Of course, you are aware that our unelected Duma is about to give birth to another brilliant law. A new article for the Code of Administrative Offenses - 6.13.1 - is called "Propaganda of homosexuality among minors." You can view it. There is generally a lot of fun here - for example, an explanatory note by the deputies of the Novosibirsk Legislative Assembly - “an avalanche of information falls on these gentle cats every day”, or the conclusion of the legal department, neatly reminiscent of the lack of a legislative framework and, in general, a legal definition of the word homosexuality. Gays will coexist with "propaganda of narcotic drugs."
In short, this law wants to make about 5% of Russians invisible. 7 million people including me. Including your loved ones, perhaps your children, siblings, classmates and classmates, friends and colleagues. Yes, we are deprived of the right to marriage, the right to joint custody of children, the right to peaceful marches - but now we are deprived of the right to just be ourselves - openly. Because being open means not lying. Anwser the questions. Articulate your thoughts.
Information dissemination laws exist in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Uganda. In these countries, any mention in the media of gays and lesbians, except for accusatory indignation, is prohibited. Journalists who write about LGBT without permission from above are fired, and the media are fined.
In Russia, which should fill up this wonderful list, one-time propaganda for an individual will cost from 4 to 5 thousand rubles, for an official - from 40 to 50 thousand rubles, respectively, for a legal entity - from 400 to 500 thousand rubles. At the same time, there is no definition of “propaganda of homosexuality” in the law. At all. I suspect that the deputies find it difficult to define a non-existent phenomenon. But this gives unlimited opportunities for cops of any rank to replenish their pockets or budget.
Deputies of the Novosibirsk Legislative Assembly write that their innovation will prevent "distorted ideas about the social equivalence of traditional and non-traditional relationships", as well as "the idea of homosexuality as a norm of behavior." Fuck our United Russia doctors and sociologists, as well as world science and - not for the first time - the Constitution. Modern Russians must be sure that we are degenerates, and our families are inferior and unequal to yours. Geeks will not be able to open their mouths - the law forbids us to tell what we feel and what we think. It forbids even the dead to speak - in St. Petersburg people are convicted for Faina Ranevskaya's quote, this one.
Two years ago, my girlfriend and I went to the gay parade for the first time. We left because we need equal legal rights with you. Then I wrote this post. But now, with Putin's new term, the legal field for LGBT people is narrowing very quickly - as it is narrowing for volunteers, for activists, for voters, for journalists, for artists.
On Wednesday, December 19, when the first reading begins in the State Duma, and unelected deputies will emotionally imitate legislative activity, Anya and I will come to the State Duma. We'll kiss.
A kiss touches two people. It does not require approval from the Moscow mayor's office. Love does not require approval from the deputies of the State Duma. We do not ask permission - we are and we live. We are visible. Nervous United Russia can hide themselves.
I invite all people - heterosexual and homosexual - to join us. Bring your loved ones. Come alone - with balloons and confetti. You will surely have someone to hug :) Let's arrange a holiday under the walls of the State Duma, the day of kisses.
Because we are free to love. And this should not concern * bath policy.
19.12.2012
Near the building of the State Duma ended the action of opponents of the adoption of the law banning propaganda of homosexuality. More than 10 people were detained
Report "Novaya Gazeta", photo by Anna Artemyeva.
Today at 12.00 in the center of Moscow near the building of the State Duma, a flash mob "Propaganda of love" began. The protesters opposed the adoption of a bill banning propaganda of homosexuality.
A few minutes after the start of the action, unknown provocateurs began throwing eggs at the activists and tried to start a fight. Security closed the entrance to the State Duma "for security reasons." Neither deputies nor journalists were allowed out of the building for 10 minutes, until the police detained the most active provocateurs and several LGBT activists.
During the rally, several dozen police officers were on duty in front of the State Duma.
At about 12.30 one of the policemen turned to the girl present at the action, who had a video camera in her hands, with the words: “Take them off beforehand. It will look like an unsanctioned picket,” and pointed to a group of four LGBT activists holding hands and posing for photographers. After the girl recorded what was happening on video, the activists were detained and taken to a paddy wagon. Among the detainees is Elena Kostyuchenko, special correspondent for Novaya Gazeta.
By now, the promotion has ended. The participants of the flash mob disperse. The central entrance to the State Duma building is blocked.
UPDATE. Elena Kostyuchenko from the paddy wagon: “9 LGBT activists and 6 Orthodox activists were detained. One of them is a correspondent for the Orthodox World resource. They brought me to the Meshchansky Department of Internal Affairs, they begin to slowly let them inside.
UPD 12/20/12
The trial of the LGBT activists detained at the kissing day will take place on December 20, starting at 12:00 in the judicial district 369 of the Tverskoy World Court, Novaya Ploshchad, 8, building 1 (may start earlier). They face up to 15 days in jail for petty hooliganism.
