Life theme

(SMS message read out on the air of the Vremechko program in response to the question: “Why are you surprised?”)

And why do people live in Ulyanovsk, when they can leave everything and go, for example, to Moscow, adding to the flow of thousands of migrants from the provinces? And, as experience shows, Moscow will accept everyone and “digest” everyone; it is dimensionless. And they leave. They find work, rent housing for half their salary or more, cherishing hopes, mostly illusory, that they will someday earn their own living. Exemplary children make plans to win over their parents... Soon the “new Muscovites” have a contemptuous intonation in their voices towards their small homeland: “You have here, in your Uryupinsk...” “You have” is a sign of dissociation, separation from roots, it happens the faster the younger the prodigal son or daughter. And “Uryupinsk” is not just an offensive nickname given to Ulyanovsk by its disappointed residents. It is also a linguistic indicator of pseudo-capitality. They leave not only for Moscow: they go to St. Petersburg, and to Kazan, and to Nizhny, and to neighboring Samara. They go where there is more life, where there is work and money. This is understandable, it’s Western, it’s called social mobility.

But there is another way - to create a growth point where you live. Find your niche. Formulate a theme for your life. And then it almost doesn’t matter where it sounds. The province, and perhaps Russia, rests on the people who developed the theme of life. This article contains monologues of just such people. They were either born in Ulyanovsk, or came here at different years of their lives and settled. They also criticize the city, but are not going to leave it (let's call this meaningful patriotism). Former pilot Nikolai Yatsenko is trying to create an Antoine de Saint-Exupéry museum in Ulyanovsk. Engineer Shaukat Bogdanov proved in court that he is not a Tatar, but a Bulgar, and now he is actively explaining to his relatives that they are descendants of the glorious tribe of the Volga Bulgars. Philologist Alexander Rassadin, a talented teacher, studies the work of the poet Nikolai Yazykov. Lyudmila Ilyina created an excellent library in the city and united young intellectuals around it. Entrepreneur Isaac Grinberg wins lawsuits against officials, quixotically setting out to prove that with the help of the law, justice can be found in Russia, or, as a last resort, in the European Court. Lydia Larina created the ensemble of folk instruments “Russian Soul”, which became a laureate of various international competitions. Svetlana Samsonova showed that a civilized modeling business is possible in the provinces. Elena Omelchenko founded a reputable sociological service that specializes in youth issues. And the artist Yuri Kakichev simply paints good pictures.

One important observation: all these people are united not only by their location and dedication, but also by the fact that they are responsible parents. The theme of children who need to be fed, taught, supported is heard in almost every one of these monologues. Children are a parallel theme of life, which gives additional meaning to the main, “working” one... Surprisingly, almost none of my interlocutors mentioned that housing in Ulyanovsk keeps them busy, although the housing issue has spoiled more than just Muscovites. Instead, they talk about attachment to the Volga open spaces and old city architecture, to people and even the local drama theater... The trouble is that the city (mainly in the person of bureaucrats) rarely reciprocates this selfless love.

So, here are some provincial variations on the theme of life.

Alexander Rassadin, philologist, 49 years old. Associate Professor of the Department of Literature of the Ulyanovsk State Pedagogical University and the Department of Philology, Publishing and Editing of the Ulyanovsk State Technical University. Author of books dedicated to the poet Nikolai Yazykov and the toponymy of Simbirsk streets .

- Why am I here? I was born in Ulyanovsk. And I live here because I am sure that a person lives where he lives not for patriotic reasons, but because he is in demand. If I wasn't needed here, I would leave. If I were needed in France, I would go to France. But I'm in the right place. I have a lot of students, where do I go from them? But if they leave later, I will be happy. My university needs me, and to some extent, the city needs me. There are things that only I can do. That’s why they call me: either to give a lecture or to participate in a round table. In the early 90s, I worked at the Simbirsk Courier, we published publications on the history of local literature, at that time it was an intelligent and “intelligentsia” newspaper, a kind of local “Literaturka”. At the same time, I ran the poetry studio “Voice”: we met with students once or twice a month, discussed poetry, and invited Ulyanovsk writers.

