being, they really weren’t stealing from our pockets - except for some individual stories like the Magnitsky case. But all other money was stolen directly from the depths, to which the people never had any connection or access. But at the moment when they began to get into people’s pockets (because there was no longer enough resource money), the population began to move.

The authorities modeled a conflict with the West, which allowed them to divert people’s attention from internal problems and switch it to external ones, and at the same time explained all our troubles as harmful external influences. In addition, they got the opportunity to say that since we are in a besieged fortress, we must look for traitors inside. This logic works flawlessly, and they applied it. In this regard, there are smart people in the presidential administration at the management level. I think that different scenarios were discussed there, and this one was chosen because it had already been successfully used several times in a variety of countries.

What would be the reaction of society if the ideology were proposed seriously? What if they proposed to truly build an empire with an alternative picture of the world, a system of values ​​and a path of development to the West?

Before the Crimean events, I always said that we have a country with an ideological hangover. For 75 years we were told about building paradise on earth and attributed all our difficulties and sufferings to this. Then the authorities suddenly told us that all this was not so, that everything they told us about building communism could be forgotten, and they advised us to go and mind our own private affairs, to live as we want.

At that moment they, too, had important matters to deal with in cutting and distributing the socialist economy. For more than ten years, the state withdrew itself from the ideological sphere. It seems to have become a state of technocrats who are not interested in any ideology. And the population in those years would have reacted with great skepticism and disgust to any attempt to instill some kind of ideology again.

But another moment came. According to Maslow's pyramid, first the nation addressed the security issue (in Chechnya), then it ate - and it wanted self-respect. And self-respect for us is the return of the status of an empire. Empire is a powerful and not exclusively Russian idea. One way or another, every former empire dreams of returning to imperial status. This even applies to, for example, Hungary, not to mention the UK.

Therefore, it no longer surprises me how the same people can fall into awe when thinking about both Nicholas II and Stalin. They seem to be opposites, but in reality there is no contradiction. Both Tsarist Russia and Stalin's Union were empires.

When teenagers say that they love Stalin, it is obvious that the point is not Stalin, about whom they know nothing. They know about the mustache and “shoot everyone.” Stalin is a meme. He has very little to do with a specific historical figure.

In the same way, Nicholas II is a meme and symbol of the empire. People just want an empire.

Do they still want it?

Undoubtedly. And it’s stupid to blame them for this; we were a great power that for decades instilled fear and terror in our neighbors, and that suited us quite well. It was considered unnecessary for us to be respected in the same way that, for example, Japan is respected.

Is there a way to combine life in an empire with full civil rights?

Yes, such empires exist. The United States of America is just such an empire. Inside the country it is democratic and gives people freedom, but outside it behaves like an empire. It seems to me that we could well be such an empire. We would like to live in a country where people are free and their rights are protected.

I think people feel very insecure. And the request for the greatness of a power is a sublimation: instead of a solution, the issue of personal insecurity is transferred to a higher level. Maybe no one respects me, but everyone respects my country. I am an ant, but together, like a termite mound, we can eat anyone. 86% of citizens are ready to sign up for this. That is why they like tank parades on Red Square and the Russian flag over Sevastopol. They identify themselves with these tanks and believe that they are personally afraid of them.

I think that we would like to live in a country where, if necessary, we can find justice for illegal actions of the police, where through elections we can remove at least the mayor, or even the president. Although our president is more of a symbol than a person, an individual. That is why no one asks with whom he baptizes children in the literal sense of the word. We like his rounded statements and quotes precisely because, by and large, he is also a meme. In general, the American civilizational model could be close to us. This is also why we compare ourselves to them all the time. They are a competing project.

My experience of living in Europe suggests that it is easier for Russians to find a common language with Americans than with Europeans. Have you ever had that feeling?

I can agree with this. Americans are more rollicking, just like us. And they are quite sincere people, while Europeans are quite tense and complex, this is due to their history. Europeans have a lot more taboo topics; in America it’s mostly just political correctness. Leave blacks and gays alone and say whatever you want.

Moreover, they, like us, are a melting pot, a multi-ethnic history. In our country this happens under Russian dominance. Their Anglo-Saxons, having formed a culture and political system, have now retreated into the background. Therefore, it’s easier for us with them, besides, they are also an empire. The same liberal empire that Surkov talked about.

I don't understand why their model can't work for us. Why do we need this oppression of private initiative, stupefying, feeding and intimidation - the four pillars on which our power system rests. Maybe the difference is precisely this, in how people came to power. The people who came to power in the United States are a meritocracy. Even if you are a protege of the Rothschilds, you must prove yourself. And we have very random people in power.

One of the main recent stories on the topic of “power and art” is the battle between the authors of “Matilda” and deputy Poklonskaya. Do you agree that this is her private initiative, or is there something else behind it?

Characters like Poklonskaya are useful for the authorities. They indicate a conservative trend. People in power are mostly pragmatists. Not to mention the fact that they are security officers who have undergone professional deformation - “there are enemies all around,” “people can be manipulated,” “compromising evidence can be found on everyone.”

It's like a talk show here. We need to call one balanced person, eight rabid imperialists, one marginal democrat, preferably a Jew, and some caricatured Ukrainian or American. These latter will be the whipping boys, the frantic will sputter, and the conditional “Soloviev” (who sold his soul to the devil, but is an exceptionally talented demagogue), as if moderating this discussion, will turn the cup so that the only balanced person will win the vote with a convincing margin. This is how public opinion management works. Poklonskaya, in a certain sense, appears on a national talk show. There are a number of speakers - Chaplin, Poklonskaya, Zheleznyak. This talk show sets the national agenda.

To what extent is this talk show moderated, to what extent is it controlled?

There is a department of internal policy of the Russian Presidential Administration, which deals specifically with moderation and work with public opinion leaders. There are also various kinds of expert institutions that develop and propose certain agendas.

Another thing is that all this management comes down to a situational response and distraction. By and large, all this is just a giant smoke machine that does not develop a strategy for the country’s development, but produces a smoke screen. No one there has strategic thinking, there is only a tactical response. The West is like this for us, and we are like this for them. Navalny is this, and we give him this.

These people have no project for the country. They found themselves at the head of a great power with a very dramatic and bloody history. And they feel out of place. The scale does not match the role. These people, from Yakunin to Medvedev, are people from the local cooperative who suddenly stood at the head of the state.

You started our conversation by making the present interesting. Would you prefer it to remain this way, to have something to write about, or would it be better for it to become a little more boring?

As an observer and writer, it is, of course, very interesting to me. Although, let’s say, the 2000s were interesting, but at the same time satisfying. We are only now beginning to understand this. Then people felt a little dizzy; it seemed that every next day would be better than the previous one. Now there is the opposite feeling - that every next day will be worse. And yet, as an observer, today's Russia fascinates me.

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Editorial website talked to a Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky, who is known to the gaming audience as the author of post-apocalyptic novels in the Metro universe, about his new projects, approach to work, games and Andrzej Sapkowski.

The shooter will go on sale on February 22, 2019 Metro Exodus ("Metro: Exodus"), for which Glukhovsky wrote the script.

Good afternoon Tell us about the latest news. What interesting things did you do and what are your plans for the near future?

The most recent thing is that last year the book “Text” was published, my first realistic work. The story of a guy, a philology student from Lobnya. I decided to celebrate the successfully passed second year exam. I went to Red October, to the club, and there was drug control and a raid. They accosted his girlfriend, began to search her, and he stood up for her, after which they planted bags on him and imprisoned him for seven years. He left prison and immediately, in a state of passion and intoxicated, killed the man who had put him behind bars. This was a young drug control officer, whose phone the main character gains access to.

The next day he comes to his senses and realizes that he can now be identified by cameras, tracking, billing, and so on. And to avoid punishment, he decides to pretend that the guy is still alive. She studies and uses his phone, writes from it, transforming into this person. The story is called “Text” because the main character does everything in text and cannot speak with his voice. The book came out last year. Now it is staged as a play at the Ermolova Theater. Another movie will be coming soon.

Have you thought about making a game based on this book?

Yes, I don’t even know what kind of game this could turn out to be. Lobnya, Red October, train... The setting is a little strange and the plot is also not very clear.

Returning to the previous question, this is from the last one.

