Will the most popular “face of the 2000s” return to the country’s main TV channels?

The history of new Russian television journalism is unthinkable without this man. Even today, without working as a program presenter, Leonid Parfenov remains a household name. An impeccable gentleman on screen, he often found himself in the middle of conflict. In June 2004, Parfenov was fired from the NTV channel, formally due to disagreements with management.

Young correspondent

Parfenov’s childhood was, as he himself admits, uninteresting. In his native Cherepovets, the young man was “terribly bored.” He was born in 1960 in the family of an engineer. Of all the joys of life - hunting, which his father often took him on, and the library, in which the guy spent a lot of time.

When Lena was 13, he was already actively sending notes to district and regional newspapers. For one of them he received an award unprecedented at that time - a trip to Artek. By the way, Parfenov distinguished himself there too - he received a certificate as the best cadet of Pionerskaya Pravda.

The first "abroad"

Parents didn’t really believe that Leonid would go to Leningradsky after school state university named after Zhdanov (current St. Petersburg State University). However, he gives up easily entrance exams and starts new life V big city. In addition to studying, he does part-time work - he takes tourists around Leningrad as a tour guide. He also does not forget about journalistic practice; he writes a lot in Smena, Ogonyok, Pravda, and Soviet Culture.

At the university, Parfenov meets students from Bulgaria (they live together in a dormitory) and in his second year goes to visit new friends. Then Leonid experiences his first cultural shock from living abroad and realizes that he is “not a very Soviet person.”

To Moscow, to Moscow!

After graduating from university, the young journalist returns, according to the then established order, to his native Cherepovets. The regional newspaper did not accept the young man in jeans; he began working in the regional newspaper, in Vologda Komsomolets. Then there was regional television, from which he was invited to central television. In 1986, at a very interesting time for Soviet citizens, he became a special correspondent in the youth editorial office of Central Television and worked in the “Peace and Youth” program.

Parfenov together with Andrey Razbash They are filming a three-part documentary film “Children of the 20th Congress”. The film about dissidents and the first democrats - the generation of the sixties - is an unprecedented success; it is bought by television companies from nine countries. Parfenov receives his first substantial fee, for which he purchases an apartment in the capital, and moves to the team of Authors' Television.

Photo: booksite.ru

At natural frequency

In 1990, when the country was at the crossroads of eras, Leonid Parfenov decided to engage in “non-Soviet journalism.” The first episodes of the “Namedni” program are being released. This is a slightly different program than the one with which Parfenov will later be associated. Then “Namedni” was published weekly in the format of “non-political news”. A year later, he was removed from hosting the program for speaking too harshly about his resignation. Shevardnadze from the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Then Parfenov briefly worked at the VID television company with Vladislav Listyev until he is invited to the new NTV channel. At that time, the channel did not even have its own frequency, but was broadcast under an agreement on the St. Petersburg Fifth Channel. On weekdays there was a news program "Today", on Sundays - "Itogi" with Evgeniy Kiselev. “Namedni” was published on Saturday evenings.

Parfenov received his first TEFI for the project “New Year's Television” in 1994. By this time the channel had already acquired its own frequency.

IN next year along with Konstantin Ernst they come up with and implement “Old songs about the main thing.”

Kissing Monroe

One of Parfenov’s main brainchildren is a project whose full name is “Namedni 1961-2003: Our Era.” A series of documentary programs dedicated to the history of the USSR and Russia was conceived, a brilliant attempt at historical reflection. Here Parfenov hones his style - in the script, historical events are mixed with a story about the life of a particular era. For example, after a story about visiting Khrushchev exhibition of avant-garde artists there was a sketch about increasing prices for dairy products and meat, and a story about the execution of workers in Novocherkassk in 1962 was followed by a sketch about hula hoop. Viewers also remember Parfenov’s video jokes, where he is present at negotiations between world leaders and helps wash their hands Nikita Khrushchev, kisses Marilyn Monroe.

