PI I unexpectedly discovered that the title of the series of articles initiated by our site "The Other Nineties" was borrowed by the publishing house "Amphora" for the title of a collection of interviews with a famous writer Ilya Stogov, which was published earlier this year. It is noteworthy that this collection of interviews includes dialogues with famous figures of rock culture about their creative lives in the 1990s. Constant Ilya Smirnov was associated with rock journalism for many years, due to which it cannot be ruled out that this is not a happy coincidence, but a direct borrowing. However, this is not so important, in contrast to which “nineties” the author of the book actually sees as “different”, or, as we preferred to say, “alternative”.
Book review: Stogov I. Yu. Other nineties. St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2016
« My brother Alexey has sunk to the last stage of degradation. Someone always lived in his room. As a rule, these were people who had just been released from prison. They wandered around all night, but the worst thing began when they were preparing food. They brought in some offal and boiled it for hours until it was edible. There was nowhere to escape the stench.
He walked through the trash heaps and sorted what he found. They probably managed to sell some of it - the rest was simply dumped throughout the apartment. Every day, when I came across some crap in the bathroom, I threw it into his room. Every day I cleaned the bathtub, but it was still disgusting to take a shower. The mother had absolutely no peace. Someone spent the night in all the sleeping places in my brother’s room, and he settled down on the floor in his mother’s room, and sometimes even managed to crawl behind her.
He developed erysipelas on his legs, which turned into non-healing ulcers. He was happy: now he could show off his legs and beg. He was given a disability and some kind of pension, and in addition, he squeezed out food coupons in the canteen. As a result, he found drinking buddies whom he fed in the dining room, and they poured it for him.”(p. 89)
“Vlada went out onto the stairs, went down a couple of flights and found Kuzik. He lay dead with a hole from a knife in his chest... I assumed that, most likely, Kuzik was confused with Vladin’s previous boyfriend. He was in prison and owed a lot of money to everyone around him. The mixer said that in any case, of the four of us, Kuzik outdid everyone. And Tim said: “Eh, where can I get drugs?!” - and didn’t even go to the cemetery.
By that time, Tim was a complete polydrug addict. He used everything: any pills, any injections, all the drugs he could get his hands on. He remained adequate for at most two minutes after he woke up. His musical career is long over. He was no longer interested in anything other than drugs. After some time, Tima’s father was killed, and relatives began to cut down his father’s living space. Tima got a room in a communal apartment..."(p.36)
“My wife was engaged in prostitution at the Pribaltiyskaya Hotel. She came home at four o'clock in the morning and said: today everything happened like this and like that... I did this and that to him... But the family finally had money. My wife and I began to regularly go to the sea. You could live better on $100 in Crimea then than you can live on $10,000 today in Hawaii"(p. 31)
Such quotes can be cited in pages in a row: the authors (aka heroes) are different, some are from a learned family, presented to a grateful humanity by several biographical articles in the encyclopedia, some are factory workers, but the story is the same, carbon copy.
This is about the “totalitarian” state, which erases diversity in society and prevents the discovery of a unique personality.
Reissue "Amphora" Stogov's interviews with the heroes of the 90s arrived on time. Of course, this should not be given to children. But, on the other hand, the book can be extremely useful as a textbook on modern history for students who, due to their age, did not find President B.N. at the head of the country. Yeltsin. Precisely a reader: a collection of sources. The intervention of the author-compiler is minimal, and it is difficult to agree with many of his theoretical comments.
I will immediately determine these positions. We have to stand up for both what is on the left and what is on the right.
On our left concept of revolution. Stogov interprets the 90s in exactly this way (pp. 209, 212), following his heroes, some of whom even seriously use the phrase “ psychedelic revolution"(p. 28) (that is, the radical transformation of social relations consists in the fact that a person lies under a fence in a puddle of his own urine). Of course, revolutions often bring results that are not at all what the participants expected, the costs are more significant than the achievements, many will say that it is better to do without them altogether, and they will be right in their own way. However, all conscientious misconceptions about the meaning of what was happening ended with Perestroika.
The 90s were simply a sewer pipe into which millions of human lives, entire industries and regions were drained, and not for the sake of some bright goal (even if false), but with everyday mechanical frankness. After all, we do not call an earthquake or a plague epidemic a revolution.
The second thing that raises objections is the assessment of the Russian Orthodox Church. " This church is majestic and formidable. She is rebuilding her gilded temples, but no one tells people about God’s love. This means that people will continue to suffer, suffer, ruin other people’s lives, cripple their own and die absurdly. Many people. But not Fedor Chistyakov"(p. 221).
« Uncle Fedor» Chistyakov from the rock band ZERO actually was helped to survive by Jehovah’s Witnesses after prison. But this is his individual biography. And many others (including eminent representatives of the rock community) were saved by priests from “ gilded temples" As a result, there are many more people who made it out of the 90s alive through an Orthodox church (and they are presented in the book itself: see, for example, p. 146). This is not a question of religious preferences, but of elementary justice.
But regardless of our disagreements with our namesake Ilya Stogov, the sources speak for themselves. Moreover, the most convincing confessions are those who still insist: they say, the time was “ free" And " funny», « nothing more interesting than this existed in the world then"(p. 173) and even provides an ideological basis in the spirit of the notorious postmodernism: " there are many truths. You can choose the one that suits you personally"(p. 171).
The factual material immediately contradicts the declaration: as we noted above, it is depressingly monotonous. And the promised counter with an assortment of truths - alas, is completely filled with chemical poison and alcohol " Piano" Another side effect of the book: the description of endless copulations in which there is nothing human at all (even the most basic ideas about hygiene, not to mention more sublime matters) suppresses sexual desire quite well and in this capacity “ Other nineties", can probably be replaced by antipsychotics.
Of course, the book does not provide universal coverage of the era. Its plots are connected with a specific city on the Neva, with a generation that had the misfortune of entering into life precisely then (Ilya Stogov: “ most of my peers are already dead today"(p. 215), with the circulation of such specific goods as drugs and alcohol substitutes, and to a very large extent with the environment that we can conditionally correlate with Russian rock culture (I will clarify the meaning of the clause a little later).
It would be possible to release similar collections " memory of the 90s» by regions where they took place « local armed conflicts"(or did not happen: they died out there quietly, without shooting). By industry sector. By hospital departments. In the collection " Educational reforms"It won't be the gopniks, of course, for whom " poking with a knife is an ordinary thing”, but respectable candidates and doctors of science, but I’m afraid that this will not affect the genre affiliation. These intelligent people destroyed education (not the worst in the world) with the same frenzy as in the club " Tom-tom“The stoned public trashed the toilet.
Before you, children, is hell. Literally from the book: “ I would give anything to be small again. Because what happened next was hell"(p. 135).
As for Russian rock, the most famous of its representatives in the book, AQUARIUM cellist Seva Gakkel, who fought to win his place in the 90s as the organizer of the aforementioned club “ Tom-tom”, directly formulates the principle by which he selected music for his new enterprise:
« The main criterion was simple: it should not look like Russian rock. I don't necessarily like it personally. It doesn't matter what language they sing in. If only there were no smart lyrics accompanied by sluggish accompaniment, and if only there was no heavy metal with meaningless cuts...
I developed a persistent allergy to everything that came to be called Russian rock."(pp. 45 – 46).