The next big project that will be released is an audio series being prepared for the Storytel platform. There is such an application with audiobooks on Google Play and iTunes. The audio series is structured like a regular television series, meaning there are 10 50-minute episodes per season. Multiple acts, cliffhanger at the end. Like a real series, but without pictures, just with sound. It's called "Post". You can listen to it while you're driving a car, riding the subway, jogging, or ironing your socks, for example.

We started recently public on VKontakte, which will become our main media for this project.

“Post” is a story about how, on the ruins of a collapsed Russia, the last piece of support is the rusty Trans-Siberian Railway. And on this Trans-Siberian Railway there are appanage principalities skewered, like on a skewer. And one of them is in the spotlight. This is not Moscow, but, as it were, one fortress city that sits on this railway. Actually, Post. Somewhere on the river bank. And he is at the epicenter of all events.

This is the audio series expected on “Storitele”. There will be no “Lent” in the form of a book at all - only audio. Should be out early winter. Maybe January-February.

Have you thought about expanding this project into a film or even a game if it becomes popular?

This was originally a project for a television series, but while I was coming up with it, it became a little political. Because it’s about a collapsed Russia. Then it became impossible to talk about something falling away from us, because that something was Crimea. And Crimea falls off - this is the 282nd at once. That's why the TV got a little pissed. Well, okay.

During this time the situation has changed again. It’s not so scary anymore, everyone has already forgotten about Crimea, it’s as if we’ve passed through. But the idea still remains, and it's cool, from my point of view. My own idea, which I have been living with for several years. And now I have found a partner suitable for “bombing” it all.

Can the idea develop into something more?

It may outgrow, of course. It seems to me that this is a format that, in principle, is suitable for some kind of game. Fortress defense is a clear concept. With some sort of forays, diplomacy, and so on. It may well be. Note to the hostess: if developers are reading us, I say hello. Here's a great idea for a game.

Well, in the future maybe there will be some other book series, for example. For a long time I had an idea with characters, drama, and dilemma that I understood. In principle, no one has made audio series here, and now we can again, as it were, create something new, unusual and interesting, implementing an idea that has been burning my soul for a long time.

What other ideas are you working on now?

Lots of other things too. What I have listed is the closest one already. There are ideas for several books, plays, and television scripts. A lot of things, and in different genres.

The above-mentioned “Text” is a realistic work, then a dystopian story, followed by a tough family drama about the relationships between people in marriage, and after that, perhaps a book about artificial intelligence, or maybe not. All. Well, that is, different things.

Where do you get ideas from? What inspires you? Does it happen that you specifically develop a book idea for a specific audience?

No, no... Making a book for an audience is bullshit. Idiocy. You cannot make a book for a specific audience. Let the marketers of the STS TV series do this. “Who is our audience? Grannies. Let’s do something fun for the grannies.” Accordingly, about youth - a handsome man and a milkmaid. Whatever. They are forced to do this because they are responsible for other people's money. I don’t have to answer for anything at all. I'm a completely irresponsible dude, I do what I want, and that's the magic.

When you do what is interesting to you, and not what you think is interesting to others. When you are not trying to represent some target audience that should be interested in a certain proportion of tits and action.

We live more or less standard lives. And the dilemma that we are going through, and some collisions that are typical to one degree or another. First you are a nerdy teenager, then you have your first love, then you get married, some temptations appear, you break up, you have children, your parents are getting old, you have already stopped rebelling against them and begin to feel sorry for them, you had a fight with someone at work … This is all pretty standard stuff. Thank God that we do not live during the Second World War, because then standard things were of a different nature. Nowadays we have them that are more “soft”. But nonetheless. You lived it, somehow formulated it for yourself, and if you formulated it honestly and accurately, then you can infect others with it.

There is a lot of pop music where this is formulated dishonestly and inaccurately, because it is made with the “presumed taste reference points of the audience” in mind. And you just do everything honestly, as it is. It didn't sell and didn't sell. Something else will work out. Don't look too hard at the audience. You have to do everything the way you feel. Write what you want to write now.

I had seven books, and none of them became as successful as Metro 2033. Well, okay. So what now, get too upset? There is a trilogy, we closed this topic. Or should I, like Lukyanenko, Perumov, Rowling or Akunin, rivet endless sequels? You are losing your freedom. You don't do what you want. It becomes a job for you. Such physical, hard, exhausting, boring and unpleasant work.

A huge super luxury is when you can do whatever you want, and now they also pay you something for it. But who actually has such luxury in our lives? Usually work is boring, you sit through it, and then you go catch sprat with bloodworms, because there you can relax your soul... Why the hell? There is a unique opportunity here to do what you want to do and somehow still make money from it. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good.

I have books that seem to be of no particular interest to anyone, although I think they are still great and have found some kind of audience. For example, my book “Stories about the Motherland” has a circulation of probably 50 thousand, and it has never been printed. It came out ten years ago, and here it is. And “Metro 2033” has a circulation of millions, and another 50-100 thousand are printed every year. I don’t regret writing “Stories about the Motherland” at all. I think it was a great thing for that time, the spirit of the time, the tenth year. It didn’t sell, well, it didn’t sell. You can't worry about it. This is a road to nowhere. You will then fabricate a product and it will all end with you being exposed by your readers. They will say: “Well, it’s baked. He’s doing some shit.”

I understand and support you. The main thing is self-realization and thoughts, but what about responsibility to the audience?

Irresponsibility to the audience. Star Wars producers have a responsibility to the audience.

If you think that responsibility means doing it exactly the same as it was, because people are used to it, they like it and want more, then you are mistaken.

If you have lost interest in this and do as it was because they are waiting for it, they will still be disappointed. If you endlessly, like Pelevin, do the same thing, because you have some kind of army of your own, like fans, they will still be disappointed, because they will get tired of it. I'm tired of it. I was a wild Pelevin fan, but I just can’t anymore. Read the 25th book the same - well, how long can you?

I’d rather experiment, because at least I’ll be teased. And if they “poke” me, then so will someone else. Of course, some people fundamentally want mutants in the subway, and nothing can be done about them. Well, please, that's their right. There are computer games about mutants in the subway and there is a book series. But can I retain my freedom to do what I like now? I seem to have grown out of short pants. I wouldn’t say that I have improved much, but I’m just interested in different topics now.

It turns out that after you have realized yourself in one topic, you want to move on to something else?

Yes, I want to enjoy it in the process. I want to be excited about working on a new thing. I want it to be on a topic that is relevant to me now. And so that there is a certain challenge. Because I haven’t written about this yet, and I haven’t written in this language, and I haven’t had such heroes yet, I didn’t dare to write about any topic. Be it about love or politics or something else. That is, I was afraid to do it. For example, I was afraid to swear in books until a certain point, or to write about women’s feelings from a woman’s point of view. There are a lot of things you're not sure about.

You explore the world around you, just as you explore yourself, you become uninhibited, perhaps wasteful, or even disappointed. You learn and understand some new things.

And from my point of view, every new thing, book or something else, should be a summary. That is, you have understood something about life, about yourself and people, which means you must put it into a new thing. And then this will be some kind of step forward.

If you again, just to earn money, repeated the old trick again, then you yourself did not get any pleasure...

But there are people who enjoy this old trick...

Recently there was news about Andrzej Sapkowski, who says that he was underpaid for “The Witcher”, although there was a clear contract. What do you think about it?

Well, the old man fucked up. And now he regrets it, of course. He watches it grow into a global franchise and realizes that his pension could have been greater. A very simple story.

Sorry for him. But, apparently, he is some kind of normal genre writer, he has a lot of fans, and I think that if he were a bad author, there would not be so many loyal fans. I haven't read it myself.

The game did a lot for him. And if there had not been a game, he would definitely have remained an unknown Polish author.

He didn't understand the potential because he was just old. Well, I probably thought about games in the spirit of “What is this... Shooters... Schoolchildren killing teenagers in schools...”. That's how I imagine it. Therefore, he did not appreciate the potential.

And I’m just 30 years younger than him, I grew up there, so I understood the “scale of the disaster,” I understood what it was and that you need to be as much a part of it as possible. And we normally, humanly, agreed with the developers and creators, and I am much more satisfied with my life than Andrzej Sapkowski. And I was not excluded from the development process, but on the contrary, we had quite a symbiosis with them, and everyone is happy. I feel sorry for the old man.

How much time do you devote to the game?