In second place I would put “love for fathers’ tombs.” There are many relatives here. Some people don’t care about this, but for me it is important. And finally, there is such a thing as a “genius loci.” Our institute is located on Novy Venets [1] . I love this space. At one time I went to work at Ulyanovsk State University, in that building on the banks of the Sviyaga, and every time I went down into this pit, my mood spoiled and I felt like a stranger. But here it’s a different matter. Maybe this place was consecrated by people like Pushkin. He walked here. I couldn't help but walk! He didn’t sit in the governor’s house all the time [2] . The same feeling probably arises among residents of St. Petersburg who love Dostoevsky, or among Muscovites who visit Bulgakov’s places.

Real Simbirians are conservatives, people with established tastes and habits, including a habit of place. And in this sense, I am a Simbirian, but only in this sense, because in politics I have always been a freethinker. I have a hundred-year-old closet at home, and I know that I will never throw it out. I lived all my life on Sadovaya Street, now Kirov, in an old wooden house with stove heating. My favorite pastime as a child was to climb into the attic and watch steamboats go along the Volga. And this is also Simbirsk.

But I calmly sent both of my sons to Moscow. And I’ll let you go to the West if they want. For example, the eldest is engaged in industrial design, came up with an interesting table set - a pepper shaker and a salt shaker, posted a drawing on the Internet: none of our people took the bait, but the Germans concluded an agreement with him and already sent him a manufactured sample.

Fig.

Actually, I could have stayed in Leningrad after graduate school. I entered graduate school in the early 80s, when there were still few professors in the outback. At that time, a teacher with a degree earned more than 300 rubles, with this money one could live very well in the provinces, and professors generally received a “miner’s” salary. The authorities then fed the elite. That's all changed now. On the one hand, we are still the elite, but when you enter your entrance, it no longer seems so: on the first floor there is a drunkard, on the third there is a drug addict. Not a single one of our university teachers can earn money for an elite apartment today. Although, of course, if you are a real scientist, you can work in the provinces.

But, to be honest, Ulyanovsk is an angry, “stressful” city. It lacks the softness of northern cities and the sunshine of the south. People are unmerciful to each other. It seems to me that one of the main reasons for the urban “craziness” is the complex ethnic composition, Turkic, Slavic, Finno-Ugric roots are intertwined here...

A chain of accidents led me to Yazykov’s topic. When I was young, I loved going to bookstores. One of them was located opposite the regional party committee: there were collected works of Brezhnev, Podgorny and other figures. Unexpectedly, on one of the shelves I saw the book “Nikolai Yazykov,” published in 1964 in the “Poet’s Library” series. He grabbed her without even knowing who Yazykov was. When I graduated from high school and had to choose a topic for my dissertation, I came to the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute named after Herzen. The Department of Literature there was headed by Academician Skatov. I told him that I was going to study Linguistics. He says: “This is a serious thing, let’s choose something simpler.” But I insisted, he blessed me. It was impossible to write about Yazykov then, because he opposed Herzen, Nekrasov... He was, as it were, a renegade, the author of the famous poem “To Not Ours.” In general, the “wrong” author. So while local local historians were writing about Lenin, I was doing this work.

I published, in fact, three books about Yazykov. The first book is the monograph “The Last of Pushkin’s Pleiad.” I wanted to look from the inside of the era at the young Yazykov, at his growing up, to analyze his lyrics of the St. Petersburg and Dorpat periods. The second book is a collection of Yazykov’s poems with academic commentaries, in which I collected everything I could. And the third is the conference materials, but in a reformatted form. The first half of the book contains about a hundred letters from Yazykov from various archives; it was impossible to publish them in any other way; no one would have given money.

Why do our contemporaries need to know Yazykov? If only because without him it is impossible to understand Pushkin. If Pushkin admitted in a letter to Vyazemsky that he could envy this man, then we must understand why. To us, the Simbirians, Yazykov is important as a person who personifies the second, “passive” pole of culture. The slowness and contemplation of the Simbirsk man was inherent in Yazykov, like no one else, even more so than Goncharov. A contemplator is not necessarily a lazy person, this word offends me. A lazy person cannot write such poetry.