Then he himself and his companions in “ Tamtamu"Different voices extol what " free" And " funny"came into life thanks to their efforts. So they placed one of their then pets (now deceased) next to Bashlachev. Great. But where are the songs comparable to Bashlachev’s? They simply don't exist. They sang something, but it doesn’t matter what.
Instead, we are introduced to the features of the physique " real star", the oddities of his behavior, his state of health (undermined, you know why) and the tattoos that adorned his back. All. The creative component in the interviews collected by Stogov tends to zero. Which is a striking contrast with the memoirs and rock samizdat of the previous decade, where there were also enough criminal tales and black humor, but the main thing for which people gathered together in the then clubs, like “ Rockwell Kent».
The appealing rock bands of the 90s are either secondary (in relation to the very thing they started from) or empty. " The country outside was going through difficult times - but we didn't care"(p. 54). They were never able to artistically depict the main signs of their own time, not to mention the awareness of what happened then. Igor Rasteryaev did this for them a little later:
“Such a path for yourself
The boys chose themselves
But still someone, by God,
He pushed them and set them up.
No matter work or home,
Whatever the bubbles and glasses,
What if instead of Vasya and Roma
Only cornflowers and daisies »
« I was absolutely happy... All the windows were open, there was a wild roar, bottles were flying into the street..." (p. 62) " These people brought with them some new, very attractive life."(p. 47) This is the opinion among the management of the Tamtam club. And no one specifically refutes it. Club visitors simply specify what the new attraction was. " There were plenty of consciousness-expanding substances in “TaMtAm”. Moreover, they cost pennies"(p. 54). " By the middle of the decade, the entire Tamtam crowd had gone headlong into drugs... I don’t have a single warm memory of Tamtam’s youth..."(p. 68) Etc.
Publications about war or concentration camps also traumatize the psyche. The fundamental difference " Other nineties“- that people were lowered to a level below the animal, and then physically destroyed not by some external evil force, they did this to each other, and all together - to their own country.
The book contains generalizations like “ everyone lived like that back then». « Everyone used it», « any creative youth», « you could have arrested any hundred people in the subway - and the result would have been the same" and so on. They are characteristic of those who themselves acted not as a passive, stupid victim, but as an organizer." new attraction“, has derived a certain benefit from it, and not just harm to health, and is now interested in justifying himself this way: they say, it’s not my fault, they came on their own (unitedly by the whole country).
Formulations are inserted automatically, through the subconscious. And if you turn on consciousness, then it is quite obvious that “ psychedelic revolution“didn’t affect everyone, and in the metro a much larger number of people transported ordinary products from the wholesale market for their families, and not poison, and real CREATIVE youth at that time studied German philology, molecular biology or played in Sergei Zhenovach’s play based on Dostoevsky. That is, normal life still continued.
If it were different, the subway would stop and the lights would stop turning on. In general, neither Emperor Nero, nor the Inquisition, nor the authorities of People's Commissar Yezhov are able to completely dehumanize the contingent under their care. People continue to feed, heal, teach and learn. The problem of the 90s is that normal life in this era turned out to be transformed into a state of deaf and almost hopeless opposition, and not because of political disagreement with B.N. Yeltsin and the World Bank, but simply by the fact of its normality.
« Yesterday you were a nobody, and today you are sitting in the most expensive club in Eastern Europe and police officers are making sure that no brute prevents you from snorting cocaine"(p. 120)
In this context, the title on the cover looks strange, echoing a series of articles on the website “ Russian Idea». « Other nineties" Why " other"? The same basic, official ones.
Their description is not of archival, but of purely practical interest: we must soberly realize where V.V. pulled the country out of. Putin, and relate your claims to the current order not with a speculative ideal, but with the realities of that “ the most fun decade"(189), which... Is a thing of the past? No. Rather, it temporarily retreated. And in some industries it is very close. The same education is still ruled by the pets of the 90s, and the person who insists on studying the sciences, and not “ modules" And " competencies", remains in the position of oppositionist.
A completely wild situation with the theater, which in the most terrible years remained an oasis of norm (professional and moral), and only then rapidly degraded to the level of that fair, where the folkloric Vanka the lackey showed, you know what.
Powerful forces outside and inside Russia are interested in returning us to the state recorded in Stogov’s book, and will look for any reason for this, showing not only persistence, but also considerable ingenuity. Bad AIDS statistics? Let's use this pretext to legalize drugs again.
When speaking out against the abuses of the current bureaucracy, we must always take this factor into account and in no case allow our struggle for the future to be used for their own purposes by people who want to push the country into its recent past. Russia will not survive a second such “fun” in a row.
"Sometimes they come back". Moreover, they didn’t go far.
Pavel Smolyak
Olga Zakharova
Ilya Stogov, without any modesty, but, of course, without boasting, talks about the time when everyone was talking about him. Each magazine was packed with his interviews, advice, and reflections. Popular writer, witty journalist, TV and radio presenter. Years go by, but Stogov is still relevant. Ilya happily shows off the volumes lying around in his bag. There are four books at once, but I’m starting with Kupchino.
Ilya, I found out that you left Kupchino and moved to the city center. The news floored me. I admit, I don’t really like this island of St. Petersburg, but you somehow brightened up the area, it was less black and white. You say “Kupchino” and remember Stogov. What happened, why did you leave the “center of the Universe”?
Some novel described the struggle of blacks for their rights. Blacks rebelled in New York and shot back there. And when the policeman came, he discovered that they were just white people who had painted their faces with shoe polish. I am the same defender of Kupchino. Until I was thirty, I lived in the house to which I have now moved. I'm not a real merchant boy. I was born on the Neva embankment. The fact is that in 2004 I worked on Channel Five. Since there was a shortage of stories there, and by the way, I didn’t film them at all, I was the presenter, so I said: “Let me film that you’re worried.” And I made the plot. Usually it takes three days to remove it, but I finished it in 40 minutes. We took a couple of shots of Kupchino and edited them with footage from Star Wars, like Kupchino is an area of the future. Well, that's it, pipe. For the next five years my phone didn’t stop ringing at all; they thought that I was the main specialist in Kupchino. It's not that I don't like him, it's just a joke. She was funny a few years ago, but now she's not funny at all, so I moved.
I didn't know it was a joke. He took everything seriously.
I am not ready to spend my whole life adhering to something that I am not. Previously, it seemed to me that there was some kind of trend in this, this is how a St. Petersburg gentleman should live: a green neighborhood, good ecology. Here's Kupchino for you. But one day I didn’t have the book that I usually read on the road. I got into the minibus, started looking out the window, and the closer we got to Kupchino, the worse I felt. We drove up, and there were some nasty ghouls naked to the waist in sweatpants, then some Uzbek women in hijabs, I felt like I was plunging into hell. Worse and worse. I got home and thought: “Dear mom, where do I live?”
You are experiencing continuous changes in your life. Both personal and professional. We left Kupchino and moved to a normal area. On Channel 5 you are broadcasting again. Radio shows, new books are coming out, old ones are being republished. You have suddenly become in demand.
There was a time when I couldn’t breathe at all. I came with my wife to a hypermarket, there was a healthy rack with magazines. I say: “Let’s bet that I’ll open any magazine and there will be a photo of me in it.” My wife took some left-wing magazine about car tuning, and there was a photo of me there. This was a long time ago, now, on the contrary, there is a feeling of some kind of deja vu. I had a good program on television, now it’s crap, not a program. I'm not the one doing it. I always want to quit, but I don’t have the money. I'm poor. I have to work for money.