This is a process that takes years. I sketched out some idea that I thought about for three weeks or a month, and sent it off. They thought about it for six months and sent it back. I expressed my comments and sent it again. Then I flew to Malta, then to Kiev, then somewhere else, or they came to some place, we talked to them... Then I started writing dialogues, they say that there is too much here, cut here... Then they they send in their dialogues, I answer that it’s somehow not very good, the characters speak as if they were buying something at the market in Kiev, let’s redo it... I rewrote it. And so on. We discuss, I propose to change something, they ask for something, we make changes and all that. This is a long process that lasts years. Net time cannot be calculated. Symbiotic story. It is clear that my workload here is largely that of a playwright. Well, ensuring the integrity of the Metro universe.

“Metro: Exodus” continues the story of “Metro 2035”. That is, where the story of “2035” and the book trilogy ends (and there will be no more books), “Exodus” picks up the story. If you want to understand what to expect in Exodus, then you need to read the books. You're interested in what's next - that's only in the game. This kind of mosaic storytelling is also quite innovative. This is not “Game of Thrones”, where the book is a season, the book is a season, season, season, oh, where is the book? At some point they start to separate because the producer already knows better.

We do hand craftsmanship. This is not assembly line production in Tesla's shiny California factories. These are people sitting and cutting something out with a knife. And I sit like that. And precisely due to the fact that it is all handmade, the result is something with a certain taste. And you understand that it’s not blurry, that you haven’t seen anything like this and that it’s quite unique.

It turns out that you inspire developers, and they inspire you?

Undoubtedly. They really inspire me in general, in principle, not only with their games, but also with some of their drive and stubbornness. I believe that their dedication and commitment to their work is completely unique.

Are you playing games now? We used to get carried away before.

I have a PlayStation on which I download all sorts of games to watch. But I can’t say that I would now pick up and play through some game to the end. For example, I played the new Wolfenstein and had great fun playing Limbo. Such things. Arcades are different. 3D shooters are difficult for me to play. This needs to be done somehow in the company. Well, it’s like sitting alone and delving into it... It’s just that when you grow up, you have less free time, and with great pleasure you already watch Netflix or HBO.

Or stream on YouTube.

Maybe, but I rely more on the emotions that a good series can give. You get on a certain emotional drive. Games are interesting like spying on other people's dreams, it seems to me. I love beautiful, spectacular games. Some BioShock is new, although it is no longer new, where you find yourself and are surprised, looking at some things. Especially on the big screen - it’s absolutely beautiful.

Have you seen the Death Stranding trailer? It stars Norman Reedus.

We need to look. I won’t pretend that I’m so cool, youthful and always keeping track of everything, because this has not been the case for a long time. I'm 85 and I'm not a cake. But I keep an eye on some things. You turn on a trailer for your game, then switch to another, and you can get stuck like that for half a day. You think it’s cool, I need to play and see this. But I can’t say that I’m some kind of super-gamer now. It wouldn't be fair if I told you something like that just to sound cool. I'm not cool.

Aren't you tired of Metro yet?

I’m tired of Metro, of course, and I don’t write about it anymore. But the world continues to live its own life. The game series is too important to be left to chance. Therefore, of course, I delved into all this, came up with everything, but some things, for example, related to the fight against mutant bears, people do themselves. I was never good at this - the heroic part, shooting and so on.

But when it comes to emotions, drama, relationships between characters, turning NPCs into living people - this has always been my specialty. And that's what interests me. Whether I succeed or not is another question, but I really like it. And I tried to bring it all. Well, endowing the game with some meanings, subtexts, allusions, and so on.

It is very important that the game does not turn into some kind of ordinary shooter, where the main emotion you get is adrenaline. This piece should continue to be sentimental, perhaps with philosophical overtones, very emotionally charged. With longing, nostalgia, unfulfilled dreams, and so on. The game should have everything that is in the books and is an important part of the atmosphere.

Whatever awesome game with realistic graphics you sit down to play, it’s like going to a conservatory to listen to a symphony orchestra. And the fact that people play here at the highest academic level, and do not strum the balalaika, is not news to you - you are ready for this, so it is not very surprising.

Likewise with stunning graphics created by cutting-edge studios at a cost of $200 million. You knew those graphics would be there. Yes, now they look just like alive, they run, shoot, everything explodes... But surprise me? And suddenly you get something that you didn’t expect at all - some kind of human story that is absolutely poignant. Years later, Western developers also come to this and hire Oscar-winning screenwriters, because they understand that nothing breaks a person like a story. We understood this back when there was no money for graphics. They relied on atmosphere and human history, and it worked.

What would you like to say to our readers? We have a lot of Metro fans!

Dear guys and girls, site visitors! Thank you for being you. Because you are interested in games. I hope that the new Metro game will not disappoint you and that you will have someone to wash your bones on the forums of this wonderful site. In general, play games. It's better than drinking cognac in doorways and using rusty syringes. Thank you! This is Dmitry Glukhovsky. Bye!

Material prepared by: ACE,Azzy, SkyerIst

BOOKS - LIKE A SOUL IN CANNEWS
Writer Dmitry Glukhovsky - about plans for immortality

Interest in the novels of the popular writer Dmitry Glukhovsky is acquiring new dimensions and forms. The Hollywood company MGM has already bought the rights to the film adaptation of Metro 2033, and South Korea has become interested in the dystopian film The Future. The author does not have to complain about the circulation, in Russia they are huge, but he is even more inspired by the prospects of seeing his heroes on the big screen.

- How important is it for you to see a film adaptation of your work?
- Any writer wants to be heard. The best thing that can happen to him is being awarded the Nobel Prize. The film adaptation of the book is in second place. The good thing about a film adaptation is that it simplifies the novel, squeezes the main emotions out of it, wraps the story in glossy posters with tanned faces of the actors... And makes your story accessible to the masses. The book is a coconut; to get to the pulp and juice, you need to crack the shell; film - coconut-flavored chewing gum. Chemistry, fake - but sold on every corner; Besides, are you personally ready to spend energy on the shell? But thanks to the film about the book, millions will learn about the writer. And what else he will say to these millions who suddenly listen to him depends only on him. A film adaptation is a chance that not everyone gets. I want to be heard not only in Russia.

You are clearly ambitious, but at the same time you behave rather atypically in everyday life. You avoid the media, refuse to broadcast popular television and radio broadcasts. Don't you need recognition?
- Flashing on the screen is useless. A Russian writer should be an oracle, not a Teletubby. They expect truths from him, knowledge of how the world and the soul work. Each statement of the writer must be a complete postulate. He has no right to grunt and interjections. If you appear at Malakhov's nightly circus of freaks with the title "writer", this does not make you a writer. I don’t need people to recognize my face on the street, it makes me feel awkward. I need people to read what I write - and to argue about my novels. I tried to host programs on TV. It’s good to be a TV presenter alone: ​​strangers smile at you. There is no other meaning here. As soon as the presenter disappears from the box, he is immediately forgotten. He's alive while he's babbling, so he's forced to talk and won't shut up, even if he has nothing to say. And I want to be remembered for some time. Books are my canned soul. I throw books from my island into the ocean of nothingness, like letters in bottles. They will outlive me. I plant my personality in the readers, instill them. And the presenters, remind us again what they do there?

- Are your ambitions limited to literary activity?
- Literary activity is not a limitation on ambitions. There are no limits to it. In it you have to compete with the classics - with titans, with geniuses. How does my “Future” look against the background of Huxley and Zamyatin, Bradbury and Orwell? This is a desperate struggle - and a doomed one. But I haven’t written a single book for which I would be ashamed now. Metro 2033 was my high school novel, actually. And at that moment I could not have done better. “Twilight” took away from me everything that had accumulated in me up to that moment: strength, experience, understanding of life, command of language. "Stories about the Motherland" was also a new step. Now - "The Future". This doesn't mean the book is perfect or even just good. This means I did everything I could.

- So much so that it turns out that girls cry over your books...
- And forty-year-old men. Some people here confessed to me that they could not hold back their tears in the final scenes of the novel “The Future.”

- Forty-year-old men are vulnerable creatures.
- You just need to know which point to hit. Surprisingly, men are fascinated by anything related to infants. Somehow it penetrates between the plates of their armor, between the ribs, and right into the heart.