Yazykov is difficult to read. Complex poet. Therefore, I am afraid that even if we promote Yazykov, few will still read him. However, there is a “regional educational component”: in Ulyanovsk secondary schools they study his “The Tale of the Wild Boar” and other poems.

Lyudmila Ilyina, director of city library No. 8 (“Library of Spiritual Culture”), 57 years old.

— I was born in Samara. She moved to Ulyanovsk when she entered the local pedagogical institute, where she majored in Pedagogy and Psychology. I got married in my first year. She was madly in love with psychology, but she didn’t defend herself. I decided that it would be better if my husband studied; the family couldn’t support two graduate students. We went to Leningrad, my husband entered the military academy, and I got a job in the Herzen library. Four years later, my husband was sent to Hungary, and I went with him. She worked in Budapest at the House of Soviet-Hungarian Friendship. Then my husband was accepted into graduate school (adjunct), and we returned to Leningrad. It would seem that I was lucky enough to live in two of the most beautiful cities in Europe - St. Petersburg and Budapest, but I, apparently, am the type of person for whom a “small homeland” is important. I managed to fall in love with Leningrad, but the nature there is different: the swampy places and forests are somehow different. I was drawn home, to my native birches. I persuaded my husband to return to Ulyanovsk.

She became the head of the department of the exchange and reserve fund of the trade union library, traveled a lot around the region, stocked libraries. At that time, adventures, science fiction, and detective stories were in demand, but these books were not enough: what to do if there are three or four copies for 30 libraries? I had to get out. For example, in the sanatorium we did not provide socio-political literature at all - let people relax, they need book therapy more, but we sent textbooks and educational literature to state farm libraries.

In the early 90s, quality literature began to flow in a powerful stream. I was offered to organize a “library of spiritual culture” - on the basis of an ordinary regional library with a poor collection. I’ve been doing this for eighteen years now, and only now are the results visible. People who know literature come and freeze: the works of famous psychologists and philosophers, just good books that were unavailable in Soviet times - we have it all. The book “core” was formed beautifully. Then, in the 90s, it suddenly became clear that there are such sciences as political science and sociology, although Toffler’s books were written back in the 70s. All this had to be obtained. This is now a developed chain of stores, but at that time books were carried on occasion. Well, I myself went to Moscow and Samara.

Each book has its own acquisition history. For example, “Entering the 21st Century” by Paul Kennedy. This American was interesting because he was one of the first to give a political science forecast of the development of the new Russia. The union had just collapsed, and he had already analyzed everything and written a book. It was impossible to get it from us, so we went to the Moscow publishing house. They were very surprised that we came from the provinces to get the book and gave us a copy. This book has not yet appeared in all stores in Moscow, but we already had it. Yes, they found any book, and then wondered who would pay for it. I even had to discover my ability to trade. Once we went to Moscow, bought intellectual literature - Camus, Jung (all very expensive), at the same time brought literature on natural healing, gardening, went out onto the porch and sold out instantly - we paid for both the trip and the books. There were no paid services back then. Then they began to earn money: “rent a book” [3] , “newspaper for the evening” [4] , photocopies... We bought a scanner, a printer, a stereo system, although half of the earnings were taken by the centralized system. We spent about one and a half thousand a month on purchasing books.

And now, according to Law 131, everything must be purchased by bank transfer. This limits us greatly. The bookstore gives price lists, we make an application. The supplier organization goes to tender. If she loses, the application can be considered lost. If the winning organization is honest, it replaces the ordered books with similar ones; if it is dishonest, it sends something worse. The books go into centralized processing, and the commission divides them. It turns out that some choose, others receive, and others share. In addition, in our centralized system, books are processed by year. And the book should appear on the shelf while there is a demand for it. If you go to a dairy store where there is no milk, people will be indignant. What if the library doesn’t have a fresh book? It shouldn't be like this! Continuing the analogy with the store: in one store the milk is fresh, and in another it is expired and diluted. You can have a lot of books, but what's the point? There are bookstores where Dontsova is on ten shelves and you won’t find anything else, and even the seller doesn’t know what they have.