Why immediately “shit”? Do you write your own questions or what? How much freedom do you have on air?
It’s not me who invites people to the show. Some man comes, I would have punched him in the face instead of asking him questions. For example, someone says that people descended from dolphins or that a person can live at minus sixty and walk naked. Not interested. I don’t care at what temperature a person can walk naked. This is not a topic for conversation, but I have to talk.
When you were called to host the “Night” program, did you immediately agree? After all, the program was hosted by writer Vyacheslav Kuritsyn before you. I won’t say that I was delighted, but he conducted the program at the same level. You knew that they would constantly compare you with him, without going into the meaning of who is visiting you?
Kuritsyn at one time became a replacement for me...
In the literature that is not ashamed to be shown on TV, only you and Vyacheslav remain. Is that how it works?
I have this friend, a fucking noble European aristocrat. He lived in St. Petersburg, and then disappeared. I ask him: “Mark, where are you?” He says - in Moscow. And why? He answers that when he came here in the early nineties, St. Petersburg was a fucking city, it was on par with London. Then he became not very cool, but in comparison with Moscow he became completely provincial. We have catastrophically few people. Slava Kuritsyn may be responsible for all St. Petersburg literature, but then woe to literature.
By the way, you wrote about this in the book “2010 A.D.”, if I’m not mistaken. The hero arrives in St. Petersburg after a long journey, sees that nothing has changed, everything is worse and worse, and goes to the capital.
"2010" is a bad book.
Yes, outright hackwork, to tell the truth, it’s immediately obvious that they wrote for the sake of money.
You know, I don’t work for money and I’m proud of it. This is not what I wanted to write. I don't work for money, but I don't work without money either. It's just that money is not the main motivation for me. The book is weak, but I think if it had been Sadulaev’s book, it would have been Sadulaev’s best book. It's just a bad book for me.
Don't like German Sadulayev?
I feel very good about him, but it’s just that each of my next books was better than the previous one, but this one is not. All the techniques have been used ten times by me in other books. These thoughts have been expressed elsewhere.
The idea of the book, let’s say, is clear to me. As I understand it, you wanted to show a certain projection of time, to write a chronicle of our reality. Major Evsyukov and so on.
No normal course was found. I would like to write a book about doing well and doing well. And doing bad is bad. Dear reader, do not do bad, but do good. You need to find some way, but it didn’t work out with this book. A lot of things didn't work out.
Okay, how about you with envy towards your colleagues? Still, your circulation has fallen. New books are coming out, but six to ten thousand copies each. Too little for Stogov. Do you not share the opinion that someone with, for example, a circulation of 50,000 copies is a bad author, an ordinary project? I have a thousand, but what a thousand!
I have no envy. I am an underground author, but among the underground I have a fairly large circulation. Among commercial literature, I have a high social status, I am not Daria Dontsova. I can tell her: “Show me at least a line that would be written like mine, and then talk to me.” I have no one to envy.
I wanted to know about the new books that you have coming out...
Have you read the last Limonov?
He writes almost nothing.
And what he writes is complete bullshit. He is good, but there is a market idea. If you take up literature, you will write books until you are old. If you have something to say, say it, no, remain silent. Well, of course, since childhood I was sure that I would become a writer. Then I published two books somewhere in the nineties. There was one detective, the second book was called “Kamikaze”. No one read them, no one paid attention. And then I worked at the Amphora publishing house. The writer Pavel Krusanov was there. I drank with him like never before with anyone in my life. We celebrated the year two thousand, everyone said, let’s remember the year that passed, but I understand that I can’t remember anything. It hasn't been a year. I remembered the mailbox that hung near the Amphora publishing house. Nearby is the entrance to the store. Pasha has already bought a bottle, put it on the mailbox and is waiting for me. We spent a year and a half with this box. But then I saw the whole world of St. Petersburg literature and was horrified, because I had never seen big fuckers in my life.
So you started talking about the nineties in your life. Don't you think that nineties fashion is now coming back? They remember and say how good it was there.
Don't know. The system has changed radically. It's like remembering yourself in the womb, we are too different. We lead a different life. I don't see any fashion yet.
I’m a religious guy, but not in the sense of an idiot - like the priest said, I’ll break my forehead. But in the way of a limitless ego, there must be limits so that you can look at yourself in the mirror, like, dude, you did bad today. And there are many such people in my life.
You are a religious guy, but not an Orthodox guy. What is your attitude towards the Russian Orthodox Church?
I don't really believe in such generic names. For example, when we say Russian, we say such a general name. Russians are one hundred and forty million people who do not know each other. The Orthodox Church is a million or fifty thousand people who are strangers to each other. Among them there is a crazy grandmother from Penza who is ready to bury herself in the ground, there is a patriarch, the head of the bureaucratic structure, there are blue-eyed girls from Novgorod. Soon all the girls will be wearing headscarves and Converse sneakers.
Are your children believers?
We go to church. On Sunday. The youngest son is approaching his first communion; this is a big holiday in Catholic families.
Have you ever thought that you need to protect children from religion? Let them grow up and choose their own religion. Maybe they don't want to be Catholic.
Of course, children generally don’t want much. They don't want to brush their teeth, they don't want to wipe their butts when they go to the toilet. They don't want a lot of things. They are not yet people, they are semi-finished products of people. Everyone becomes human over the years. Children want to stick their fingers into electrical sockets, walk on the fourteenth floor balcony, and only eat at McDonald's. And we parents say: “It is in your interests to listen to me. Then you can, if you really want, eat at McDonald’s,” but now you have to understand that there are healthier foods.”
Unfortunately, I don’t know what the right books are. I’m not saying that I’m the most famous writer, but journalists call me regularly twice a day. And with this question: how to teach the younger generation to read... Should the younger generation read “Glamorama”? There's just so much there. Or there is another book about skinheads, I don’t remember the name, but it’s a well-known American one, such a modern Orwell, about the victory of the national revolution in the world. The Jews took over the world, and only a small team of skinheads led the resistance and won. Africa was wiped off the face of the earth, and China was bombarded with nuclear bombs. Do you think that all books should be read?
I was once walking down the street in the city of Chernivtsi, I saw my grandmother selling books, and I approached. crests, by the way, almost never read books; publishing is the most unprofitable business in Ukraine. I didn't see a single person reading anything there. And now on the grandmother’s table there is all sorts of computer literature and - bam! - "Mein Kampf". I bought it for thirty hryvnia. I sat on a train in the beautiful city of Chernivtsi - and it was Jewish and suffered greatly in World War II - and read Mein Kampf.
The book, by the way, was banned in Russia.
There is no need to prohibit anything. I always got my books on time. They, however, sometimes led to such paradoxical results. At the age of 14 or 15, I found a book by Nietzsche, a pre-revolutionary edition, with my dad. And he began to read. I don't remember what exactly I read, but I realized from the book that you don't have to be good. After that I stopped doing well at school, and within a week I lost my virginity. Not because the girl got caught, but because Nietzsche. Therefore, I understand what the power of words means. A word can explode your brain so much that everything around you will splatter. Or maybe it won't explode. 8 or 20 years after Nietzsche, I read Chesterton and was baptized. I learned about Jesus not from the Gospel, but from Chesterton. All the books I read made me who I am. But I’m unlikely to advise anyone to read Mein Kampf, my friend. No. Everyone has their own path. I, like many of my colleagues, am the sum of the books I have read.