- On the one hand, you protect your personal life, but at the same time you are very frank in your texts.
- Let the Teletubbies sell their personal lives. The poor guys can be understood: they don’t create anything, and they have to sell themselves. The more dramatic the Teletubby's confession in "Seven Days", the higher his rate at the corporate party. I don't want the whole country to crawl under my blanket. But I also feel the need to confess. Singers undress on the covers, writers - under the covers. I am not a religious person, and I miss such a booth where you can come to tell the barred pastor about your sins, dreams and fears. And I pretend to be the hero of my books and confess to my reader. Frankly, there is an exhibitionistic pleasure in this, only you don’t strip naked, but to the meat. We must tell the truth. We must at least try to tell the truth.

- Why do you need this?
- I can't wear masks. I get tired of masks very quickly, they chafe me. I sincerely envy Pelevin, who, just as he put on a carnival mask twenty years ago, never took it off. And other authors who manage to create an invented image for themselves, put it on and walk around in it all their lives.

-Do you think the author’s sincerity is important to the reader?
- Without a doubt. It's fake, it's fiction - it just doesn't touch a nerve.

In the novel "Twilight", my hero at night in his dreams walks a dog that he once had and died - but in his dreams she returns to him and asks for a walk. This is my personal story. It was my dog, and to this day, many years after her death, I often dream of walking with her. And this short, half-page digression, which has nothing to do with the plot of the book, touches some people more than the rest of the novel. The reader goes to the book for experiences, for emotions. Falsity and commonplaces do not catch and are not remembered. And commercial literature is all made up of falsehood.

- Why?
- When authors publish a book every six months, they are forced to operate with templates. They simply do not have enough life experience to provide reliable emotional descriptions. Jack London's experiences were enough to write several books, and Varlam Shalamov's entire monstrous experience was enough to fill a book of stories. But commercial authors don’t go out into the world; they sit at home and shuffle templates that they pick up in other people’s works. Their books are designer; It seems like something new, but everything is made up of old parts.

- What is important to you?
- At the age of 17, I wanted to write a smart thing. At 25, I wanted to write something smart and beautiful. At 30, I wanted to write something smart and controversial. At 34, I realized that the vast majority of readers are not interested in either your philosophizing or your stylistic delights. They want to feel, to experience. We all sit on emotions, like on drugs, and are constantly looking for where to go crazy. Out of a hundred readers, all one hundred are able to enjoy the emotional adventures of the hero. Only ten will appreciate the language and metaphors. And only one will understand that the text is woven from quotes from classics.

- It seems to me that most people go to the theater and cinema for entertainment. And books are read for the same reason.
- Ryazanov’s comedies and Zakharov’s films are for all times. They are eternal, essentially. They are truthful, they have emotion, they have a spark of life. And ironic detective stories will rot ahead of their creators. Entertainment is for one-time use. Used it and threw it away. Well, then - who sets what tasks for themselves. Someone needs to earn their own bread. And I want immortality.

- Do you know what exactly and how to do to make it work?
“You have to feel for yourself what you’re writing about.” "The Future", for example, is a novel about how people overcome aging. How they learn to stay forever young. But because of this, the world is overpopulated, and every couple is offered a choice: if you want to have a child, give up eternal youth, grow old and die. Live or let live. I had the idea about fifteen years ago, but until gray hair began to appear, I did not understand how to talk about old age, and until I became a father, I did not know what to write about small children.

- Is there still a risk for you to remain the author of one bestseller?
- The masses are capable of holding one piece of work in their heads. This is like with artists who get a bright role. Tikhonov is always Stirlitz. Glukhovsky is the guy who wrote “Metro,” and it doesn’t matter what I wrote there after, what I wrote there all my life. The price of popularity: everyone knows you, but everyone knows you by your work alone. For school work in my case.

The first pages of Metro were written when I was 17-18 years old. It took me three years to write “The Future” and I had eight versions of the first chapter. A lot of ideas came, as they say, later. That is why I did not publish this novel online as I wrote it. And there were no drafts. I just wrote one chapter after another and posted it on the site. And since then I have never ruled. And this is a principled position. The book was written when it was written, in the language and with the metaphors that I owned at that time, and I addressed those topics that were important to me then. And maybe today there is a lot that seems awkward to me about Metro. But a book is a cast of the author’s soul, a plaster mask. The soul grows, ages, disappears, but the mask remains.

- Ultimately, for whom do you write?
- If you want to write for others, you need to write for yourself. Write what you think. The way you feel. Write as if no one will ever read it - and you don’t have to pretend or lie. Then the real thing will come out, and people will read about you - but also about themselves. But if you write for others, for imaginary others, you will write too generally, you will write for no one. Because we are all, by and large, the same; but we all put on masks. And we ourselves forget that we are wearing masks, and we believe that other people’s masks are their faces. This is a theory. But in practice it’s like this: the reader wants you to write about the metro, the publisher wants you to write what sells, and you want to write about what’s burning you now, but you always think: what if they don’t buy it? People's love is like that. Treason does not forgive.

- I don’t want to count your money, but tell me, does your income as a writer allow you to live comfortably?
- Quite. After all, “Metro” is not only books, but also computer games, film rights, and God knows what else. This is what gives me the freedom to write whatever I want. For Leo Tolstoy - an estate, and for me - computer games. Where are we going?

Your heroes in the Future have gained eternal life, but they can still die, from a disaster or accident. That is, they are still not immortal.
- About immortality, about the impossibility of dying, has already been spoken a hundred times. This is the story of the Eternal Jew, and “The Makropoulos Remedy” by Capek, and “Interruptions with Death” by Saramago. I was interested in the victory over old age and the choice between living for oneself and living for the sake of a child. In addition, complete immortality is a fantasy, and life extension is a matter of foreseeable prospects. Today, biology and medicine are completely focused on finding ways and means to combat cancer and aging. It is clear that a breakthrough will occur in the foreseeable future. Whether we will be able to live ten to twenty years longer or whether our grandchildren will be freed from old age is a matter of our luck. But it is obvious to me that this will happen during the 21st century. At least, I'm really looking forward to this breakthrough. Jules Verne predicted many inventions because he read scientific journals, analyzed what was happening and made medium-term forecasts.

The problem is that in the situation of the probability of death with an infinitely long life, the issues of relationship with God only become more complicated. And your hero and other “immortals” prefer to simply ignore his existence.
- It cannot be said that the main character of “The Future” does not need God. He insults him, blasphemes, visits a brothel set up in the temple. He seeks him, but only for revenge. For him, God is a traitor. The bitterness and hatred he feels towards God stems from his childhood resentment. His mother promised him protection, said that God would not leave him - and both betrayed him. His lonely, creepy childhood is a meat grinder, and the creature that comes out of this meat grinder hates both his mother and the one in whom she believed. So the hero of "The Future" is not a typical representative of his time. Will immortal people need God? I think that most people remember heaven when the ground disappears from under their feet. The need for a soul arises with the disintegration of the body.

- I'm afraid this is a subject of great debate.
- Well, yes, there is also the question of the emptiness of existence. We see no meaning in our short life, but filling an endless life with meaning will be even more difficult, is that what you mean? But the meaning that religions offer us is far from the only one. Ideologies gave us meanings that were enough for billions of people for which they lived and sacrificed themselves. In addition, in “The Future” the question of the meaninglessness of existence does not go away: people simply suppress themselves with antidepressants. This is the right way: today all the States are on antidepressants, Europe is on marijuana, and Russia is on alcohol.

But, being, as you say, a non-religious person, you have already in two novels addressed the theme of God in one way or another.
- I understand that there are things that cannot be explained.

- What do you think?
- I want to be a mystic. I want to believe. But everything I hear about faith and religion cannot be believed by a sane person. Convince me! I want to believe in the soul. Into reincarnation. It's very romantic, and I would like to be a romantic. But I can't do it. Of course, it is easier for a believer to live than for an unbeliever. I hate to think that I am a piece of meat, and that my so-called soul is a set of electrical and chemical reactions, and that as soon as these reactions stop, I will disappear forever. But for this, you see, you need some courage.

- Okay, tell me, are you ready to work on a new book?
- Yes. I am going to explore the theme of slavery, the theme of submission and obedience, the theme of obscurantism and lies, the theme of masters and servants. Is the government turning the people into cattle, or are they happy to be a herd, because it makes it easier and more comfortable for them to be? Why is everything this way and is it possible differently? The novel will be called "Metro 2035".

- But you are again “wrapping” the new book in the “Metro” brand?
- Again - and for the last time. I want to return to the same world, gray-haired and wise with experience. In "Metro 2033" these topics are also raised in passing - there is a layer of social criticism and satire about Russian political life. Since then, when I wrote the first "Metro", I have learned something about people and about the structure of society. I need to update my story. You need to write "Metro ten years later."