The program was published in several cycles, in addition, there were also special episodes in the New Year program at the end of 2001, 2002 and 2003, where Parfenov talked about the events of the past year that will go down in history.

Photo: booksite.ru

NTV case

At the beginning of the two thousandth NTV, which by that time had become part of the media holding Vladimir Gusinsky, will change owner. Until this time, the channel had been developing successfully, but was making enemies due to its critical and even satirical (the “Dolls” program) coverage of the country’s life and politics. Outwardly, everything looked like a takeover by the Gazprom-Media holding. NTV employees are collecting signatures for open letters demanding public attention to the violation of freedom of speech, but Parfenov remains neutral in this conflict. On the “Anthropology” program, where he was invited Dmitry Dibrov, he stated that he did not agree with the actions of the head of the channel, Kiselev, and was leaving the team. After the eighth floor of Ostankino, where NTV was located, was stormed on the night of April 13-14, 2001 and came under the control of Gazprom, Parfenov became the channel’s top manager. Of course, among his colleagues in the shop he was immediately called a “traitor” and a “strikebreaker.”

Very soon, in 2003, the channel’s management changed again, NTV was headed by Nikolai Senkevich. Parfenov first goes on a long vacation, but then returns to work. In November, “Namedni” publishes a story about the book Elena Tregubova from the presidential pool “Tales of a Kremlin Digger”, which Sienkevich prohibits. In May 2004, Parfenov again had a conflict, this time with his deputy general director Alexander Gerasimov. The reason is the plot of “Marry Zelimkhan”. It contained an interview with the widow of a Chechen separatist Zelimkhana Yandarbieva, who died in Qatar, that Russian special services were involved in the murder of her husband. Parfenov was fired for violation employment contract after he published a written order to the channel’s management to ban the story about Yandarbiev.

On Channel One

Leonid Parfenov waited six months for offers from other channels, without waiting, apparently, he realized that this was serious and for a long time, and agreed to the post of editor of Russian Newsweek.

Now he has time to create video content that he likes. He is creating the film "Anchor" for the 70th anniversary Vladimir Pozner, the painting “Oh world, you are a sport!” about the Olympic Games. Channel One broadcasts them. And also the films "Lucy" about Lyudmila Gurchenko, “Bird-Gogol” for the 200th anniversary Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol. Parfenov writes books, voices cartoons, and acts in films.

In 2010, Parfenov, at the Vladislav Listyev Prize ceremony, gave his sensational speech on the state of Russian media. In it, he criticizes the “evergreen techniques” of Soviet central television, which have taken root in modern media, and says that you don’t need to be a hero, but you need to at least have the courage and “call a spade a spade.” Of course, this was not shown on TV.

New songs about the main thing

Today Parfenov does not work on television channels. Over the past 8 years of such “unemployment” he created 7 films and 7 books. Since 2012, member of the Presidential Council Russian Federation on development civil society and Human Rights (HRC).

Last year 2016 I took part in the project Mikhail Khodorkovsky The Open University spoke about its view on the language of modern media.

Another one came out documentary Leonid Parfenov - “Russian Jews”, it is planned to create a film about Russian Germans.

From other plans - release new program for the RTVi TV channel “The other day at karaoke”. New format will incorporate the features of an informational and analytical program and an entertainment program (“Old songs about the main thing”). The show will be broadcast abroad. It will be available to Russian viewers on the Internet.

The popular project of the TV journalist “Namedni” continues its life. At first it was a famous television project, which was then easily translated by the author into paper format. It began in 1961 (remember: the author himself was born in 1960), reached our present time - and then “went backwards”: first a volume was published covering the years from 1946 to 1960, and more recently - from 1931 to 1940. Apparently , Leonid Gennadievich’s “television ferment” makes itself felt: he paints a picture of history completely in a special way, where numbers and dates are not the most important thing. Life comes to the fore ordinary person: What interested him at that particular time? What clothes did he wear, what furniture did he buy, what kind of music did he listen to? What surprised him and what upset him? A pedantic attitude to detail, the talent of a “pathfinder” and the author’s enormous respect for people make these books emotionally rich: they contain the bitterness of eras, the sprouts of hope, and faith in the best... And how could it be otherwise, if many events from modern history Russia was directly affected by the family of Leonid Parfenov himself?! This is what he himself says about it.