My traditional question: what awaits Russia?
There is no Russia, there are one hundred and forty million people who do not know each other. Someone at the moment understood the most important moments in life, someone fell and broke their face into blood. And the majority ate dumplings and went to bed. Russia is a generalization behind which there is nothing. Medvedev - who is this? I turn on the TV, they show the Russian businessman Abramovich, it’s funny to me, he’s been a British businessman for a long time, not Russian. The rich are getting richer, and their world is not divided into Russia, Germany, Japan. There is a world of the poor - it is international. I think many St. Petersburg residents would find common themes with Ethiopians. They have similar problems. They live in a world of the poor. There is a world of smart people - you and I have something to talk about. Now, if a Brazilian and a Korean came here, they would be happy to join in the discussion of the prose of the Chechen Sadulayev. There is a world of sports fans. Here I work at Radio Zenit, and this is some kind of through the looking glass. The answer to the question “Who are you?” does not imply nationality. Who are you? Russian. This is not an answer. Who are you? I am businessman Abramovich. And I'm a Liverpool fan. And it doesn’t matter what my nationality is. Something is probably waiting for Russia, but I don’t live in Russia. But this does not mean that I do not love my country, the level of generalization does not interest me, just like that.
When the St. Petersburg writer Ilya Stogov was just beginning his literary career in the mid-90s, some at the Amphora publishing house doubted: would he go, would they read him? Time has shown that Stogov not only went, but went with a bang. To date, Ilya has published more than thirty books, the total circulation of which has long exceeded one million. However, Stogov doesn’t have that many actual “writer’s” books. Perhaps the most sensational of them is the novel “Macho Men Don’t Cry,” after which Stogov’s name began to sound not only in St. Petersburg. Most of what Ilya wrote can be classified as a journalistic genre - pocket guides to history, astronomy, religion, portraits of modern Russian rock musicians, essays and reports on trips abroad, etc. This despite the fact that Stogov has neither a journalistic nor a literary education. He is a Master of Theology. Believer of the Catholic Church.
Moreover, Ilya is a convinced Catholic: the “Catholic” view of Russian reality is undoubtedly felt in all his works.
Before becoming a writer, Stogov changed a dozen professions, including a bicycle salesman, a street currency exchanger, a security guard, a cinema cleaner, and a school teacher.
At the beginning of our conversation, I asked Ilya if he had a desire to quit the routine work at the keyboard for a while and remember his youth?
“Who told you,” the writer answers, “that my job is to sit at the keyboard?” The good thing about being a writer is that it allows you to constantly change your role. The year before last I wrote about the latest wave of Russian rock and roll. And for this, I got a job as a stagehand in one of the groups and traveled half the country with the guys. And in the past I wrote about archaeologists: I spent the whole summer on excavations. Over the past five years, I have changed half a dozen professions in this way: I went with the police to make arrests, in India I helped cremate the dead, I hosted a radio program, and I did everything else.
— Ilya, you have published about thirty books. And yet you continue to engage in journalism. Why? In general, can a writer survive without journalism now?
- You see, I never called myself a writer. Heir to the traditions of Dostoevsky and Chekhov. I write non-fiction and documentary novels not out of poverty, not because I want to make money, but because that’s the only thing that interests me. I actually think that we live in a wildly interesting era. And to miss at least something, not to record it in time, means to impoverish the nation’s cultural piggy bank. I am interested in guest workers, and Moscow billionaires with their long-legged companions, and domestic hip-hop, and the life of Orthodox monasteries, and whether there will be a war with Georgia, and in general everything that happens every day. But putting all this into the form of a novel is not at all interesting to me.
These dishes should be served as is: smelling of street truth. And not to shove antediluvian novel forms into dead ones. Therefore, I personally cannot survive without journalism. And I’m not ashamed of this, but on the contrary, I’m puffed up with pride.
— Didn’t you want to go to Moscow for a long journalistic ruble?
- I, you know, am a St. Petersburger. I think my city is the only one in the country where moving to Moscow is viewed not as a step in growth, but as a hopeless fall from grace. And if you really want long rubles, then you can write for rich Muscovites without leaving my own city.
— What is this story with the failed film adaptation of your novel in the kingdom of Bhutan?
- No no. It was not Bhutanese filmmakers who tried to film it, but ours, but in Bhutan. This, if you don’t know, is somewhere in East Asia. The company that bought the film rights grabbed a large budget and, as I understand it, planned to cut it thoroughly. In general, people come with proposals for film adaptations all the time. I don’t refuse anyone, but I’ve never gotten around to a finished painting. In my opinion, Russian cinema is such a self-sufficient world that neither the viewer nor anyone else needs it. They find money, live on it and talk about their successes on TV. There is no time left to fool around with filming pictures.
—Which of your books do you consider the most successful?
“And I don’t have anyone I don’t like: they’re all good.” If we count by the number of copies sold, then two are approaching half a million: “Machos Don’t Cry” and mASIAfucker. If for some personal feeling, then I value a little book that went almost unnoticed: “The Passion of Christ.” It seems to me that there I was able to find words that had not yet been used in Russian about the suffering of the Savior.
— Did the critics appreciate it?
— What has Russian criticism ever appreciated? Critics live in their own world, writers in their own, and readers live in places where both of these worlds have never been heard of. Have you personally seen at least one adequate review of at least one of the main modern books? Starting with “Chapaev and Emptiness” and ending with Minaev’s “Spiritless”? Who was able to conduct a clear analysis of the novels written by me or Oksana Robski? Critics need to get off Olympus and see what people are actually reading today. And if this is so, then is it surprising that the weight of criticism today is not even zero, but some negative values.
— How do you feel about literary hackwork?
- What do you have in mind? Thank God, I don’t have to “hack” (in the sense of writing contrary to my own desires for the sake of money). I never wanted to earn a lot. On the contrary, I think that it is worth refusing big earnings: this will help preserve the human appearance. Several years ago, colleagues of businessman Oleg Tinkov wanted to give him a gift for his anniversary and tried to order me his biography. Moreover, so much money was offered that at that time I could buy an apartment. But why do I need another apartment? Clear-red I refused. As for the unauthorized use of my texts, I also don’t mind. All my novels are on the Internet and distributed as audiobooks. In neither case, I again do not receive money, and I do not want to receive it.
— Many people do not understand your passion for Catholicism. How did a person involved in the St. Petersburg underground suddenly come to the Catholic faith? Maybe someone from your family influenced you?
“I wouldn’t call my relationship with the Catholic Church a “hobby.” For me, this is a conscious and thoughtful step. I am absolutely Russian by nationality: my peasant grandparents had names like Ivan or Evdokia and could barely even write. And, of course, at first I was going to be baptized in the Orthodox Church. I think that if a guy like me had found at least some place there, at least some chance to catch on and hold on, then I would still have become Orthodox. But, without breaking myself, without ceasing to be myself, I never managed to enter the fold of the Russian Orthodox Church. And “Catholic” is translated like this: “universal”. There was a place in this church even for someone like me.
— How do your littsekh colleagues feel about your religion? Were there any misunderstandings or clashes on this basis?
- Who cares? And then St. Petersburg is a cosmopolitan city. In Moscow the issue of religion can be discussed, but here we cannot.
— Do you, as a Catholic, have any complaints about Russian literature?