Text: Eteri Chalandzia

Glukhovsky was the first Russian author to make his book publicly available online. He was then writing his first “Metro” and delivering it piece by piece. This was back in 2002. Today he is one of the most successful and - it happens! - independent writers of Russia.

dates

2002 - start of work on the Euronews channel in Lyon

2005 - the first book “Metro 2033” was published

2007 - made the world's first TV report from the North Pole

2011 - became the father of a girl named Emilia

The World Cup is an excellent backdrop for tough pension reform

- Dmitry, what can you say about the football championship? Are you a fan?

No. Completely indifferent to football. Because of this, of course, I always feel a little inadequate with all the euphoria that has unfolded. In addition, my grandfather, for example, is a crazy Spartak fan to the point of a heart attack. And other relatives, who are 75 years old, enthusiastically watch basketball matches. What is there to see there?!

But from everything I see, I am pleased that Russia has opened itself to the world. True, experience shows that these discoveries occur on the eve of some kind of compression and enclosure, and that later all this is remembered like some kind of midsummer night’s dream. This happened with the 1980 Olympics, which took place at the beginning of our invasion of Afghanistan - and then international isolation followed. And the Sochi Games also seemed to be an integration of friendly and open Russia into the global world - and were exactly on the threshold of 2014 with its Crimea, Donbass and our new isolation. And now everything seems to be so good, and all these crazy Mexicans and Uruguayans are having fun in the streets, and we suddenly turned out to be kind, and not uptight and embittered, and our cops are not chasing anyone. And everyone was allowed in without visas, including, apparently, “MI6 spies” - and nothing was wrong. That is, one could simply unclench the sphincter, so to speak, and nothing monstrous would happen. But the ability to learn lessons and project them into the future makes one suspect that something bad is going to happen right now. Once we finish, we celebrate, everyone leaves and then they will never come here again. All this may be the last time.

- Is this shit already prepared? After all, the annexation of Crimea was prepared much in advance.

With Crimea, everything was carried out brilliantly from a logistical point of view, including bought or intimidated local politicians. So there was a plan in advance. Donbass is a different matter. It's a mess there and no one can do anything. Neither attach nor detach. Some kind of fermentation of the masses. It is clear that people did not have a plan.

Well, what was planned to be held under the guise of a championship is already taking place - an increase in VAT and the retirement age. This decision, I think, was made a long time ago. People were simply brainwashed with some other, redundant projects in advance, in preparation for announcing a real tough decision right now. It is clear that football emotions are an excellent background for such things.

Shenderovich once again incurred anger by saying that if such a great championship were held in a more decent country, there would be more joy.

I really want to be happy for Russia, of course. But after the Sochi Games there were no normal reasons for joy. Because Crimea is the joy of Cain's victory over Abel. Hitting your brother in the back of the head with a rock and taking something away from him is a great victory, yeah. Moreover, it turned out that all the joy about our Sochi victories was in vain, because we cheated, of which I am sure.

When you understand the socio-political structure of the Russian Federation and understand what kind of mentality the people at the helm have, who they are essentially, according to their past - yes, you understand, these people could, justifying themselves in any way they wanted, resort to any scam in on any scale.

In Soviet times, the party and the KGB opposed and competed with each other. And now there is the omnipotence of the special services, which, in principle, is always a harbinger of the last times. When the Praetorians - and these are actually the special services - began to come to power in Rome, these were already the last, sunset times for Rome. People who are engaged in security, entrenchment, searching for threats, people who are professionally suspicious - they cannot, are not capable of leading the country forward.

- But Putin communicates with young people and talks about the future.

Political strategists are trying to invent an image of the future for Putin, but they cannot. Simply because he's not talking about that at all. It is about protection and conservation, about neutralizing threats. This is what he does very well. And the political field around him has been completely cleared. The oligarchs are all under control. He who is not brought under control has hanged himself; he who has not hanged himself is sitting in Switzerland, and he has lost his teeth. The politicians either cooperate, or are shot, or leave the clearing, realizing that there is nothing to catch. And in principle, this is not even a dictatorship, it is a rather mild authoritarian regime in comparison with Pinochet. We don’t even need to be whipped with rods - we ourselves try to be quieter.

Medvedev is sabotaging

- According to a recent survey, 51% of Russians hope that Putin will be president in 2024.

Well, listen, Putin is a symbolic figure. People are ill-informed and deceived by television. Medvedev is responsible for all the failures and tightening of the screws - people do not understand that no decisions, especially related to living standards and taxes, can be made without Putin delving into the issue. Without his veto or approval. He is a very informed person. But he has the wrong priorities, in my opinion. People live in a world of myth, not seeing cause-and-effect relationships. And this division into the right king and the abusive boyars is our eternal monstrous naivety.

No matter who you talk to, you will hear: “Putin is handsome.” I can even judge by my own family. Grandfathers and grandmothers blame Medvedev for all troubles. They think that he is the one doing the sabotage on his own.

This whole Putin story is an eternal missed opportunity. Although his decision with Crimea was a well-thought-out multi-move - in order to get past the emerging economic crisis and at the same time not allow Ukraine into NATO. Coupled with the television pus that has overwhelmed us here, everything worked. We swallowed the halving of the ruble and the standard of living without falling out of love with Putin and learning to eat ersatz cheese. But! Taking Crimea and losing Ukraine forever was, of course, a monstrous failure. Because we kind of grabbed Crimea and forgot, but for them it’s a huge bleeding wound. Which causes both pain and suffering. We alienated the Ukrainians, perhaps forever. This is total idiocy. We took a useless, unnecessary piece of land and lost the fraternal people with whom we are connected by a thousand years of common history. Not just friendship, as with Venezuela, but mutual penetration at the level of families, cultures, everyday life, history.

What Russian hasn't dreamed of marrying a Ukrainian girl? And what Ukrainian didn’t work in Russia when he was young? And whoever has not traveled to Odessa has no heart. These were generally the people closest to us. All our graters were at the level of “Muscovites”, “Khokhlovs” and jokes about lard - the most innocent story. And what is this all for?

Everything is clear to me with Ksenia Sobchak

You once wrote that we never became Europeans due to imperial pride and complexes. But seriously?

Our story is completely different. For Europeans, civil revolutions and the process of crystallization of a citizen who demands respect, who believes that he has rights, occurred 200 years ago. Except that the Germans then went into collective insanity. In our country, revolution has a different etymology. And instead of civil society, a new serfdom emerged. We once again found ourselves in slavery to the privileged class. This is repeated and repeated. Only the privileged class has changed - criminals and demagogues have come to power. But we never became citizens.

But still, people who are now 20 and 30 years old are not the same 20-year-olds who were in the Soviet Union. So it is a question of the emergence of an unharmed generation. But our government is trying to fool the current generation of young people. All people involved in youth politics should burn in hell!

-Have you watched the film Sobchak about Sobchak?

Watched. A very boring movie. There is one good hero there - Putin. He is reliable and wonderful - that’s why he is the successor, and not because he understood that our politics are based on the games of the special services and crime. Everything is now completely clear with Ksenia Anatolyevna. We understand everything, thank you.

- You once asked Voinovich to draw a utopia for Russia in 2100. He then laughed it off. Can you do it yourself?

Free, prosperous, with healthy capitalism and a measure of social responsibility. The main problem is to keep such a gigantic country like Russia from collapse in the future. Now this is being resolved with the help of the FSB. We have a case for every boss. As long as you are our man, do whatever you want, kill people, go to the sauna with prostitutes, take bribes. But you know that daddy is saving up. Instead, we need federalism, an independent judiciary and competition between government bodies. And most importantly, its changeability. Forced change of power after 4 or maximum 8 years. That's the whole point in the grand scheme of things. And this whole story “If not Putin, then who?” - this is how some remember how Stalin was quickly forgotten and thrown out of the mausoleum - he did not justify the trust. So it would be nice for us to develop a little, like an ordinary country. Poland could be a good example for us.

Medvedev even tried to take us to some other place to see it. True, he spoke more than he did, but the rhetoric was better - there was no trench in which one was supposed to sit. And without Putin, neither famine nor locusts happened. And the mood was better. But Dimon cheated us. Putin came and changed everything in his own way, as in the joke about a husband and a lover. And instead of a utopia, I think we will slowly smolder and rot.

- But he said that there would be an economic breakthrough and everything would be fine.