Among the detained LGBT activists:
- special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta Elena Kostyuchenko;
— civic activist Anna Annenkova;
— activists of the Rainbow Association Pavel Samburov, Sergey Gubanov, Sergey Ilupin;
- CWI activist Igor Yasin;
- a member of the anarcho-feminist group Nao Lao (Rafail Deleshev).
UPD Elena Kostyuchenko: Everyone is free)
Relatives, thanks to everyone who came with their loved ones, who came alone, who supported, handed over food and things (sweatshirts and blankets saved us), got to the cops, went to court as a witness and a speaker on TV, who wrote us SMS and put money on phone, who collected photo and video materials, who worried and prayed. Who drove the information wave. We are together - it is very valuable. We are open. And every hour there are more of us, look around :)
The cops of the Meshchanskoye police department said that a kiss is more dangerous than a poster. I very much agree with this.
I spent 1.5 days in the police department with real people who took care of each other, defended themselves, sang, thought and had fun. Thank you) Even Enteo turned out to be not so vile (although he is an asshole and a careerist). Even in the cops, most of all shaking for their salary, we found sympathy (a little, really). Lawyers - Tanya Glushkova, Sveta Sidorkina, Ilnur Sharapov, Kirill Koroteev, Katya Romanova - THANK YOU.
I'm tired, but very happy. They asked questions after the release - it turned out: not one of them regrets that he got out. And EVERYONE is going to come out again - on January 22, to which they postponed the 1st reading of the law on propaganda of homosexuality. And it seems that they will be released not only in Moscow.
Briefly speaking. You are cool. I love you very much.
P.S. After 29 hours, the detainees were charged with a fine of 500 rubles under Article 20.1.1 (petty hooliganism). The composition and article were selected for a long time - while in Russia there is no law prohibiting a kiss. But it will be if the initiative of the State Duma passes. Fines will be challenged, unfaithful cops and dirty bastards will be trolled and prosecuted according to the rule of law, the law prohibiting kissing will be prohibited.
Kiss your loved ones and don't be afraid of anything.
P.P.S. Kissing at -19 turned out to be very ok) Sweet. Try who doesn't
The State Duma postponed consideration of the bill to 22.01.2013
As it became known to the GayRussia.Ru project, the Council of the State Duma at its meeting on Monday December 17 decided to postpone consideration in the first reading of the draft law No. promotion of homosexuality among minors.
Initially, consideration of the bill introduced by the Legislative Assembly of the Novosibirsk Region was planned in the first reading at a meeting of the State Duma on Thursday, December 19, but the Council of the lower house of the Russian parliament decided on Monday to postpone consideration to January 22, 2013. The corresponding decision was published on the official website of the State Duma on the Internet.
Earlier, the Parliamentary Committee on Family, Women and Children proposed to recommend to the State Duma to adopt the draft law in the first reading and include it in the work plan of the lower house of parliament on December 19, but the State Duma Council did not listen to this.
Recall that the leading international human rights organizations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as deputies of the European Parliament, addressed the State Duma deputies with a call to reject the discriminatory bill.
On October 31 of this year, the UN Human Rights Committee recognized in the case of Irina Fedotova v. Russia a similar law of the Ryazan region on the prohibition of propaganda of homosexuality among minors as discriminatory and in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Elena Kostyuchenko's book "Conditionally Unnecessary" is written in a very simple language. Actually, this is how I imagine the language of new Russian prose - what it could become, but did not want to yet. The title invented by Linor Goralik refers the reader to one of the novels by the Dane Peter Høeg, whose prose in Russian, translated by Elena Krasnova, sounds about the same sparingly: emotions are carefully reflected and largely erased from the text. Sometimes this language reaches a state of almost formality: it seems that the author is about to move on to the variables and operators of mathematical logic. However, of course, this is so only for an eye or an ear unaccustomed to the language of "journalism of fact". Or, to put it another way: unaccustomed to speech witness.
"Conditionally unnecessary" put the reviewer in a rather difficult position. Under the cover are collected newspaper reports, each of which I have already read in Novaya. Some things do not make sense to discuss: yes, this is journalism as it should be. Kostyuchenko is not a front-line correspondent and not a political analyst. She does a job much rarer in our latitudes. This is the work of penetrating into the folds of social space - into its dark corners and white spots. The first she searches with the beam of her pocket flashlight. Secondly, on the contrary, squinting, covering his eyes from direct light, he tries to distinguish familiar lines and features. The question here is this: what new quality do these texts acquire when they are book? What happens to them, withdrawn from the flow of everyday life?