— As a reader, I have complaints about modern Russian literature. Prizes, thick magazines, critiques, a lot of writers. Where are the real achievements? All these modern novels are of interest to a very narrow circle of connoisseurs. Like, say, Latin American dancing. Well, yes: it seems like something is happening. But, on the other hand, this is not at all interesting to anyone except the participants in the process.
— Do you have any relationships with the older generation of St. Petersburg writers? Who would you like to highlight?
- You see, I didn’t grow up on the novels of our “hillbillies”, but on the detective stories of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Soviet writers have never been an authority for me. So I don't have any relationship with them. Of the professional writers, I communicate only with the so-called “St. Petersburg fundamentalists” (Krusanov, Nosov, Sekatsky). Previously, when I was still drinking alcohol, it was nice to cut myself half to death with these guys and then discuss how it all went. And so: the collapse of the USSR is a watershed. Those who remained on the other side will never come here to us. In general, I have nothing to talk about with classics like Daniil Granin or Boris Strugatsky. Moreover, they most likely have no idea about my existence.
— Do you communicate with Vyacheslav Kuritsyn, who recently moved to St. Petersburg? Or are you not on the same page with former apologists of postmodernism?
— Vyacheslav Kuritsyn has been drinking so heavily lately that it’s really difficult to communicate with him. In general, there are no non-drinkers among writers. But not everyone can drink like Slava.
— According to your personal feelings, is literary life in the city today a boiling cauldron or a stagnant swamp?
- There is no single life. There are thousands of tiny worlds: poets read poetry to each other, playwrights rush around with plays to directors, essayists extort fees from magazines, novelists drink vodka and twirl their mustaches. If someone starts telling you that not much happens in St. Petersburg, it means that he simply ended up in the wrong world.
— According to you, a person reads until he is thirty, and then only re-reads. I wonder what you are re-reading today?
- I just continue reading. Every week I discover something new. And from what I re-read over the past year, the one who truly shocked me was Korotkevich, who once wrote “The Wild Hunt of King Stakh.” I reread it and was amazed: the real Belarusian Umberto Eco. And completely underrated!
— Which of the Russian literary awards, in your opinion, is the most prestigious and not biased? In other words, what prize do you dream of winning?
— You know, about a hundred years ago Kipling was going to be awarded some wildly honorable British order. And for this they even invited him to an audience with the king. However, he refused and wrote on the invitation: “Your Majesty! Let me live and die simply as Kipling." Modern literary awards cause me nothing but despondency. Neither National Best, nor the Big Book, nor even more so the ridiculous Russian Booker. The jury of these awards missed everything that was interesting in recent years. The prize was not given to Robski, Alexey Ivanov, Krusanov, or Danilkin. And if they gave it to Bykov and Prilepin, it was for some completely absurd books. So personally, I would like to live and die simply as Ilya Stogov.
— Judging by your statements, the main drawback of Russia is the lack of freedom in it. How do you manage to live in captivity for so many years? Reveal the secret.
“I don’t think I phrased it exactly like that.” Who is silencing the press today? Who tramples my civil rights into the asphalt with forged boots? Nobody! Recently, for the sake of sport, I went to a political rally for the first time in my life. Please! Shout as much as you like! Another thing is that three and a quarter people took part in this rally. It's not about freedom, but about total indifference. Russians have always delegated their rights to the top without any doubt: decide for yourself, I don’t care. If they tell me to go to war, I’ll go and die. If they tell me to go to a rally, I’ll go there too. If they tell me to disperse the same rally, I will disperse it. Indifference and humility, Asian contempt for life (both one’s own and that of others) is what seriously surprises me in my own country.
— By the way, you have visited about fifty countries. Which state, according to your observations, has the most freedom?
- I think more than fifty. Although I never counted it. But measuring freedom by countries is, in my opinion, a dubious idea. Countries are not free, only individuals are. It is believed, for example, that representatives of the Leningrad underground (all these Brodskys and Dovlatovs) lived under conditions of harsh communist pressure. However, these people were absolutely free. So free, as neither today's Russians nor today's Americans have ever dreamed of.
— You have written many books about Russian rock music. What bands will you still be listening to in twenty years?
“You know, when I was fifteen years old, I listened to those who were then in their early twenties, and they seemed like creepy old men to me.” And today I’m almost forty and I already seem like an old man at rock and roll concerts. But at the same time, I prefer to listen to those who, again, are in their early twenties. It is there that the heart of Russian poetry beats today: Feo from the group “Psyche” and Assai from the group “Krec” speak words about today’s world that you will not find anywhere else. I hope that when I reach sixty, I will still start listening to the guys who will then be in their early twenties.
— What new book are you going to launch at the autumn Moscow book fair?
“What I’ve never thought about is timing the release of any of my books to coincide with the fair.” It's more like Moscow. Let my publisher think about advertising strategies and good sales. It will be enough for me to think that the book itself is good.
— In one of your recent speeches in the newspaper “Metro - St. Petersburg” you once complained that (I quote verbatim) “the two thousandth turned out to be a hangover. My eyelid is completely drained." What is the reason for such a pessimistic statement?
“I recently went to South America, and when I returned, it turned out that in the jungle I had picked up some very unpleasant infection. Everything seemed to work out fine, the tests were good, but throughout the past year I was constantly thinking about death. I'm almost forty. I didn't think I would live to this age. And if in childhood death seemed unimportant, insignificant, now I finally began to understand that we were talking about my own death. About the fact that other people will continue to live, and my personal body will be buried in the ground. This doesn't make me feel very happy.
— And yet, despite the hangover present, what are your plans and hopes for the future?- Don't know. In the near future I will go to Transcaucasia, and from there, probably, to Denmark. By September I’m thinking of launching another book series and maybe I’ll be able to make a radio program. And then, really, I don’t know. God will give you the day, God will give you food for thought.
When the St. Petersburg writer Ilya Stogov was just beginning his literary career in the mid-90s, some at the Amphora publishing house doubted: would he go, would they read him? Time has shown that Stogov not only went, but went with a bang. To date, Ilya has published more than thirty books, the total circulation of which has long exceeded one million. However, Stogov doesn’t have that many actual “writer’s” books. Perhaps the most sensational of them is the novel “Macho Men Don’t Cry,” after which Stogov’s name began to sound not only in St. Petersburg. Most of what Ilya wrote can be classified as a journalistic genre - pocket guides to history, astronomy, religion, portraits of modern Russian rock musicians, essays and reports on trips abroad, etc. This despite the fact that Stogov has neither a journalistic nor a literary education. He is a Master of Theology. Believer of the Catholic Church.
Moreover, Ilya is a convinced Catholic: the “Catholic” view of Russian reality is undoubtedly felt in all his works.
Before becoming a writer, Stogov changed a dozen professions, including a bicycle salesman, a street currency exchanger, a security guard, a cinema cleaner, and a school teacher.
At the beginning of our conversation, I asked Ilya if he had a desire to quit the routine work at the keyboard for a while and remember his youth?
“Who told you,” the writer answers, “that my job is to sit at the keyboard?” The good thing about being a writer is that it allows you to constantly change your role. The year before last I wrote about the latest wave of Russian rock and roll. And for this, I got a job as a stagehand in one of the groups and traveled half the country with the guys. And in the past I wrote about archaeologists: I spent the whole summer on excavations. Over the past five years, I have changed half a dozen professions in this way: I went with the police to make arrests, in India I helped cremate the dead, I hosted a radio program, and I did everything else.