Leonid Parfenov himself

New volume of the book "The other day"

— Leonid, why is your next project dedicated specifically to the thirties and forties of the last century?

When I started the project, I came up with the motto for it: “We live in the era of the Renaissance of Soviet antiquity.” It seemed that this neo-socialism, neo-Sovietism was growing, and therefore it was important to understand that era, to feel what was attractive about it, how and what actually happened. It all started in the 30s... My belief is that there was no socialism other than Stalin’s, and it was formalized in the 30s. And then - under Khrushchev, under Brezhnev - the system already lived by inertia. And we all saw that when fear leaves him, this system no longer works. Therefore, she worked worse and worse, and finally “covered herself with a copper basin”... This is my eighth volume of “The Other Day”. It is the eighth in a row, but sort of “minus the first” in chronology, since the project initially began in 1961. Then I was persuaded to go backwards, because the “Thaw” - and its beginning dates back to the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956 - cannot be understood without understanding the “post-war frosts”, so the previous volume was about the time from 1946 to 1960

Cover of the new volume “Namedni” 1931-1940. Image from Corpus publishing website

These are books about life Soviet man. And this time all the “generic characteristics” of the project have been preserved. Here is a picture of an apartment from that time. But since televisions had just appeared - in 1938, only 10,000 of them were produced - it was necessary to make an image of a richer apartment, and not an average one, as in previous projects. For example, the furniture in the photo is from the Krzhizhanovsky house-museum. Because such a luxury item as a TV could not be found in an ordinary communal apartment. It itself was made of mahogany to be something like furniture. And everything else in the photo was reproduced exactly - the gramophone, the painting “Two Leaders after the Rain”, the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia - I brought it myself from my dacha to place it in the closet here. And so on and so forth...

— What were the difficulties? Still, these are not “close” years in time...

Since that era was “black and white,” there were difficulties with illustrations in color. But we found something. For example, they used reproductions of stamps. To illustrate the first Soviet passenger cars, they took Yuri Pimenov’s painting “New Moscow”, it depicts two cars - no one has yet looked at it from this point of view... There are very rare photographs - for example, a photograph of Pavlik Morozov. I would like to explain in basic terms: what era it was, from which, in principle, socialism “began.” And this is not only internal life, but also external life. For example, at that time Hitler came to power. That's why there is something about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact here. But there is also information about skullcaps and berets, which then became fashionable. When you write, you don’t realize it, and then you’re surprised - this is how it turns out it was: two hats came into fashion at once!.. We also found a color watercolor drawing, very delicately drawn: Molotov and Stalin say goodbye to Kirov in the Hall of Columns . Here is a wonderful panel “Notable People of the Land of the Soviets”. There is a caste here: Stakhanovites, noble cotton growers, drivers of some super-fast steam locomotives by the standards of that time - that is, shock workers, and next to them is the traditional elite: academicians, writers... And everyone is in such festive clothes. This panel was made for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937

At the presentation of the book “Russian Empire”, 2013

There is a story about Polina Semenovna Zhemchuzhina-Molotova, who headed the perfume industry. She transformed the perfume “The Empress’s Favorite Bouquet” into “Red Moscow”. In this form they were passed on to subsequent generations. It is also appropriate to remember famous phrase Stalin: “Life has become better, life has become more fun!” — it was a turn from a rigid model to hedonism. That is, they admitted that there should be pleasure in socialism. This is what they allowed - and this, in the end, ruined the system. Because as soon as socialism begins to compete with capitalism as a consumer society, it loses. There are too many examples that show that our shoes were still worse than those of the decaying West...

— Are you interested in that era yourself?