It doesn't matter what Putin said. The only thing that matters is what Putin does, because his words are in every case at odds with his actions. Putin is a man whose power is based on the disorientation of everyone - both “partners” and the population of the Russian Federation. He very often tells lies. While he is mystifying, he is unpredictable. As soon as it became transparent, that’s it, it opened up for a strike.

Honesty does not require heroism

It so happens that in our country literature is given great importance. When you write, do you think about artistic value or is a book just a consumer product?

Noooo. You can’t treat a book like a product. For me this is the only way of self-realization. In general, I don’t do anything else - I write books and dabble a little in journalism. And if I start to waste my time and cliché, stop trying to surpass myself yesterday, to summarize what I understand, then I will become nonsense. It's a matter of proving to yourself what you're worth. That's why I try to write a different book every time. It's boring to repeat yourself.

Well, I was lucky, I accidentally discovered the formula for success and at the age of 27 I already had large circulations and translations.

- What will be your next book?

There will be two very different ones. One is about artificial intelligence. And the second is such magical realism on Russian soil. Everyone says: you’re a cosmopolitan, you lived there and lived there, and your dad is from Arbat, from a medical dynasty. It’s clear that I was a city boy, but at the same time, there is a powerful Russian component in me, right at the core. As a child, I spent a lot of time in the summer in a real village house with a well, a canopy, a washbasin, with cucumbers in greenhouses, with beetles and slugs in cabbage. I spent all the holidays there. There is a completely different attitude towards life and death. In a big city we are completely isolated from death. We don't see funeral processions. In our country, the dead are fussily carried out of the entrance in zipped bags. And there is a cemetery within the city limits, and the coffin on a ZIL with lowered red sides is driving through the entire city. Your dead relatives don’t seem to disappear there. They appear to you in dreams, give you everyday advice, and something else. Because of this, there is no feeling of irreversibility and finality of existence.

- Will it be straight Marquez-Marquez?

I do not know yet. But Cortazar, Marquez and Borges are my tribute.

- You will be forty in a year. Maybe it's time to change your life strategy?

Horrible, yes. But I had a life strategy from the very beginning. Taking over the Universe. Through stories, gain power over minds. Power in the vulgar sense - over human resources and financial flows - does not interest me at all. She spoils people, but I don’t want to spoil myself, in principle I like myself and have built everything so that I don’t depend on anyone.

I was offered to join the Human Rights Council under the President, and I was invited to join the Cultural Council. They invited me to meetings like “Putin and Writers.” And I didn't go anywhere. Because when they try to feed you, it is always temptation and temptation. It’s not that I’m some kind of desperate oppositionist, I don’t carry out subversive activities, but it’s very important for me to maintain freedom of thought and judgment. Once you start feeding from someone's hand, you can no longer bite it. This is clearly evident from the different writers we have. This is about the role of literature in our lives. Literature, with total propaganda in the big media, remains the last space of freedom where an honest discussion on important topics is possible.

- By the way, you could be a good politician.

No no no. I can't and I don't want to. It would break me. I can't stand so many compromises. Either they will kill you, really break your back, or you yourself will make it worse and be reborn into something else. For what? I believe that maintaining a certain level of honesty in judgment in our times does not require much heroism. When everyone is wildly lying, and you simply call black black and white white - it seems like some kind of courage and originality. Although you haven't done anything incredible.

Being Navalny - yes, it requires heroism. I wouldn't want it that way. I have always been interested not so much in the detailed structure of power, which I am quite squeamish about, but in the degeneration of a person from the people who has come to power. Violence, lies, manipulation - and a person decays through permissiveness and impunity. I have several books about this.

P.S. At the very end of the interview, Glukhovsky asked: “So, can you publish all this directly in the newspaper?” Well, let's publish it.

The material was published "Interlocutor" No. 26-2018 under the heading “Criminals and demagogues have come to power. But we never became citizens.”

The actions of Dmitry Glukhovsky's novels usually take place in a confined space. In the legendary trilogy it was the metro, in Twilight it was an Arbat apartment, now it’s a smartphone. And every time, a whole life arises in this space, which millions of readers live together with the author. The just released “Text” is perhaps the most hermetic of all, but at the same time it is even more acutely in touch with everyone’s life, although the heroes of the novel are exceptional in their fate and position. Released after a seven-year prison sentence, still a young man, convicted on false charges allegedly for drug trafficking, in fact due to a personal conflict with an FSKN operative, is released from the zone in Solikamsk, comes to Moscow, finds out that his mother two days before died. And the life he planned to return to is now impossible. And he, in a state of passion, kills the man who sent him to serve these seven years. Takes his smartphone, finds the password for it...

And this is where Monte Cristo ends and the story begins about how one person lives for another.

This is the first novel that is written in a completely different genre than the previous ones. When you took on it, did you somehow formulate the task for yourself?

There are books that grow from an idea, and there are books that grow from a hero. And this book grew precisely from the hero. Feelings and thoughts accumulated from what was happening to the country, and I wanted to convey them through the collisions of his life.

- What exactly worried you?

Here are the transformations that have affected the country, especially the capital, over the past seven years, and the collapse of ethics, the abolition of ideas about good and evil from top to bottom of society, and here is the total penetration of prison culture into ordinary life. It seemed to me that a story about a man who served a sentence for seven years, returned to Moscow and lives his life for another person could absorb many experiences.

Your hero is the complete opposite of you in terms of upbringing, origin, and activities. Where do you get your understanding of this psychology and this life, including prison?

I don’t know, probably someone has described this better than me, but this is my personal discovery: what we consider ugly manifestations of personality (excessive aggression, downtroddenness, etc.) is simply a response to the environment, which is designed to ensure the survival of the body. If your parents drink and beat you, then you grow up to be a thief and a hooligan, because otherwise you will not survive in this family. This deforms you, you become aggressive, you get used to either suppressing others, or keeping your opinion to yourself, and then it develops into a pattern of behavior. It is designed to allow you, like an animal, to adapt to your environment and survive in it. Any influence leads to transformation. And if you can imagine these influences, then you can imagine how a person who has been subjected to these influences behaves. On the other hand, if you are not looking for genuine texture for such a book, then nothing will work. And my manuscript was read by current law enforcement officers, former FSKN employees, and several imprisoned criminals... And I, first of all, asked them about psychological reliability. One said: “It’s written right about me.”

- One of your main characters is raised by a mother with principles, the other by a father without principles. But both of them commit crimes. Do you believe that natural instincts, in this case the thirst for revenge, are stronger than education?

From what remains after reading the book and after writing it, this is probably the central question. And this has a lot to do with what is happening. People belonging to the system of power, as well as people who collaborate with power, help it to exist, adhered to this behavior before, but now they are beginning to openly proclaim these principles. There is a complete rejection of ideas about ethics. The concepts of good and evil no longer apply. It started with the top officials of the state who openly lie to the camera. For example, regarding Crimea: first they claim that the peninsula will not be annexed, and two weeks later they annex that there are no Russian troops there, then they admit that there are our special forces. Now Putin, in an interview with Oliver Stone, says that our media is independent from the state and that the intelligence services do not read the correspondence of Russians. This is generally a joke for the chickens. And then, admitting everything after the fact, he smiles and says that it was such an Indian battle trick and that it was all justified. That is, again the end justifies the means. And this is not just practiced, but preached from the highest levels.

- If people accept this shameless lie and continue to support the authorities, then it means that it is easier for them to live with rose-colored glasses, not distinguishing between ideas about good and evil. The President simply takes into account and exploits popular psychology.

What Putin says is the right of the strong. I can afford it, so I allow myself. And further in the spirit that there is neither darkness nor light, everyone is dirty, everyone is smeared, and in the West they are smeared.

What was happening with the Trump campaign was an attempt to discredit their electoral system. We didn't particularly need Trump, an eccentric, unpredictable, uncontrollable person. It was necessary to prove that the American electoral system was so rotten that it would not allow a person truly popular among the people to come to power. The elites will unite in a conspiracy and will not allow him to win. We were prepared for this by all means. And when he won, it was a crushing surprise for everyone.

- The old trick: instead of cleaning ourselves up, we try to cover up others?

We are not trying to prove that we are better (this is implied), we are simply paying attention to who is trying to teach us - people who are completely corrupt, unprincipled, and even homosexuals. They are trying to impose on us a picture of the world in which ideas about elementary ethical categories simply do not work.