— Ilya, you have published about thirty books. And yet you continue to engage in journalism. Why? In general, can a writer survive without journalism now?
- You see, I never called myself a writer. Heir to the traditions of Dostoevsky and Chekhov. I write non-fiction and documentary novels not out of poverty, not because I want to make money, but because that’s the only thing that interests me. I actually think that we live in a wildly interesting era. And to miss at least something, not to record it in time, means to impoverish the nation’s cultural piggy bank. I am interested in guest workers, and Moscow billionaires with their long-legged companions, and domestic hip-hop, and the life of Orthodox monasteries, and whether there will be a war with Georgia, and in general everything that happens every day. But putting all this into the form of a novel is not at all interesting to me.
These dishes should be served as is: smelling of street truth. And not to shove antediluvian novel forms into dead ones. Therefore, I personally cannot survive without journalism. And I’m not ashamed of this, but on the contrary, I’m puffed up with pride.
— Didn’t you want to go to Moscow for a long journalistic ruble?
- I, you know, am a St. Petersburger. I think my city is the only one in the country where moving to Moscow is viewed not as a step in growth, but as a hopeless fall from grace. And if you really want long rubles, then you can write for rich Muscovites without leaving my own city.
— What is this story with the failed film adaptation of your novel in the kingdom of Bhutan?
- No no. It was not Bhutanese filmmakers who tried to film it, but ours, but in Bhutan. This, if you don’t know, is somewhere in East Asia. The company that bought the film rights grabbed a large budget and, as I understand it, planned to cut it thoroughly. In general, people come with proposals for film adaptations all the time. I don’t refuse anyone, but I’ve never gotten around to a finished painting. In my opinion, Russian cinema is such a self-sufficient world that neither the viewer nor anyone else needs it. They find money, live on it and talk about their successes on TV. There is no time left to fool around with filming pictures.
—Which of your books do you consider the most successful?
“And I don’t have anyone I don’t like: they’re all good.” If we count by the number of copies sold, then two are approaching half a million: “Machos Don’t Cry” and mASIAfucker. If for some personal feeling, then I value a little book that went almost unnoticed: “The Passion of Christ.” It seems to me that there I was able to find words that had not yet been used in Russian about the suffering of the Savior.
— Did the critics appreciate it?
— What has Russian criticism ever appreciated? Critics live in their own world, writers in their own, and readers live in places where both of these worlds have never been heard of. Have you personally seen at least one adequate review of at least one of the main modern books? Starting with “Chapaev and Emptiness” and ending with Minaev’s “Spiritless”? Who was able to conduct a clear analysis of the novels written by me or Oksana Robski? Critics need to get off Olympus and see what people are actually reading today. And if this is so, then is it surprising that the weight of criticism today is not even zero, but some negative values.
— How do you feel about literary hackwork?
- What do you have in mind? Thank God, I don’t have to “hack” (in the sense of writing contrary to my own desires for the sake of money). I never wanted to earn a lot. On the contrary, I think that it is worth refusing big earnings: this will help preserve the human appearance. Several years ago, colleagues of businessman Oleg Tinkov wanted to give him a gift for his anniversary and tried to order me his biography. Moreover, so much money was offered that at that time I could buy an apartment. But why do I need another apartment? Clear-red I refused. As for the unauthorized use of my texts, I also don’t mind. All my novels are on the Internet and distributed as audiobooks. In neither case, I again do not receive money, and I do not want to receive it.
— Many people do not understand your passion for Catholicism. How did a person involved in the St. Petersburg underground suddenly come to the Catholic faith? Maybe someone from your family influenced you?
“I wouldn’t call my relationship with the Catholic Church a “hobby.” For me, this is a conscious and thoughtful step. I am absolutely Russian by nationality: my peasant grandparents had names like Ivan or Evdokia and could barely even write. And, of course, at first I was going to be baptized in the Orthodox Church. I think that if a guy like me had found at least some place there, at least some chance to catch on and hold on, then I would still have become Orthodox. But, without breaking myself, without ceasing to be myself, I never managed to enter the fold of the Russian Orthodox Church. And “Catholic” is translated like this: “universal”. There was a place in this church even for someone like me.
— How do your littsekh colleagues feel about your religion? Were there any misunderstandings or clashes on this basis?
- Who cares? And then St. Petersburg is a cosmopolitan city. In Moscow the issue of religion can be discussed, but here we cannot.
— Do you, as a Catholic, have any complaints about Russian literature?
— As a reader, I have complaints about modern Russian literature. Prizes, thick magazines, critiques, a lot of writers. Where are the real achievements? All these modern novels are of interest to a very narrow circle of connoisseurs. Like, say, Latin American dancing. Well, yes: it seems like something is happening. But, on the other hand, this is not at all interesting to anyone except the participants in the process.
— Do you have any relationships with the older generation of St. Petersburg writers? Who would you like to highlight?
- You see, I didn’t grow up on the novels of our “hillbillies”, but on the detective stories of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Soviet writers have never been an authority for me. So I don't have any relationship with them. Of the professional writers, I communicate only with the so-called “St. Petersburg fundamentalists” (Krusanov, Nosov, Sekatsky). Previously, when I was still drinking alcohol, it was nice to cut myself half to death with these guys and then discuss how it all went. And so: the collapse of the USSR is a watershed. Those who remained on the other side will never come here to us. In general, I have nothing to talk about with classics like Daniil Granin or Boris Strugatsky. Moreover, they most likely have no idea about my existence.
— Do you communicate with Vyacheslav Kuritsyn, who recently moved to St. Petersburg? Or are you not on the same page with former apologists of postmodernism?
— Vyacheslav Kuritsyn has been drinking so heavily lately that it’s really difficult to communicate with him. In general, there are no non-drinkers among writers. But not everyone can drink like Slava.
— According to your personal feelings, is literary life in the city today a boiling cauldron or a stagnant swamp?
- There is no single life. There are thousands of tiny worlds: poets read poetry to each other, playwrights rush around with plays to directors, essayists extort fees from magazines, novelists drink vodka and twirl their mustaches. If someone starts telling you that not much happens in St. Petersburg, it means that he simply ended up in the wrong world.
— According to you, a person reads until he is thirty, and then only re-reads. I wonder what you are re-reading today?
- I just continue reading. Every week I discover something new. And from what I re-read over the past year, the one who truly shocked me was Korotkevich, who once wrote “The Wild Hunt of King Stakh.” I reread it and was amazed: the real Belarusian Umberto Eco. And completely underrated!
— Which of the Russian literary awards, in your opinion, is the most prestigious and not biased? In other words, what prize do you dream of winning?
— You know, about a hundred years ago Kipling was going to be awarded some wildly honorable British order. And for this they even invited him to an audience with the king. However, he refused and wrote on the invitation: “Your Majesty! Let me live and die simply as Kipling." Modern literary awards cause me nothing but despondency. Neither National Best, nor the Big Book, nor even more so the ridiculous Russian Booker. The jury of these awards missed everything that was interesting in recent years. The prize was not given to Robski, Alexey Ivanov, Krusanov, or Danilkin. And if they gave it to Bykov and Prilepin, it was for some completely absurd books. So personally, I would like to live and die simply as Ilya Stogov.
— Judging by your statements, the main drawback of Russia is the lack of freedom in it. How do you manage to live in captivity for so many years? Reveal the secret.