Yes, I also had a personal interest in that era. Nothing escaped our family... In 1931, we were dispossessed - the father of my paternal grandmother, my great-grandfather. And in 1937, former kulaks, clergy and white officers - they were also finished off. And my great-grandfather was shot. I managed to get this “troika” decision to be given to me. Then, after all, about 450 thousand people were shot on the basis of the decisions of the “troika” - this was the first secretary of the regional party committee, the head of the NKVD and the regional prosecutor. In fact, these were just lists of people whom they had never seen and who were sentenced to death for “counter-revolutionary activities”, “an attempt to create a counter-revolutionary organization”... How it was possible to create some kind of organization in the village - no one cared about it ...

Artifacts from the past

— You talk about the opening of the metro in 1935. Was it difficult to collect information?

The most difficult thing is photographs and illustrations. But we even found the first green tickets - they were paper then. I was surprised to learn that there was such an arrangement - and in all seriousness - that passengers themselves should recognize the stations at the entrance to the platform. It turns out that only in 1951 did drivers begin announcing stations – not in recordings, but “live”. By the way, it was in 1937 that the architect Alexei Dushkin, the author of the Mayakovskaya metro station, which was considered the most beautiful, and the author of the Kropotkinskaya station - then it was called the “Palace of the Soviets” - received the Grand Prix for these works at the World Exhibition in Paris and New York

— A book about the Great Patriotic War Will you publish in the same format?

No. It will be impossible to do this in such a mosaic way. And although it is possible to highlight individual topics - for example, that in 1943 shoulder straps were introduced in the army, or the Patriarchate was restored, the Pole Jerzy Petersburg at the end of 1941 wrote the song “Blue Handkerchief”, something else - but this will not be much... You can write about Jassko -The Chisinau operation - but how to write about it? After all, it is important to talk about both the war and civilian life. That's why I made a book about the post-war period - from 1946 to 1960. In general, consider me folding. Or, at least, I understand that this format is not suitable here. By the way, not after the war, but before the war - in 1940, Arkady Gaidar’s book “Timur and His Team” was published. And even before the war they managed to film the book

Excursion into the past

— Do you feel when one era changes another? Are there any signs of this?

Probably, everyone draws their own conclusions and decides something for themselves. There is a well-known hashtag: #to break - that is, someone reacts this way to the change of era. And someone says that we have never lived so well. This all very much depends on personal feelings. At the dawn of my foggy youth, I worked in my homeland at the Vologda Komsomolets newspaper. And he was on duty in the room that provided materials about Brezhnev’s death. And before that, there was a feeling that everything was dragging on, and it seemed that we ourselves would all die with them. Then I was 22. First, Suslov died, and then the “carriage race,” as people used to say, began—cynically, yes, but they themselves brought it to the point that people began to joke like that. It was in Vologda, and I needed to return to Cherepovets. I bought a ticket for the Ikarus bus, it has 42 seats, and I have thirty-nine. And so I squeeze my way to my seat, looking at the people who, of course, already knew about it. And their faces - like in barber chairs - do not express anything! I then wanted to say: “People, wake up! Remember this day! After all, something will happen! And it will be completely different!” And then the era changed in a simple way: An era has ended because its term has expired. This is my personal impression. Although for some it remained just the day of November 10, 1982. Although on the 10th the fact of his death was concealed, the concert in honor of Police Day was cancelled. And on November 11 it became known that Brezhnev had died. And on November 7, he was still standing at the demonstration and trying to greet everyone with his hand - although it didn’t work out well, since his collarbone never fused after the rafters crashed down on him in Tashkent. True, he didn’t look very good - but he looked like that for a long time, everyone got used to it...

With Sergei Shakurov on the set of the film “Zvorykin-Muromets” about the founding father of world television, Russian engineer Vladimir Zvorykin

— You shot a large and complex project for the anniversary of Nikolai Gogol. Is there anything else coming up?