Uselessness. Yes, in a way, this book is really about people who nobody needs. The book contains an essay "War Path" - about Sergei Rudakov, who fought to be paid a legal pension, did not achieve justice and, as a result, shot several officials of the Nizhny Tagil Social Insurance Fund. One of the heroines of the essay, the head of the state pension fund of the city of Kachkanar, says so at the end: “Human life here has long been depreciated and is not worth anything. We don't need anyone either. We're scared too." The investigator in charge of Rudakov's case echoes her: “Yes, I felt offended, unnecessary. But in this country we are all unnecessary…” Another text is “Kolchugino. Chronicles”, formally speaking, is a journalistic investigation of a wild story that took place in Kolchugin (Vladimir region, 120 km from Moscow): four young people burned (perhaps alive) on the Eternal Flame a worker from a local metallurgical plant who reprimanded them. Two of the suspects are graduates of the Kolchuginsk correctional boarding school, whose deputy director for educational work says about his wards: “Here they are given clothes and food and take their time. But you can't save them from the world. The world doesn't need them. They are mutilated from birth, abandoned by their parents. And when they leave the boarding school, the world spits on them.”
common place
One way or another, almost all the stories collected in this book are about uselessness. But not only. Uselessness almost inevitably leads to the question: to whom? Who are unnecessary? There is a simple answer to it: the state. This is what Linor Goralik writes about in the preface, offering, in relation to the stories of this book, educated in consonance with failed state("failed state") term Bailed state- “toppled state”: “leaving its inhabitants to the mercy of fate,<…>returning citizens to a state of at least pre-modernity, the most severe community, where in a tiny world (be it the world of the village of Bukhalovo or the police department) everything rests on the most strictly verified, unbearably tense balance of individual survival and mutual support.
In a book review, alas, there is no place for detailed polemics on abstract topics - however, it is impossible not to notice that, in relation to the plots of most essays, the state cannot be called “fallen down”. On the contrary, it is present quite clearly. The desperate, really completely hopeless situation of the heroes of the text “The Life of the Nest”, drug addicts who use desomorphine (“crocodile”), of course, would not be so desperate and so hopeless if it were not for the senseless “war on drugs” in the domestic variant criminalizing harm reduction programs and even substitution therapy. If the “12th article of the 125th, the main law for social insurance” did not prohibit social insurance from increasing payments on its own, if the already mentioned Sergey Rudakov had not had to go to court, perhaps the essay “War Path” would not have been in this book.
What is there: if “a long property dispute between the federal state unitary enterprise VPK-Tekhnoteks and the Moscow Property Department” had been won not by the city (i.e., not the state), then, you see, the 2004 tender for the resumption of construction won if Medstroyinvest, not connected with the city, but some just a development company, the territory described in the text “KhZB” (Khovrinsk abandoned hospital) would turn out not to be an “autonomous zone” for teenage outsiders, but something completely different. Another thing is that yes, of course, - the heroes of this essay would not have disappeared anywhere.
But when the head of the Kachkanar Pension Fund, Tatyana Ivanovna Grosheva, says: “No one needs us either,” is she, a civil servant, what is she talking about? To whom - to nobody? Why do policemen from the text “From Dawn to Dawn” watch serials about conditional themselves? Yes, because they, too, “are not needed by anyone”: “there is some unhealthy sublimation in the love of employees for serials“ about cops ”- the series convince that people really really need the police.” Here, the criminologist Yegor, who ended up in the police to get away from the army, for a short time, remains in the service, explaining this as follows: “Don't think that I'm afraid. I'm not afraid of guys. But they really, really need me.” In other texts, the dichotomy need - uselessness it is not spoken so directly, but it still turns out to be central - both in the long cycle “Life on the sidelines of the Sapsan”, and in “Trasse”, and in others. At this point it is tempting to talk about a lack of solidarity, a low level of trust, a failed political nation - and whichever vocabulary you use, the conversation will make some sense. However, the evidence that constitutes "Conditionally Unnecessary" seems to be a little cramped within the framework of conventional political science hypotheses.
The book written in this language is actually a long, well-considered, relatively detailed speech - a witness. No one's witness - no prosecution, no defense - and not in court at all, there will be no trial.
The quietest of all - and therefore more piercing - the motif of uselessness sounds in the essay "Olya and Silence", whose deafened heroine plays Death in Slavomir Mrozhek's play "Widows". The play is being rehearsed, in turn, at the Cinematograph Theater, which the leadership of the GSII seemed to have expelled from the premises of the institute - however, we do not know the details, because the text is not about the theater, but about the girl Olya. She has a very unfortunate fate, everything is against her. Here it would be necessary to write that she really wants to be happy. But it's not like that, no She wants to be needed. Therefore, first she marries ... honestly, I don’t know what word to put here so as not to violate a couple of “laws of the Russian Federation”, - well, you understand who she is marrying. He endures this motherfucker for a long time. Then, having already freed himself from it, by the end of the essay, he goes “to teach flamenco to deaf students of vocational schools and universities” for 13,000 rubles, while refusing a state allowance of 8,000. And when the lady in the social security office asks her if she is sure that she wants to work - despite the fact that the difference is only 5,000, - Olya says: "Yes." And then he says, already to the author of the book: “You know, if I had heard, I would have had a different profession. Exactly. Would I be happier?"