“I don’t think I phrased it exactly like that.” Who is silencing the press today? Who tramples my civil rights into the asphalt with forged boots? Nobody! Recently, for the sake of sport, I went to a political rally for the first time in my life. Please! Shout as much as you like! Another thing is that three and a quarter people took part in this rally. It's not about freedom, but about total indifference. Russians have always delegated their rights to the top without any doubt: decide for yourself, I don’t care. If they tell me to go to war, I’ll go and die. If they tell me to go to a rally, I’ll go there too. If they tell me to disperse the same rally, I will disperse it. Indifference and humility, Asian contempt for life (both one’s own and that of others) is what seriously surprises me in my own country.
— By the way, you have visited about fifty countries. Which state, according to your observations, has the most freedom?
- I think more than fifty. Although I never counted it. But measuring freedom by countries is, in my opinion, a dubious idea. Countries are not free, only individuals are. It is believed, for example, that representatives of the Leningrad underground (all these Brodskys and Dovlatovs) lived under conditions of harsh communist pressure. However, these people were absolutely free. So free, as neither today's Russians nor today's Americans have ever dreamed of.
— You have written many books about Russian rock music. What bands will you still be listening to in twenty years?
“You know, when I was fifteen years old, I listened to those who were then in their early twenties, and they seemed like creepy old men to me.” And today I’m almost forty and I already seem like an old man at rock and roll concerts. But at the same time, I prefer to listen to those who, again, are in their early twenties. It is there that the heart of Russian poetry beats today: Feo from the group “Psyche” and Assai from the group “Krec” speak words about today’s world that you will not find anywhere else. I hope that when I reach sixty, I will still start listening to the guys who will then be in their early twenties.
— What new book are you going to launch at the autumn Moscow book fair?
“What I’ve never thought about is timing the release of any of my books to coincide with the fair.” It's more like Moscow. Let my publisher think about advertising strategies and good sales. It will be enough for me to think that the book itself is good.
— In one of your recent speeches in the newspaper “Metro - St. Petersburg” you once complained that (I quote verbatim) “the two thousandth turned out to be a hangover. My eyelid is completely drained." What is the reason for such a pessimistic statement?
“I recently went to South America, and when I returned, it turned out that in the jungle I had picked up some very unpleasant infection. Everything seemed to work out fine, the tests were good, but throughout the past year I was constantly thinking about death. I'm almost forty. I didn't think I would live to this age. And if in childhood death seemed unimportant, insignificant, now I finally began to understand that we were talking about my own death. About the fact that other people will continue to live, and my personal body will be buried in the ground. This doesn't make me feel very happy.
— And yet, despite the hangover present, what are your plans and hopes for the future?- Don't know. In the near future I will go to Transcaucasia, and from there, probably, to Denmark. By September I’m thinking of launching another book series and maybe I’ll be able to make a radio program. And then, really, I don’t know. God will give you the day, God will give you food for thought.
When the St. Petersburg writer Ilya Stogov was just beginning his literary career in the mid-90s, some at the Amphora publishing house doubted: would he go, would they read him? Time has shown that Stogov not only went, but went with a bang. To date, Ilya has published more than thirty books, the total circulation of which has long exceeded one million. However, Stogov doesn’t have that many actual “writer’s” books. Perhaps the most sensational of them is the novel “Macho Men Don’t Cry,” after which Stogov’s name began to sound not only in St. Petersburg. Most of what Ilya wrote can be classified as a journalistic genre - pocket guides to history, astronomy, religion, portraits of modern Russian rock musicians, essays and reports on trips abroad, etc. This despite the fact that Stogov has neither a journalistic nor a literary education. He is a Master of Theology. Believer of the Catholic Church.Moreover, Ilya is a convinced Catholic: the “Catholic” view of Russian reality is undoubtedly felt in all his works.
Before becoming a writer, Stogov changed a dozen professions, including a bicycle salesman, a street currency exchanger, a security guard, a cinema cleaner, and a school teacher.
At the beginning of our conversation, I asked Ilya if he had a desire to quit the routine work at the keyboard for a while and remember his youth?
“Who told you,” the writer answers, “that my job is to sit at the keyboard?” The good thing about being a writer is that it allows you to constantly change your role. The year before last I wrote about the latest wave of Russian rock and roll. And for this, I got a job as a stagehand in one of the groups and traveled half the country with the guys. And in the past I wrote about archaeologists: I spent the whole summer on excavations. Over the past five years, I have changed half a dozen professions in this way: I went with the police to make arrests, in India I helped cremate the dead, I hosted a radio program, and I did everything else.
- Ilya, you have published about thirty books. And yet you continue to engage in journalism. Why? In general, can a writer survive without journalism now?
- You see, I never called myself a writer. Heir to the traditions of Dostoevsky and Chekhov. I write non-fiction and documentary novels not out of poverty, not because I want to make money, but because that’s the only thing that interests me. I actually think that we live in a wildly interesting era. And to miss at least something, not to record it in time, means to impoverish the nation’s cultural piggy bank. I am interested in guest workers, and Moscow billionaires with their long-legged companions, and domestic hip-hop, and the life of Orthodox monasteries, and whether there will be a war with Georgia, and in general everything that happens every day. But putting all this into the form of a novel is not at all interesting to me.
These dishes should be served as is: smelling of street truth. And not to shove antediluvian novel forms into dead ones. Therefore, I personally cannot survive without journalism. And I’m not ashamed of this, but on the contrary, I’m puffed up with pride.
- Didn’t you want to go to Moscow for a long journalistic ruble?
- I, you know, am a St. Petersburger. I think my city is the only one in the country where moving to Moscow is viewed not as a step of growth, but as a hopeless fall from grace. And if you really want long rubles, then you can write for rich Muscovites without leaving my own city.
- What is this story with the failed film adaptation of your novel in the kingdom of Bhutan?
- No no. It was not Bhutanese filmmakers who tried to film it, but ours, but in Bhutan. This, if you don’t know, is somewhere in East Asia. The company that bought the film rights grabbed a large budget and, as I understand it, planned to cut it thoroughly. In general, people come with proposals for film adaptations all the time. I don’t refuse anyone, but I’ve never gotten around to a finished painting. In my opinion, Russian cinema is such a self-sufficient world that neither the viewer nor anyone else needs it. They find money, live on it and talk about their successes on TV. There is no time left to fool around with filming pictures.
-Which of your books do you consider the most successful?
- And I don’t have any unloved ones: they’re all good. If we count by the number of copies sold, then two are approaching half a million: “Machos Don’t Cry” and mASIAfucker. If for some personal feeling, then I value a little book that went almost unnoticed: “The Passion of Christ.” It seems to me that there I was able to find words that had not yet been used in Russian about the suffering of the Savior.
- Did the critics appreciate it?
- What has Russian criticism ever appreciated? Critics live in their own world, writers in their own, and readers live in places where both of these worlds have never been heard of. Have you personally seen at least one adequate review of at least one of the main modern books? Starting with “Chapaev and Emptiness” and ending with Minaev’s “Duhless”? Who was able to conduct a clear analysis of the novels written by me or Oksana Robski? Critics need to get off Olympus and see what people are actually reading today. And if this is so, then is it surprising that the weight of criticism today is not even zero, but some negative values.
- How do you feel about literary hackwork?