“Gogol” is two large episodes, fifteen hours each... Of course, channels are easier to run on the “Danish principle”. If you come to Konstantin Ernst in 2007 and say that in two years it’s Gogol’s anniversary, and something like that would be needed, so that there would be computer graphics, and phantasmagoria, and in general for the first time modern technologies showed Russian classics, and we are also seeking and will probably achieve permission to “climb” into Gogol’s Roman apartment - then Ernst will say: “Interesting, no one has talked about this yet - go ahead!” But in fact, it was very interesting for me myself. And so I missed a lot of dates. In 2014, I did not make a film for the 200th anniversary of Lermontov. I guess I don't feel it that way. With Gogol, I understood the ultimate task. I made a film for Solzhenitsyn’s 80th birthday - with him himself... But in fact, I didn’t make many films for any specific dates. In this sense, I am not the “Prince of Denmark”! (Laughs.)

— What do you think helps the “real” to comprehend history?

Of course, some parallels arise. But nothing directly repeats itself in history. “Memory notes” are important, enriching the experience with which a person can continue to go through life...

With TV personalities Ksenia Sobchak, Tina Kandelaki, and Ekaterina Mtsituridze and wife Elena Chekalova at a social event

Photos by Vadim Tarakanov, Ruslan Roshchupkin and from the personal archive of Leonid Parfenov

Leonid Parfenov: “Nothing directly repeats itself in history” published: October 26th, 2018 author: Madame Zelinskaya

Interview: Tata Oleinik
Photo: Yuri Koltsov

Can your active role in animated projects be seen as a kind of escape from the realities of our television?

Well, why do this? I have different works, and this is not the first time I’ve collaborated with cartoons, I like their boom. When I voiced Monkey Dust, “38 Monkeys” in our translation, I was very amused by how political correctness, observed everywhere, is easily avoided in the cartoon. His heroes can swear, call other nations and minorities names, mock traditions, follow deep prejudices, and so on - and they get away with it, because although they are humanoid, they are not people, and, therefore, they can do all this. In my career I also had the experience of collaborating with Oleg Kuvaev, when we showed cartoons about Masyanya. They were such a lyrical diary of a contemporary woman. Who else can show today's St. Petersburg spirit in two or three minutes as well as through Masyanya and Khryundel? Only a cartoon. And the best of them have very low depreciation. A good cartoon is made so densely, so characteristically, so succinctly that it can be watched many times with the same interest.

What's politically incorrect, pithy and topical about a cute cartoon about a dog who adopts a boy, Sherman?

There is something else... Well, consider this a story about how American adoption can be good.

American response to the “Dima Yakovlev Law”? Will our learned dogs adopt your orphans?

You see, a heated discussion has already begun. Anyone can read anything.

Does your interest in animation have anything to do with the fact that you feel cut off from big-time television?

Every year I make a TV movie, you can’t make more in a year. Right now on Channel One our new movie preparing for the show - “Color of the Nation”.

Don’t you want to become the owner of your own program, your own broadcast again?

You see, the box trains you to do what is possible. A box is not a print, it is not a book, it is not an A4 sheet lying in front of you on which you can create whatever you want. Everything in the box has a huge cost price. It involves money, equipment, technology, people... And you learn to correlate your desires with possibilities. I haven't suffered without current broadcast for a long time. Per year according to the film - this is good result. I'm busier than ever.

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How would you rate it now? general condition business on our television?

Since I still partly continue to be a practicing television journalist, I still prefer not to engage in television criticism.

However, in lately you began to be counted among those who were, so to speak, oppositionally minded. Speeches at rallies, bright speeches in defiance of the authorities and all that. Can you call yourself an oppositionist?

I? No, I won’t name it. For some I can be an oppositionist, for others I can be mainstream. And since the activity is social, public, the assessment from the outside is much more important than your own.

And assessments from outside are very different. For some you are almost the banner of the revolution, for others you are a servile talent, in fact a strikebreaker.