Who (or what) does not need the heroes of this book? You can, of course, say: the state. But that would be the wrong - or at least far from complete - answer. Elena Kostyuchenko's book is a really important book, because, whether the author wants it or not, today's Russia appears in it as something like a Swedenborgian hell, the inhabitants of which do not understand that they have died, and most importantly, that they are already here. nobody nobody not needed. In the texts of “Conditionally Unnecessary” everything is almost exactly like Swedenborg’s: “in some hells one can see, as it were, the ruins of houses and cities after a fire - hellish spirits live and hide here. In less cruel hells one can see, as it were, bad huts, sometimes entirely like a city, with streets and squares: hellish spirits live in these houses, indulging in constant quarrels, strife, fights and tortures; theft and robbery is committed in the streets and squares.
No, it's not that it was a world without flashes of light at all - but they are short and barely noticeable in the space of the book: well, except that the girl Sasha from KhZB says something like this: “I wanted to discover a cure for cancer. I've had this dream since I was 12." Or the prostitute Nina from Trassa: she is going to marry her fiancé Vasechka, he is “10 years younger than her, now at a construction site in Moscow” - and she writes tender words to him every now and then SMS. Or, finally, the director of the Cinematograph Theater, Irina Kucherenko, dreams that the Moscow Department of Culture, i.e. the current department of S. Kapkov, officially recognized them as a theater, then “it would be possible for everyone to make a small salary rate. I would have my own hall ... ”And she does not sit, does not wait until this happens, but“ fights for grants ”; however, the theater did not have its own stage and rehearsal base, and still does not.
Attempts to become someone needed here do not end in anything: Olya eventually leaves her husband, breaking everything in their common house that could be broken - including windows. One of the HZB heroes, Slem, "dies after falling down an elevator shaft from the ninth floor." The heroine of "Routes" Nina at the end of the essay "is given to the villagers for the night." And this hopelessness - if you think of it as a property of a book, and not the lives of the people who inhabit it - is probably due to the fact that no speech can accommodate so much someone else's speech (although the author constantly retreats into the shadows, giving way to his heroes ) and as much someone else's grief as it should - in order to be evidence.
“The life of the “nest”” ends like this: “in a week one of these people will die - at night, in a dream, the heart will stop. Another, against all odds, will pass tests and try to go on a detox - to save himself. “Despite everything” and “try to save himself” - and in themselves are not that words from the language of hope and faith in the future. However, the very last phrase is really hopeless here: and their names don't matter because you don't really care.
The question here is this: to whom - to you? To whom is this book addressed? Not to a state called the Russian Federation. And not to the Lord God - certainly not. TO us, in the sense, to all of us, who make up Russian society, whatever it is - yes, but only in part. In what is called cold higher sense“Conditionally Unnecessary” as a whole seems to me a book that does not refer to anywhere, to anyone, to anything. He doesn’t address us less than the rest / the rest - but also not very much. We are discounted in the first text. Because we "really don't care".
But on the other hand, now, now - when it is no longer necessary to cry out, persuade, convince, explain, and in general make us and the world as a whole better; now, when there is no longer any special hope for anything at all, - now, at this very moment, the book of Elena Kostyuchenko appears - and the language in which it is written. Such a little inhuman, too even, too precise Russian: mean, calm language evidence. And the book written in this language is actually a long, balanced, relatively detailed speech - witness. No one's witness - no prosecution, no defense - and not in court at all, there will be no trial.
And just like that, just witness, Just testifying. Just because it's necessary.
Elena Kostyuchenko. conditionally unnecessary. Sat. articles. - M.: Common place. 274 p.
Elena Kostyuchenko is a special correspondent for Novaya Gazeta and an author of reports from the most terrible and marginal places in Russia, from the village of Kushchevskaya to the trailer on the highway where women forced into prostitution live. "Gorky" discussed with the journalist her childhood reading, how to write about the war most accurately and which Russian classic is scarier than Stephen King
These are two different things, first of all, in terms of attitude to the language. In journalism, language is a very important, but still a tool. And in literature, in classical literature at least, language is the god you pray to. That is why it rarely happens that journalists are good writers at the same time. But we can learn from each other, borrow some goodies. For example, Aleksievich gave me a lot. This is non-fiction, but for me it is a model of journalism too. And modern poets read, for example, the press. This is also one of the cereals that they digest in their heads and from which poems then grow.
What was the first thing you read in Aleksievich's?
"Zinc Boys", at the age of twelve. At home we had a selection of the magazine "Family and School", my mother subscribed to it, and there was a huge article about "Zinc Boys" Aleksievich and a selection of letters from readers. Naturally, I immediately wanted to see what they were scolding so much, I found and read it. And it started: "Chernobyl prayer", "War has no woman's face", "Last witnesses". I read everything she came out with and re-read many times. In my second year there was a period when I read all Aleksievich's books in a row for a month. I printed them out in the editorial office of Novaya Gazeta on a printer - forgive me, editors.