And this standard of behavior is set by the first person of the state, no matter whether he plays the boy or the godfather. And we let him have it, because he is an alpha male, because he is a king, he can do it. This goes down the pyramid: the boyars behave the same way, and teach their slaves the same thing, and then there is the re-education of the population in the spirit of complete disregard for the concepts of good and evil. Anything is possible if you can. If you can bend others, bend them, be a predator, eat the weak.

- And in the “Text” we are faced with a representative of a system that shares these beliefs.

With a hereditary representative. Because this FSKN operative, whom the main character kills, avenging his lost youth, is a hereditary security officer. His dad is a police general, deputy head of personnel management for the city of Moscow at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He placed his son in a place of bread because there was an opportunity to place him. The mother did not want to, she knew that her son was weak-willed, arrogant, a scoundrel and a bug, but she was afraid to argue with his father. And then the father teaches his son his life principles. And the principles are simple - eat those you can eat, collect dirt on those you cannot eat.

- But this is a typical secret service policy towards people.

The president's idea of ​​people is very predetermined by his professional formation. He doesn't believe in virtue at all, in my opinion. He believes that all people are vicious, unprincipled, that they must either be bribed or blackmailed. He is a recruiter, and he looks at us like a recruiter. He does not even recognize the theoretical right to be guided by other criteria, to be incorruptible, for example.

- Well, he doesn’t see many incorruptible people...

Now the principles have really been devalued, and people are not ready to fight or die for them.

- But you also have the main character’s mother, who raised him in strict concepts of honor; when he goes to prison, she teaches him to keep his head down, adapt, etc. It turns out that life is really more valuable than principles?

The times are such that life is more valuable than principles. I suspect that this has always been the case. We were brought up on the Soviet myth, but what did we know about that time? People who consume mass culture do not know much about what really happened at the fronts and in the rear, to what extent people were motivated by patriotic feelings...

The Nazis killed a family, and this is where you really can’t get over yourself, and then you are capable of some heroic actions. Not because you love the abstract Motherland, or even more so some kind of Stalin, but because you cannot live otherwise. True motivations are much more personal. Especially in a country where the Bolsheviks established their power for 20 years through bloodshed and coercion. Well, how can you love such a Motherland recklessly? No matter how brainwashed you are by propaganda, you still have personal experiences that contradict this.

- Have you noticed that the reenactors who filled Moscow on holidays are all dressed in military uniform? What is the reason for this militarization of consciousness?

There are two points here. The first is the fear of looking into the future, perhaps purely biological among people of the post-war generation. They know the Brezhnev world, they know the world of perestroika, but they no longer know the new world well. What lies ahead? 10-15 years of more or less active mental and physical labor? The presidential term that we are living through is a period where everything is turned exclusively back to the past.

- Your hero lives someone else's life on a smartphone, just like today's younger generation. And if he observes the life of another family, then children discover in their gadgets a different world, unlike the one they see when emerging from virtual reality. Can the authorities cope with the dissonance that sounds more and more insistently in their brains?

The children will inevitably win; the question is whether the current government will have time to spoil them. The change of generations is a historical process, and few people have managed to transform the national mentality in four years. Maybe only Saakashvili, but he broke people over his knee. The ideas of his reformist activities to eradicate corruption, the power of “thieves in law”, etc. gave people the opportunity to move to another country within four years. However, when he left, everything began to grow back in the same dense direction.

In our situation, we still have to wait for a change of generations, the arrival of people with a different mentality. Now even the FSB has them.

- But among the 86 percent who support the president, there are clearly many people with a new mentality, but what’s the point?

There is a demand for a feeling of belonging to a superpower in all segments of the population. For young people, especially teenagers, this is coupled with the need to increase their own self-esteem.

A person who does not belong to administrative bodies or supervisory agencies has little chance of feeling the necessary self-respect. He lives in constant fear of clashing with the system; he has no rights. If you are beaten by a policeman and have no one to call, it is your fault. If there is someone from the system to stand up for you - a judge, a prosecutor, at least a doctor who operated on someone - you need to pull the person out of the system in order to protect yourself. This is our fundamental difference from Western countries, where there are basic legal guarantees and where, if there is no absolutely severe conflict of interest, you are protected by rules and laws

That is, a substitution occurs - if there is no way to feel respect for oneself, then one has to be proud that the state is respected...

By iconizing and canonizing Stalin and Nicholas II, people simply want to say that they are part of the empire. I am an ant, I can be crushed, run over and eaten, including by my own people, but the whole forest, the whole district, is afraid of us like an anthill. The feeling of one’s own insignificance is redeemed by the feeling of belonging to some kind of superbeing that brings fear to the surrounding area... Hence the desire to again feel like a superpower. Such a sublimation of self-respect, which we so lack.

And the constant desire to be appreciated by the West (because we are complex as a people) also comes from private life. Let them not be afraid of me, because I’m drinking in the yard in sweatpants and an alcoholic T-shirt, but let them be afraid of the country to which I belong.

- And the larger the country, the more respect there is?

Berdyaev says in “The Russian Idea” that the only national idea that has taken root here and turned out to be universal is the idea of ​​territorial expansion. Habitat is a very tangible, measurable, very animal concept. Not conscious, but irrational and understandable in a basic way. And it is important that, unlike the implanted Orthodoxy, this is a supra-religious thing. I talked with Kalmyks, on the one hand, they feel like national people, they have a difficult attitude towards Russians, whom they despise for their weakness, for their softness, for their drunkenness, but at the same time they feel proud of the fact that they belong to Russia. And when Russia behaves threateningly towards its neighbors, they enjoy it. Therefore, when we thunder with our shod heels or caterpillar tracks across the squares of all sorts of small European states - 1956, 1968, 2008 - a wave of pride rises in inexperienced souls.

- In my opinion, you overestimate everyone's knowledge of history.

Well, okay, they know it in some mythologized way, in which the media feeds them with conversations that not everything is so simple in our dramatic history. Beria, okay, strangled the raped gymnasts, but he created an atomic bomb. As if one could somehow be redeemed by the other. Here are the origins of teenage Stalinism. And therefore, Putin, positioning himself as a cool guy, of course, finds some kind of response among them. It was in vain that he admitted to Stone that he had grandchildren. Putin, grandfather, is a step away from the young.

- Yes, for young people, this whole agenda that is discussed on TV is pure crap.

A culture has already been formed on the Internet where all these achievements - Crimea, Donbass, endless war, purchased systemic oppositionists, hired intellectuals, Duma, neutered cats - are not very relevant and relevant to these people. However, in order to continue to rule, the authorities begin to invade this little world and take away freedom. And it begins to affect them.

- The authorities don’t understand that by doing so they are digging a hole for themselves?

We proportionally do not have many young people. And I don't think she can do anything now. How can a change of power occur in a country? Even if you capture the Kremlin, not to mention the Post Office and train stations, it will be of no use. The power is not in the Kremlin. Power lies in the consensus of the elites. A change of power probably occurs when Dzerzhinsky’s division refuses to move forward, when the military begins to cry, when important people stop answering the phones - at that moment power passes to others.

- Are you seeing a consensus among the elites now?

All people who now have a lot of money owe it to the authorities. And now there is not a single major player capable of challenging the authorities; it will immediately be ground into powder. Most likely, he will not dare to do this, because tons of compromising evidence will definitely be found on him.

- But Navalny made up his mind.

The fact that one particular Navalny managed to excite a certain number of young people throughout the country, especially in two or three large cities, is the beginning of a trend. I’m not saying that now schoolchildren will go into the breach, stain the bayonets of the riot police with their innocent blood, and everything will turn upside down. Paris in 1968, of course, shook de Gaulle, but we are not there, and we are not de Gaulle. We have total control over the media, we can say that Navalny distributes drugs to children there, and so on. However, if there is blood of young innocent people, then there is a fork in the road: either the one who shed this blood loses legitimacy in the eyes of the people, or he is forced to further impose his legitimacy, turning into a dictator.