- What do you have in mind? Thank God, I don’t have to “hack” (in the sense of writing contrary to my own desires for the sake of money). I never wanted to earn a lot. On the contrary, I think that it is worth refusing big earnings: this will help preserve the human appearance. Several years ago, colleagues of businessman Oleg Tinkov wanted to give him a gift for his anniversary and tried to order me his biography. Moreover, so much money was offered that at that time I could buy an apartment. But why do I need another apartment? Clear-red I refused. As for the unauthorized use of my texts, I also don’t mind. All my novels are on the Internet and distributed as audiobooks. In neither case, I again do not receive money, and I do not want to receive it.
- Many people do not understand your passion for Catholicism. How did a person involved in the St. Petersburg underground suddenly come to the Catholic faith? Maybe someone from your family influenced you?
“I wouldn’t call my relationship with the Catholic Church a “hobby.” For me, this is a conscious and thoughtful step. I am absolutely Russian by nationality: my peasant grandparents had names like Ivan or Evdokia and could barely even write. And, of course, at first I was going to be baptized in the Orthodox Church. I think that if a guy like me had found at least some place there, at least some chance to catch on and hold on, then I would still have become Orthodox. But, without breaking myself, without ceasing to be myself, I never managed to enter the fold of the Russian Orthodox Church. And “Catholic” is translated like this: “universal”. There was a place in this church even for someone like me.
- How do your littsekh colleagues feel about your religion? Were there any misunderstandings or clashes on this basis?
- Who cares? And then St. Petersburg is a cosmopolitan city. In Moscow the issue of religion can be discussed, but here we cannot.
- Do you, as a Catholic, have any complaints about Russian literature?
- As a reader, I have complaints about modern Russian literature. Prizes, thick magazines, critiques, a lot of writers. Where are the real achievements? All these modern novels are of interest to a very narrow circle of connoisseurs. Like, say, Latin American dancing. Well, yes: it seems like something is happening. But, on the other hand, this is not at all interesting to anyone except the participants in the process.
- Do you have any relationships with the older generation of St. Petersburg writers? Who would you like to highlight?
- You see, I didn’t grow up on the novels of our “hillbillies”, but on the detective stories of Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Soviet writers have never been an authority for me. So I don't have any relationship with them. Of the professional writers, I communicate only with the so-called “St. Petersburg fundamentalists” (Krusanov, Nosov, Sekatsky). Previously, when I was still drinking alcohol, it was nice to cut myself half to death with these guys and then discuss how it all went. And so: the collapse of the USSR is a watershed. Those who remained on the other side will never come here to us. In general, I have nothing to talk about with classics like Daniil Granin or Boris Strugatsky. Moreover, they most likely have no idea about my existence.
- Do you communicate with Vyacheslav Kuritsyn, who recently moved to St. Petersburg? Or are you not on the same page with former apologists of postmodernism?
- Vyacheslav Kuritsyn has been drinking so heavily lately that it’s really hard to communicate with him. In general, there are no non-drinkers among writers. But not everyone can drink like Slava.
- Today, according to your personal feelings, is literary life in the city a boiling cauldron or a stagnant swamp?
- There is no single life. There are thousands of tiny worlds: poets read poetry to each other, playwrights rush around with plays to directors, essayists extort fees from magazines, novelists drink vodka and twirl their mustaches. If someone starts telling you that not much happens in St. Petersburg, it means that he simply ended up in the wrong world.
- According to you, a person reads until he is thirty, and then only re-reads. I wonder what you are re-reading today?
- I just continue reading. Every week I discover something new. And from what I re-read over the past year, I was truly shocked by such a writer as Korotkevich, who once wrote “The Wild Hunt of King Stakh.” I reread it and was amazed: the real Belarusian Umberto Eco. And completely underrated!
- Which of the Russian literary awards, in your opinion, is the most prestigious and not biased? In other words, what prize do you dream of winning?
- You know, about a hundred years ago Kipling was going to be awarded some wildly honorable British order. And for this they even invited him to an audience with the king. However, he refused and wrote on the invitation: “Your Majesty! Let me live and die simply as Kipling." Modern literary awards cause me nothing but despondency. Neither National Best, nor the Big Book, nor even more so the ridiculous Russian Booker. The jury of these awards missed everything that was interesting in recent years. The prize was not given to Robski, Alexey Ivanov, Krusanov, or Danilkin. And if they gave it to Bykov and Prilepin, it was for some completely absurd books. So personally, I would like to live and die simply as Ilya Stogov.
- Judging by your statements, the most important drawback of Russia is the lack of freedom in it. How do you manage to live in captivity for so many years? Reveal the secret.
- I don’t think I phrased it exactly like that. Who is silencing the press today? Who tramples my civil rights into the asphalt with forged boots? Nobody! Recently, for the sake of sport, I went to a political rally for the first time in my life. Please! Shout as much as you like! Another thing is that three and a quarter people took part in this rally. It's not about freedom, but about total indifference. Russians have always delegated their rights to the top without any doubt: decide for yourself, I don’t care. If they tell me to go to war, I will go and die. If they tell me to go to a rally, I’ll go there too. If they tell me to disperse the same rally, I will disperse it. Indifference and humility, Asian contempt for life (both one's own and that of others) - this is what seriously surprises me in my own country.
- By the way, you have visited about fifty countries. Which state, according to your observations, has the most freedom?
- I think more than fifty. Although I never counted it. But measuring freedom by countries is, in my opinion, a dubious idea. Countries are not free - only individuals are. It is believed, for example, that representatives of the Leningrad underground (all these Brodskys and Dovlatovs) lived under conditions of harsh communist pressure. However, these people were absolutely free. So free, as neither today's Russians nor today's Americans have ever dreamed of.
- You have written many books about Russian rock music. What bands will you still be listening to in twenty years?
- You know, when I was fifteen years old, I listened to those who were then in their early twenties, and they seemed like creepy old men to me. And today I’m almost forty and I already seem like an old man at rock and roll concerts. But at the same time, I prefer to listen to those who, again, are in their early twenties. It is there that the heart of Russian poetry beats today: Feo from the group “Psyche” and Assai from the group “Krec” speak words about today’s world that you will not find anywhere else. I hope that when I reach sixty, I will still start listening to the guys who will then be in their early twenties.
- What new book are you going to launch at the autumn Moscow book fair?
- What I’ve never thought about is timing the release of any of my books to coincide with the fair. It's more like Moscow. Let my publisher think about advertising strategies and good sales. It will be enough for me to think that the book itself is good.
- In one of your recent speeches in the newspaper “Metro - St. Petersburg” you once complained that (I quote verbatim) “the two thousandth turned out to be a hangover. My eyelid is completely drained." What is the reason for such a pessimistic statement?
- I recently went to South America, and when I returned, it turned out that in the jungle I had picked up some very unpleasant infection. Everything seemed to work out fine, the tests were good, but throughout the past year I was constantly thinking about death. I'm almost forty. I didn't think I would live to this age. And if in childhood death seemed unimportant, insignificant, now I finally began to understand that we were talking about my own death. About the fact that other people will continue to live, and my personal body will be buried in the ground. This doesn't make me feel very happy.
- And yet, despite the hangover present, what are your plans and hopes for the future?
- Don't know. In the near future I will go to Transcaucasia, and from there, probably, to Denmark. By September I’m thinking of launching another book series and maybe I’ll be able to make a radio program. And then, really, I don’t know. God will give you the day, God will give you food for thought.