Over the years, instinct develops. Sometimes we manage to predict demand: we buy a textbook, and then they start actively asking for it. By the way, we “discovered” Akunin even before he began to be widely advertised. Therefore, we buy the “hottest” new items with our own money, although we can be punished for this.

But we have united people around us who help us buy new items or simply bring us a magazine, a book. These people are our readers, friends of the library. We have a “Book Coffee Shop” where we talk about new arrivals. "Club of Intellectuals" - men gather to talk. Club "Health" - for middle-aged and elderly people. Youth studio “Zerkalo” is for schoolchildren and students who want to learn how to write poetry and prose. “Club of young girls”, where I combine the functions of a librarian and a psychologist: I talk to them about the secret, about what they don’t always tell their mother. Spectacular, beautiful girls, excellent students... And do you know what their main problem is? They are afraid that they will be abandoned! Because they see what is happening around them, including in their families.

Our task is to unobtrusively present a good book (if you go to a bookstore, you won’t have enough money), and, perhaps, to adjust literary taste. Preserve a layer of the reading public. This is not even a mission, this is elementary. I'm happy, there are good people around me. And when they say that young people are bad, I don’t believe it. Because I see that this is not so.

My salary as a library director is a little more than three thousand rubles. Not enough, of course, but this is a problem for the whole country. Teachers work the same way, as do doctors. People don’t come to the library to work for money.

Why Ulyanovsk? This is how life turned out. Although there was a choice. I can’t say that I don’t care where I live. But here you are enchanted by the quiet provinciality of the city, an excellent symphony orchestra, a drama theater at the level of a capital city, museums, and talented people around. And I have a job I love and a result that is visible.

Shaukat Bogdanov , engineer of the testing complex of the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant, chairman of the public organization "Bulgarian Revival", 67 years old.

— My surname sounds like Russian, but in fact it is derived from the name Bakhdan, translated from Turkic “bakh” - garden, “dan” - glorious. “Bakhdan” eventually transformed into “Bogdan”. And I was born in Georgia. My grandfather fled there with his family in the 20s; he was a muezzin in a village near Chistopol. Imagine: refugees went through Georgian villages to earn food, peasants hired them to harvest their crops. It would seem that Georgians are Christians, but here they are Muslims, so after a hard day the Georgians said: eat, don’t be shy, here are feather beds for you, relax. According to the father’s recollections, the grandfather, having met such a compassionate reception, said: “The place of Georgians is in heaven.” That’s why I’m simply offended by the current wave of Georgian phobia.

I graduated from the Kazan Aviation Institute with a degree in radio electronics, and in 1967 I was assigned to Ulyanovsk. First he worked at a mechanical plant, then at a radio tube plant. Our latest product, the compact laser device “Rainbow,” was in great demand among surgeons. It used to be that when you arrive for commissioning, they say: let’s hurry up, the patients are waiting. The installation was inexpensive, sold well, someone didn’t like it, so our competitors removed us. And now we are forced to purchase the same thing abroad. It’s so painful to realize all this.

Back in Tbilisi, I became interested in why they call us Tatars? When I studied in Kazan, I bought special literature on this topic. In 1987, I went on a business trip to Bulgaria and in the historical museum in Sofia I found information confirming that our peoples have common roots. I began to realize that we have nothing to do with the Tatars. As a result of the collapse of Great Bulgaria, part of the people founded Danube Bulgaria, another - Volga Bulgaria, and a third - the Balkars in the North Caucasus. There are similarities in languages. The Bulgarian language, which is similar to the modern Tatar, has been preserved in an almost archaic form. For example, the works of Kul Gali, written in the ancient Bulgarian language in the 12th-13th centuries, can be read and understood. We have preserved the language and traditions, but we have lost the name. Tatars is a collective term for Muslim peoples. Remember “Prisoner of the Caucasus”, it talks about the Dagestan villages, the North Caucasus, but Tolstoy calls the highlanders Tatars.