- Navalny is not in danger of this in the foreseeable future…

- ... and Putin avoids becoming a dictator, he is satisfied with a relatively soft authoritarian regime, where the opposition is squeezed out, and only in rare cases is it eliminated by the hands of some vassals, and it is not clear whether this happens as a result of hints or on the initiative of the localities. He, apparently, does not need the country to become a dictatorship; he would still like to be recognized by the international community. He does not want the role of Gaddafi, nor the role of Hussein, or even the more prosperous Kim Jong-un, although we can exist hermetically, as we have already done. All, let’s say, repressions occurred out of fear of losing power, and were a response to some kind of social fluctuations. This is a semi-thermidor, a reaction to the semi-revolution that did not happen in 2012. And it is a reaction precisely to the confusion that has arisen among the power elite, and an attempt to flex its muscles to restore order in its camp, and to intimidate any oppositionists with the redundancy of these measures.

- Does he really believe that the whole world doesn’t sleep, doesn’t eat, just thinks about how to deal with us, or is this also a propaganda story?

You have been taught for at least five years that there are enemies around, everyone is trying to recruit each other, everyone must be suspected... You understand what the tragedy is. In the final stages of the existence of the Roman Empire, the commanders of the Praetorian Guard came to power one after another, because they had the resource to eliminate the real emperors.. And this did not lead to anything good; their power, although at some point absolute, was They were unable to use it for the benefit of the nation and empire. The fact is that the Praetorians, like representatives of the State Security Committee, are very special people, trained to find and eliminate threats to power.

But a professional politician, capable of carrying out grandiose reforms in his country and directing it along a new path, is a completely different quality. Peter the Great is not a special service agent, not a KGB agent, Gorbachev is not a special service agent or a KGB agent, and even Lenin is not a special service agent or a KGB agent. This is a completely different scale of people.

- Well then, Putin is not to blame. It was the people who put him in power who did not take into account his professional qualities.

It seems to me that he knows how to tell people what they want to hear from him, and he is a brilliant manipulator. In addition, an excellent personnel officer has surrounded himself with an impenetrable wall of people who owe everything to him and depend on him for everything. He knows how to protect himself from all threats.

- This is a tactic. What's the strategy?

But there is no strategy, and never has been. Conservation of the current situation, he manages us like clerks in a corporation. The President is not a statesman, he is a cunning politician, all he does is solve the problem of how to stay in power. There is no project for the country, and there never has been. The stupid conversations about the future under Medvedev were invented by some hipsters, I don’t know why. But there is no project for the country, no understanding of what we should become, ceasing to be the Soviet Union. Empire, okay. What to do to become an empire?

- Crimea, for example, should be annexed.

Oh no. With a shitty economy, you can’t annex any Crimea. Take the example of Deng Xiaoping - what a statesman. First, you lift the country out of poverty, give people the opportunity to support and feed themselves, to move their lives for the better, and they will move this whole stranded ship forward, like barge haulers on the Volga. But no, the middle class poses a danger to the authorities. Talk about supporting business is just talk; for them, business is just fodder for the security forces. Reliance is on the security forces and state employees, on people who depend on the state.

- How can the rest survive? For those who are not going to adapt to power and do not want to sit on the stove.

The era when it was possible to succeed is over, the country will not develop under this rule. The president is afraid to initiate change, perhaps thinking he won't be able to ride the rising tide. His only proactive act was Crimea. A perfect hit on imperial nostalgia. But from the point of view of the country's development, the step is catastrophic. We are in international isolation, resources for modernization are drying up, financial bonds are being replaced by administrative ones, an entire generation has grown up accustomed not to serve the Fatherland, but to treat it as rent. This is no longer stagnation in the blood, this is gangrene. And I’m afraid that the next presidential term will be a period of further degradation.

- So should we leave?

Well, firstly, not everyone wants and can leave.

- Yes, they don’t really expect us there.

And the Chinese are not very welcome, but the Chinese are everywhere. I cannot call for emigration, I myself emigrated three times, but at the moment I live here. It's a matter of everyone's motivation. When the Union collapsed, I was 12 years old. I belong to that generation of people who see opportunities in the collapse of the Iron Curtain - to go study and see the world.

Why do you have to make a choice once and for all - leave Russia or stay and endure, play pseudo-patriotic games like “Zarnitsa”, knowing what people who profess such patriotism actually do?

The concept of patriotism - stay and suffer with the country - is imposed by people whose children have long been in London and Paris, as we see from their Instagrams. We once again agree to play the games that are imposed on us. And you just need to abstract yourself from it and do what’s good for you.

I am not ready to call for revolution or emigration. The situation in the country is not so desperate that there is a choice - either flee or go to the barricades. Still, Russia in 2017 is not the same as a hundred years ago; the situation there was much more desperate.

- Moreover, private life has not yet been prohibited.

Of course, current authoritarianism is much wiser than what it was under Brezhnev. If you are doing something of your own, do it, homosexual - there is no article about homosexuality, just don’t preach, if you want American music - please, if you want to go study - go, if you want to emigrate - it’s your business. On the contrary, let all the active ones leave as quickly as possible rather than sit here and whine and suffer abroad from the inability to adapt. This is such authoritarianism, adjusted for all modern theories and textbooks.

There is no catastrophe. The trend is just wrong. We traveled by train to Europe, and at night we switched carriages and went in the direction of Kolyma. We are not in Kolyma, but the direction is no longer European.

- Your hero, one might say, is a modern Petrarch. Just as the poets of the late Renaissance were inspired by unattainable women, so he sacrifices himself for the sake of platonic love. Do you consider love a reliable refuge from external adversity?

-...In the novel, the main character falls in love forcedly. To survive for a week, he needs to get into the skin of the dead man, that is, into his phone, and understand the intricacies of his life. In particular, in a very conflictual relationship with his parents, with a woman whom he tried to leave and could not leave. And our hero, Ilya Goryunov, as often happens in a man’s life, falls in love based on a picture on his phone. And through this love he begins a certain transformation. He finds out that she is pregnant and feels guilty for taking the life of the father of the unborn child. And therefore, when he finds out that she is going to have an abortion, he weaves a complex intrigue to keep her from doing so, and gives her 50 thousand rubles, which he had hardly obtained to escape from the country.

- That is, he saves someone else’s child at the cost of his own life.

He understands that he still belongs to the world of the dead, and she belongs to the world of the living. And he still can’t escape responsibility; his mother taught him to think that everything comes with a price to pay. However, saving his beloved, and not himself, is his choice. A person always decides for himself - who he wants to be, who he wants to remain.

- And this after so many years of living in such a perverted society as prison?

Any feelings become stronger and brighter when it is impossible to realize them. If you can get a girl or a young man on the first, second, third date, you don’t even have time to ignite the feeling within yourself. In the Middle Ages, probably, or in such a moralistic society, which we had in the 70-80s, sexual freedom seemed to be a rebellion against a system that assumed standard behavior - to look after oneself, not to allow too much, to repel sexual attacks. Through the regulation of sexual life, the state gains significant power over a person. The platonic flourishes where the physiological is not allowed to grow. Through prohibition, since human nature is weakly amenable to transformation, all that can be done is to instill a sense of guilt. But the person is guilty, he is a priori loyal.

On the other hand, now many girls, if a young man doesn’t try to drag them into bed after two weeks, get upset and wonder what’s wrong with him - is he gay?.. And simultaneous romances for girls with several young men, and for young men with girls, until they began to live together, it is not only the norm, but something completely taken for granted. In principle, Russia is not a conservative society; on the contrary, we have a rather wild country. I think this is good, because all societies where sexuality is regulated are much more prone to fascism.

- Conservative in everyday life and social terms, Germany and Japan proved this in their time.

Human nature needs to be given a natural outlet. As long as Putin is smart enough not to meddle in his personal life and stop the attempts of zealous deputies and figures like bikers who cling to the budget udder to interfere in the personal lives of citizens, I think he will stand. Although he was already on the Internet. The Internet is also around sex and in general around what people do in their free time. And as soon as dictatorship and censorship begin here, people will accumulate anger.

While anger is still given various outlets. Life is getting worse, people are becoming poor, but they, in general, treat this with a certain patience. After all, our well-being during the fat years seemed so impossible that we didn’t really believe in its duration. But there are things that are too much to get used to. And they understand this perfectly well. And they are more likely to intimidate by invading privacy in order to hint: let’s not escalate things now, let’s leave everything as it is, the border is open, the Internet is free, don’t force us to act, it could be worse.

Now the police are targeting teenagers, wanting to discourage those who were planning to go to the next protests. Therefore, you need to twist not a hundred, but a thousand, so that people think, yes, the risks are great. And when they so uncompromisingly sweep away these teenagers with arms and legs like matchsticks, this, of course, is cruel intimidation. But then this can lead to the opposite result; violence begets violence.