If you are a journalist, you are a public figure by definition. Take freedom of speech. If you are truly a journalist, you defend it, win it back, try to expand it. And not so much for your own working comfort. After all, journalism exists not so that journalists can work and feel good in it, but so that society receives timely and full information about everything that happens. Is this opposition activity?

Undoubtedly.

Yes? Well, that means I am an oppositionist in this. A journalist - I often say this - is displeasing to someone not because of something he said or filmed. And the fact that others will hear or see it.

Have you ever had to answer for what you said to be heard?

So what? I'm ready to pay for this luxury.

Was the payment not too expensive?

Listen, people who sit and remain silent should not go into journalism. Of course, everyone’s temperament is different: for some, “I can’t remain silent” happens earlier, for others it lasts longer. But personally, I don’t regret anything. It would be torture for me to deny myself the opportunity to be who I am and say what I think.

So you don’t have this popular feeling today: “I’m being strangled, driven away and not allowed to work”?

This is what the majority of the sixties said and drank in their kitchens during the Brezhnev stagnation. They felt that this was not their time and only regretted short days thaw. But in my opinion, they chose this path in vain. We must act, we must try to do something anyway, even if it is difficult and impossible. Don’t think that I’m condemning the sixties, no. But it wouldn't suit me. But today the situation is completely different. Now anyone can leave. And the authorities like to repeat that the borders are open - please get out, the air will be cleaner without you. And many are going. To the Czech Republic, for example. A beautiful country - the Czech Republic.

And why aren't you in the Czech Republic?

Because my profession is the Russian language, and my audience is the Russian audience. And we don’t have such lack of freedom. For example, no one controls books at all. By the way, for the first time in the history of Russia.

But there are lists of prohibited literature.

Not true. There is currently no technical ability to track a book before its release; you can only react to something later, in hindsight. If you can publish “The Day of the Oprichnik,” “The Sugar Kremlin,” or “Dialectics of the Transitional Period”*, it means there is free book publishing in the country. No one runs around with a fly swatter and slams unwanted “admargenums”.

*- Note Phacochoerus "a Funtik:
« The first two books are by Sorokin, the third is the work of Pelevin. All three works are satirical; obscene descriptions of modern reality are often found»

Do you think that we are by and large not deprived of freedom of speech?

It is clear that the situation with freedom of speech, opinions, and public discussion in our country is worse than, for example, in Ukraine. For other voices to be heard in the Rada and on state television channels, for society to defend its opinion, including on the Maidan - of course, we cannot have anything like that yet.

And you miss it?

This is not what I should miss. Society should miss this. There will be a request for freedom - there will be an answer. And grab a person by the chest, shake him and say: “Wake up! How do you live without civil society? You need freedom! It should be included in your shopping cart!” - it's pointless.

Isn't it in the cart?

As a rule, no. The lack of popular voice means that most people are rather satisfied with the state of affairs. There is a social contract: “You steal, let us live, but don’t interfere with us,” everything rests on it. Silence is a sign of consent.

There is no silence on the Internet, which already covers 75 percent of Russians. Continuous swearing, mostly directed at superiors.

And what? What does this all mean? Where is the self-organization, where is some party of active users? Yes, our circulation of high-quality press is several times lower than, for example, in the UK, despite the fact that there is less population there. Here they are even lower than in Poland.

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As many journalists as recently gathered at the Riga International higher school economics and management at Leonid Parfenov’s master class, I haven’t seen him for a long time. It’s clear why: Parfenov is not only a great storyteller (who would doubt it), but also a talented artist who instantly transforms into his character, if necessary. Almost a one-man show. After the general meeting, Leonid agreed to give an interview to Sobesednik.

"The fairy tales are over..."

– Don’t you think that sometimes even “ProjectorParisHilton” is much more topical than news programs?

– I’m not a TV critic, I’m embarrassed to speak out. Moreover, “ProjectorParisHilton” is another evidence that television (no matter what they say about it) is still developing. Because the times when humor was represented by Yevgeny Petrosyan...