Aleksievich is being reproached by many for the fact that she actually edited the entire speech of the characters - what do you think about this?
No, I clearly hear that these are different voices and all these are the voices of living people. When you work with dictaphone transcripts, you begin to catch it: I read the interviews of colleagues and even feel the places where they rearranged the phrases in places. Aleksievich has very little of this. I learned from her and from Petrushevskaya how to work with human speech. Because individual voices are, of course, an unrealistic thing. I really want to be able to transfer them and use it.
What other books were important to you in your youth?
I started reading late, it seemed boring to me. I had a record player and there were a lot of fairy tales on records, so I started with Soviet audiobooks. And then children's detectives appeared in the library. I started reading them, sat down and away we go. I also really liked Bazhov. Ekaterina Murashova - she had a book "The Exclusion Strip" about a boy who lived near the railway. Then my girlfriend and I accidentally found Terry Brooks' hidden books in my mother's office and got hooked on them. This is a British dude, he wrote almost at the same time as Tolkien. He also has elves, gnomes, magic, druids. On the back cover was a list of his other novels. There were no bookstores. We went around all the shops in the city, and then we found a bookstore, and there were two. They cost 90 rubles a piece - very expensive. I ran home, told my mother: “Mom, whatever. I need 180 rubles. Right now". Mom gave it, I ran and bought it. My friend and I worked part-time, I washed the floors, and she, in my opinion, worked as a gardener, or rather a counter-greener, she tore out the weeds. And so we made money with her and went to buy Terry Brooks - it was a wonderful feeling.
At some point, I accidentally found it on the Internet as an adult, of course, I immediately downloaded it, rushed to read it - and it was a huge disappointment. For example, there is one such moment: the main character is rafting down the river and, in short, there is a very ****** [bad] trip, which, most likely, will end with his death and just a complete ******** [failure ]. And he doesn’t want to go, but he can’t help but go, because the circumstances there have developed, there is no choice left. And he rides on a foreign land, a gray river, some autumn slopes. I remember reading this as a child - this feeling of inevitability when you know that you are making a mistake, but at the same time you know that everything is going right, that you cannot turn anywhere. And you just have to wait and watch and try not to get too deep into it. I remember this feeling very well. Well, then, in short, I found this passage, opened it, and there was something like: Wil looked at the river, the river was gray, the trees were orange, an incomprehensible longing squeezed my heart. And that's all. It was kind of ****** [amazing]. It was very strange.
And if you remember the journalistic texts that somehow sunk into your soul?
Oh well, there are quite a few of them. Actually, because of the journalistic text, I ended up in Moscow in general. At first, I decided that I would enter the philological faculty of the Yaroslavl pedagogue, write poetry. Well, at the same time, maybe, to work in a newspaper, because it was not the most difficult way to earn money, at least compared to my previous part-time jobs - washing floors, uprooting bushes. You write something there, and they give you money. And then I accidentally bought Novaya Gazeta at a kiosk - I didn’t know what it was. And I opened it on Politkovskaya's text about Chechen children. There was a story about a boy who forbids his mother to listen to the radio when Russian songs are played on it, because the feds took away his father from this boy and returned the corpse with a cropped nose. And some other stories of children who grew up between two Chechen companies. To say I was shocked is an understatement. I highly rated myself. I thought that I was educated, that I was well-read. The school subscribed to us some newspapers - Komsomolskaya Pravda, Arguments and Facts, and so on; I read them in the library. I watched the news on TV. I thought that I knew what was going on in the country. And of course, I thought that I knew how lyrics are made. And then suddenly this. I read the entire newspaper from cover to cover. I realized that I don’t know *** [anything] about the country, about journalism, about texts - about nothing. And I realized that I want to be there, since there is such a wonderful place. The last page listed the addresses of Novaya's editorial offices - the nearest one was in Moscow.
In general, there were a lot of texts from colleagues. Here Lena Milashina has a wonderful text “The fate of the prosecutor”, for example. About the prosecutor, who was a really stellar professional in her field and who simply broke her career in the case of a locksmith, which came to her. I still remember the text of Elvira Nikolaevna Goryukhina. This is our elderly reporter, she is in her seventies. She had a report from Beslan, it was called "Street of one girl." This is the street where only one girl remained, all her friends died. I remember Kashin's reports very well. From books, namely books, I was very struck at one time by "An Inconspicuous Thing" - a collection of articles by Panyushkin. Well, Dovlatov's Compromise is a very impressive read.
I was really scared to read. There was the heroine Lidochka or Ninochka, whose tooth was knocked out by the inventor with some ****** [nonsense]. A journalist who feels the subject and tries to make an interview with an interesting person is such a terrible fate for me. It's also very cool that each story is preceded by a small note - as it appeared in the newspaper. This is a very realistic book. Just an exaggeration, or rather the removal of voids between events.