- Well, he still imagines...

– On other channels. It’s just that back then there was no alternative. And “ProjectorParisHilton” is a product of a different generation. So there is some movement in those places where it is not regulated by government authorities. Television, of course, is changing. And in the same films that we made in recent years- for the 200th anniversary of Gogol or about Zvorykin - we, undoubtedly, took some steps forward for ourselves. Even technologically moving to “edit” (shooting with a new type of camera-computer. - Author).

– Most newspapers and magazines increasingly serve the needs of the crowd...

– I don’t know, I read Kommersant and Vedomosti, and I don’t have that impression...

– But their circulation is small...

– Everyone chooses their own, in the end. We told each other fairy tales about how we are the most reading country. In fact, something else turned out to be true. Even under Soviet rule, it became clear that people read more what was published, as they said, for waste paper. For “The Woman in White,” for example, they give 20 kilograms of other waste paper. So for me, the current times have not revealed any news regarding mass preferences, mass tastes. It has always been this way, I am absolutely convinced of it. As for television, some people think it sucks, that it is made for those who do not have their own lives - for the marginalized, outsiders who sit and watch talk shows and TV series. Therefore, it is sometimes difficult to announce your own works, to convince your audience, your viewing group, that they should watch this or that program. But the situation is not hopeless. Much worse is the obvious presence state power in television information.

“I won’t make a movie”

– Your latest film about Zworykin sometimes resembles a feature film, and not only because such a magnificent actor as Sergei Shakurov. Next – a full-length film?

– we explained to the actors where and how this or that episode would be used. They didn’t play completely, but they held their emotions as if they were being filmed by a documentary camera. But here the aesthetics are somewhat different. We pretend that this is not Shakurov in the role of Zvorykin, but a continuation of the chronicle. So there can be no question of any filming of feature films. I don’t know how to make things up without relying on facts, this is complete arbitrariness.

– You have been studying and are studying Russian history. Don't you think she repeats herself all the time? Oligarchs, guardsmen, unrest, stagnation, wars - everything has already happened, hasn’t it?

– This is not only a Russian trait. All latest books Gaidar is dedicated to the fact that there is no special Russian path. Because this statist model, when the state penetrates everything, it always gives rise to such an economy, this type public relations, such a relationship between society and power.

– How embarrassing it can be when now, 65 years after the Victory, we are shown stories about veterans who are still powerless before officials...

– In general, it seems to me that we should somehow be less proud of the victory in 1945, and more of what was achieved in peacetime. It turns out strange thing: the unconditionality of the victory of 1945 seems to redeem everything about how people lived these 65 years, what they believed in, how they were able to realize themselves. This is evidence of our helplessness in the face of modernity, because we cannot feel support in it, we cannot agree on how we want to live now. It’s bad if we can only rely on what was done not by us or even by our parents, but by our grandfathers. What have we done ourselves that we can be proud of?

– Have you already watched Mikhalkov’s “Formation”?

– Have you ever thought about taking on a documentary series about the Great Patriotic War yourself?

– As for my plans, I didn’t intend to make a film about the Great Patriotic War. There is a feeling of the viewer being overfed by the war. There was once an idea to make a series “Soviet Empire”, which was supposed to continue “ Russian Empire" But this did not work out. But it would not be about the war, but about Stalin’s state model, which in some ways inherited the Russian one, but in others was different.

After Zvorykin, they now offer me to do literally everything: from last day Pompeii... Like, this is the style in which everything should be filmed. Apparently, the approach itself is quite contagious, and it seems that this is now the best form.

There are plans for the 80th anniversary of Gorbachev, and the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, and the 100th anniversary of the museum fine arts. But this is not so much about the museum as about the collection of Shchukin and Morozov, about two Russian Old Believers merchants who became the very first buyers of Matisse and Picasso. Moreover, they used them to decorate their mansions. Matisse, for example, came to Moscow for marking, his canvas “Dance” was intended for the landing of the second floor of Shchukin’s house...