You said in your lecture in Word Order that the goal of social journalism is to give everyone a voice. And how do you feel about Dostoevsky?
To Dostoevsky very positively.
Probably, if I re-read it, now my attitude will change a little. In principle, I don't really like the literature of the 19th century, because there messianism crawls out of every corner. The author always puts himself much higher than his characters. Although Dostoevsky has less of this than the rest. Chekhov is almost gone. Oh, can I confess? I haven't read War and Peace or Anna Karenina.
Fundamentally?
Very long. I tried when I was preparing for admission, but I could not afford to read one book so long. But I'll read it, I'm sure I'll really like it. Because I love books like this. One of my favorite books is One Hundred Years of Solitude. I was told that Tolstoy is like Marquez, but without magic.
Perhaps, except that everyone died in Marquez, but not in Tolstoy. Returning to the present: what was the last thing you read that made an impression on you?
I am generally an impressionable person, everything impresses me. Of what greatly shocked - of course, "The Benevolent". I read them about two years ago, but nothing has been stronger since then. Straight, bitch, shoved to the ground. And it was unbearable, because I read it all in Berlin and I couldn't stop reading at all. I just walked the streets with my hands on my phone. I sat down in the Tiergarten, where the action takes place. I was amazed when I learned how Littell wrote it all.
At that moment he was working in Chechnya: sometimes as a journalist, sometimes with some charitable organizations. From business trips he returned to Moscow. And I talked to a woman who is part of the Moscow bohemia. She said that she remembers him very well: there was a guy whom everyone called to parties out of courtesy, and people were very unpleasant, because everyone was discussing sublime matters, and he suddenly began to tell what the starving old people in Grozny told him. And ***** [why] should everyone listen to this? We are talking about modern theaters here, and he tried to appeal to our conscience, or something. Not in the sense of going to save everyone, but in the sense that since you are bohemian, write about it, how dare you write about something else if there is a war in your country? Then he rented an apartment on Chistye Prudy, locked himself in it for two years and wrote "The Benevolent".
Have you read his book about Chechnya?
No, but experts told me that it was not very successful. He understands the context worse than most. I also read from him "Chomsky Notebooks" - notes from Syria.
I did an interview in the winter with a girl who survived the Yezidi genocide in Iraq. She was in slavery, fled. And then I also talked with a doctor of psychology, who opened a program for the export of victims of the genocide to Germany. And when I finished everything, I rediscovered the Benevolent. Because I don't really fit it all in my head anyway.
I had a period in my teenage years when I read all the scariest books I could find. And it doesn't matter if they were books about the Great Patriotic War or stories by Stephen King. There was a feeling that I was growing up, entering adulthood, into the big world - but am I ready for what awaits me there? Maybe he is very scary and you need to find out what happens there at all. And then you grow up and it turns out that all this helps, of course, to prepare, but not really. Some things just don't fit in my head. Although I recently read Saltykov-Shchedrin's "Lord Golovlev" at the dacha - Stephen King is just resting. Really, for me, as a person who has read ***** [a lot] of Stephen King, it's very scary. Night, cottage, my mother wakes up, looks, I sit with bulging eyes over the book: “Lena, what is happening there?” - "Mom, don't interfere!" Wildly scary, the ending is generally ****** [nightmare]. The middle in general ****** [nightmare]. Just a wild book.
What other books about the war?
The most realistic book about the war, in my opinion, is still Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five. "Pathologies" Prilepin, perhaps, too. And also "Ten episodes about the war" by Babchenko - a collection of very short stories. Also well written. It seems to me that literature and art in general are partly to blame for wars - although not the books that I have listed. I myself visited the war, worked there. This is such an ultra-senseless, brutal, stupid crap. It doesn't make any sense at all. And literature, painting or cinema invest these meanings. A lot of veterans of Donbass, for example, like to watch war films. Even those of them who have not watched before - this allows them to put their experience in their heads. I was struck by this at one time when I was writing a report on the practice in the police department. I thought that the cops would be the first to laugh at the series to themselves. But it turned out that they watch them avidly, because it allows them to somehow structure reality. And very many books allow you to put in your head, make the idea of war acceptable and even desirable. It's such a ****** [nightmare]. I understand that it does not always happen that the author sits and thinks: now I am promoting war. It's just that we're all trying to put some ******* [nightmares] in our heads. And maybe sometimes you should admit that some things do not fit in your head. In general, it seems to me that the description of the war should sound like this: “On such and such a day, under such and such a settlement, people killed each other. Here are the dead. The list is general. This is the most sensible description of what is happening and the most realistic.
Is there some kind of reading list that is always guaranteed to help when it's hard, so that somehow it will let go, it will become easier?
Depends on what's hard. Ukrainian science fiction writers Marina and Sergey Dyachenko, for example. They are also, of course, not easy, but you can get confused by their book, instead of bothering with some real things. There is also a book by Berkovich called "The Fearless World", a documentary, by the way. She, too, somehow brings out. And poetry. Poems, in fact, are the fastest output. When the photographer Anya Artemyeva and I left Kuschevka after all these murders, we had to write the text. We sat down in the Krasnodar edition of Novaya. I remember that I was practically hysterical, because I felt that I did not have time to write to the number. I was hysterical not even because I ********** [broke] the deadline, but because I understood that I would still have to sit with what I had inside for several more days. I didn't want to sit with it at all. Because when you write a text, it becomes separate from you. You're already starting to take it a little further. And then I realized that I did not have time, and it was terrible. And we listened to Svarovsky on VKontakte, there are a number of audio recordings where he simply reads his poems - “One of us”, “About a robot”, “About Masha”.
I have a list of poems that will rehabilitate me quickly. Sometimes there are difficult situations when you need to be let go, and right now. And I have a list of verses that I can quickly turn inside myself, and the soul will come into place, and I can continue to work. In addition to Swarovski, this is Brodsky - "When there is so much behind everything, especially grief." Vodennikov - "So let life be blessed: like a freshly washed shirt - in the wind." Goralik - "The soul is walking, swinging." Goralik now still has this to help:
"He descends, and that one is just coming out, and they meet by the river, -
many-legged purses, handbags and bales dragging along the muddy waves,
pouring from the first to Rozhdestvenka, to Voskresenka,
from the latter to dead black dead ends.
It's time for both of them to start already - and they are silent
and look over each other's shoulders.
And around everything flows to itself and flows, no one notices them, -
only the attendant at the escalator smells something,
nervous, stroking the lever with his claws.
It's Friday, eight in the evening, underground heat, exhausted bodies,
and they read in each other's eyes about their shoulders, saying: "I came for you," -
and turn pale, their crowned brows bow,
and don't turn around.
The ceiling doesn't roll up.
Lamps do not blacken, do not exude fumes.
And then the duty officer at the escalator steps over with his hooves, presses the lever.
Escalators are slowing down.
Upcoming exits fall on the forehead.
Night remains over Moscow, everything is black-black.
These two look ahead with unseeing eyes,
and Christ is silent,
and Orpheus sings:
“No, death has nothing for me.
No, death has nothing for me."
Generally magical. I can really scroll it inside myself in ten seconds.
Does it happen that you deliberately read something bad?
From time to time I download something from Lukyanenko. I read, I spit, then I delete, then after a while I want to read something from Lukyanenko, I download it again, I read, I spit ... I read so much garbage. I buy good books on paper, and I download bad books on my mobile phone. Therefore, if my mobile is stolen or confiscated during a search, then Life News is enough to publish a list of books that I have downloaded to my iPhone, and that's it, shame, I will emigrate and change my name. Because I only download shit.
From fiction, here is the "Doomed City" by the Strugatskys is very good. I don't understand how it's made at all. What is the point there? Some dudes find themselves in a place where an experiment is being carried out: monkeys will attack the city, then the sun will turn off, or something else. You read it all - dialogues, events, and then at some point you realize that they are in hell. It's just that realization comes to you. Then, already fifty pages later, for the completely stupid, a secondary character says in plain text that they all died and went to hell. But I understood this before, and I talked with my friends - and they also understood everything before, although on different pages. And I still don't know how it's done. Another of Nathalie Sarraute's favorite books is Tropisms, which is *********** [very good]. Like Mulholland Drive, only a book, and sixty years earlier.
And a very interesting paper book, by Sofia Kovalevskaya, I recently accidentally found in the library. Feminist prose absolutely.
In what library?
Regular, regional. Just do not write in which area, because I do not advertise where I live. She is very good. They opened drawing courses there, I go to them. We made a shelf where you can change books. Internet is free. There is a lot of literature in the languages of the CIS countries. I met a bunch of workers from Tajikistan there, we became friends, they go to learn Russian, they come and study from textbooks. There's a bulletin board there, and it's the liveliest bulletin board in the area. If you need to donate a chair or buy a piano, you write an ad and people start calling you. There you can always find yourself a kitten or a dude to run together in the park. Or successfully sell boots that did not fit. I really love libraries, actually. I keep saying this because I owe them a book. I'm just afraid of shame because I have a good reputation there. They will open my form and say: “Lena, did you borrow the book in April? In April? And now it's August? Very scary.
Sports hall of school number 1 in Beslan. Photo: Elena Kostyuchenko / Novaya Gazeta
In the first school in Beslan, correspondents of Novaya Gazeta and Takih Dela, Elena Kostyuchenko and Diana Khachatryan, were attacked.
The attack took place under the following circumstances. A large number of people in civilian clothes, many of whom are young Ossetians in Antiterror T-shirts, surrounded the mothers from the Voice of Beslan in the gym. They were filmed by Ella Kesaeva (her daughter Zarina was held hostage at school - ed.). They grabbed the camera from her hands and tore Ella's dress.
At that moment, Kostyuchenko took out her phone and began to film what was happening. They also grabbed her phone, twisted her hands and dragged her through the entire gym and the school yard behind metal frames. They dragged them further, but the people in civilian clothes were stopped by the police. These police officers told Kostyuchenko that they knew who attacked her and would return her phone.
Elena was next to the police when a young man, familiar to the police, approached her in an Antiterror T-shirt and doused her with green paint. The police made no attempt to apprehend him.
A police officer takes down the testimony of Novaya Gazeta special correspondent Elena Kostyuchenko. Photo: "Caucasian Knot" When Diana Khachatryan tried to take pictures of Lena and traces of brilliant green on her clothes and face, another young man in an Anti-Terror T-shirt hit Diana on the head, took the phone away and slowly left. The police did not make any attempt to detain the person and prevent hooligan actions.
Elena Kostyuchenko is going to give an explanation to the police, but the police do not introduce themselves and hide the tokens. At my attempt to talk to them (I introduced myself - I spoke on the phone to Ella Kesaeva, who handed her phone to Lena so that she could contact the editorial office) - the policeman who was conducting official actions with Kostyuchenko cursed and hung up.
Also, after the attack, Lena Kostyuchenko and the mothers of Golos Beslan were approached by the head of the Mothers of Beslan Committee Susanna Dudieva and said: “You (addressing the mothers from Golos) can return to the First School gym. And you (addressing Kostyuchenko) - sit here. Always, when Novaya Gazeta comes here, something happens. I don't want to see you here anymore. The phone will be given to you after the study (apparently the contents and footage on the phone).
Federal law enforcement agencies took control of the situation.
Novaya Gazeta intends to appeal to the Investigative Committee on the fact of the inaction of the police in the attack on journalists.
Updated at 15:13. Novaya Gazeta and Takie Dela journalists attacked for the second time in a day
Diana Khachatryan (Such Things) tells: “Lena (Kostyuchenko - ed.) and I went to the cemetery together. A man in civilian clothes, with a hat on his head, approached us. As we were told later, this is the caretaker of the cemetery, his child was killed in a terrorist attack. He came up to us and told us to "get out of here." He took us by the scruff of the neck, dragged us along the ground, then stopped, started beating Lena, hit her in the face. He decided that we were to blame for everything, and organized a rally on September 1. There were policemen about seven meters away. They didn't do anything."
Elena Kostyuchenko is one of the most scandalous journalists in Russia. She does not hide her unconventional orientation, which is not typical for famous public people. Courage? Perhaps... Who is she really? Everyone must decide for himself.
Facts from the childhood of Elena Kostyuchenko
Elena Kostyuchenko was born (her biography is far from known to everyone) in the then Soviet city of Yaroslavl on September 25, 1987. In 1993 she went to school. The youth of the journalist fell on the turbulent 1990s, when the country's way of life and rules of behavior completely changed. It seems that this is not connected with the biography of a particular person, but it is in this case that one can say: under the Soviet way of life, Kostyuchenko would not have been able to openly express her sexual position, and it is unlikely that such a worldview would have formed in her.
While still at school, Kostyuchenko began her journalistic career. It was then published in the Yaroslavl newspaper "Northern Territory". Even then, in her articles, one can trace the atypical thinking of the author, some kind of protest. Elena herself said that she really liked the articles of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed in her own house.
Elena Kostyuchenko. "Novaya Gazeta" opens a new star
Naturally, such an original personality as Elena could not settle forever in Yaroslavl. In 2004, she entered the Moscow University at the Faculty of Journalism. The girl studied for a year and realized that it was worth combining study with work. In 2005, Kostyuchenko got a job as a special correspondent for Novaya Gazeta. This step was the beginning of her real career. Of course, it was still far from fame, but ...
Let's see what Kostyuchenko writes about in his articles. The first and perhaps most important thing to note is the frequently raised social issues. They are insignificant at first glance. For example, in one of the articles, Elena focused on the fact that the railway connection with the village in the Pskov region was canceled. She also often mentions drug addicts, criminals, etc. in her articles and books. As other Russian journalists note, Elena often writes about people who do not want to break out of the social hole and vice versa, make every effort to rise from the bottom of social degradation. Of course, Elena Kostyuchenko does not forget from time to time to write notes about LGBT, a movement of which she is a member. She is sure that homosexuals and lesbians should have the same rights in society as people of traditional orientation. The girl stands for the legalization of non-traditional marriages.
Journalism awards
Such an original journalist could not get around prizes and awards for her work. 2013 was the most fruitful year in terms of awards. Kazakhstan presented her with the Freedom Award for a series of publications that dealt with protests in one of the Kazakh regions. In the same year, Kostyuchenko received the European Free Press of Eastern Europe award. As you can see, Kostyuchenko's articles deserve the attention of the European reader as well. Well, at the very dawn of her professional activity, the Novaya Gazeta journalist was awarded a second degree diploma at the "Step to Success" competition.
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