Encyclopedic dictionaries say that the name “Tatars” is a historical misunderstanding. There is a book by Academician Kalimullin “Tatars: Ethnicity and Ethnonym”, which he was not allowed to publish for fourteen years. There is a book by Ibn Fadlan, this is the secretary of the Baghdad caliph al-Muqtadir, he accompanied the caravan to Volga Bulgaria. Fadlan writes about the peoples that he met on his way from Baghdad - about the Bashkirs with their pagan rituals, about the Bulgars. But the question arises: why did the Bashkirs remain Bashkirs, and the Bulgars, having culture and religion, turned into Tatars?

The awareness of my Bulgarian roots came as I collected more and more historical material. This prompted me to go to court in 1998. Referring to the article of the Constitution that allows a person to determine his nationality, I demanded that “Bulgarin” be written down in the corresponding column in my passport. I had little hope that I would win this case. But the court supported me. I was far from the first; by that time such claims were already being considered in Kazan, and about 200 people succeeded in having their true nationality returned to them - Bulgars. And the process began in other regions - in Chita, Orenburg, St. Petersburg.

If I’m not mistaken, Pushkin also wrote that disrespect for ancestors is a sign of savagery and immorality. But if you explain to a person that he is not a Tatar, but a descendant of the Bulgar people who lived and worked here for centuries, then perhaps the worldview will change and pride in their ancestors will appear. After all, on the territory of the Volga region the Bulgars built about 300 cities. For the first time, cast iron was smelted, glass making was developed, our builders and artisans built Orthodox churches in Rus'. The astronomer Sayha Sarai al-Bulgari has a work where he writes that a guy in love revolves around a girl, just as the Earth revolves around the Sun. This was written 150 years before Copernicus and Giordano Bruno!

Seeing that I have like-minded people, three years ago I founded the public educational organization “Bulgarian Revival”. We started by publishing a book dedicated to the millennium of Kazan. We have prepared several programs on central and local television channels, a series of publications in the press, we hold conversations in schools, and show video materials received from Bulgaria. We wrote a letter to Putin with a request to instruct the Academy of Sciences to deal with our ethnogenesis. He gave instructions to the history department of the Academy of Sciences. There is an answer: yes, indeed, we are Bulgars and have nothing to do with the Tatars.

We obtained permission from the regional governor to install a monument to Kul Gali - next year marks the 825th anniversary of his birth. This is an outstanding Bulgarian humanist poet, the author of the poem “The Tale of Yusuf”, the plot of which is taken from the Koran. In Russia, the poem was republished more than 80 times. Two hundred handwritten copies are kept in museums around the world. The Ministry of Culture of Tatarstan will pay for the installation of the monument, even the sculptor is known - Honored Artist of Tatarstan Alfred Abdrashitov. I read here in the local newspaper: “Who needs the Kul Gali monument? What does he have to do with Ulyanovsk?” What does Karl Marx have to do with Ulyanovsk? And Narimanov? Were they born here?

In his poem, Kul Gali, before the start of the story, glorifies the Almighty, then the prophet, then his companions and representatives of all religions. This is the beginning of the 13th century! This is tolerance. Why did the Almighty create nations and nationalities? So that we can compete in doing good deeds rather than evil ones.

Fig.

Elena Omelchenko , director of the Research Center "Region" of Ulyanovsk State University, candidate of philosophical sciences, 49 years old.

— I came to Ulyanovsk with my parents because my dad was building a leather factory here. She graduated from ten classes and entered the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University. My parents left and my father was transferred to another construction site (they now live in Krasnodar). I wanted to stay in Moscow, but fate turned out so bad that I had to return. This was not a voluntary choice. I thought I was coming back for a while, but it turned out to be forever. Since 1986 I have been living permanently in Ulyanovsk. She started working at the pedagogical institute, at the philosophy department. She defended her PhD on a sociological topic, although sociology as such did not yet exist. I have always been drawn to real life, and sociology is a real science and practice. We study everyday life.

This May, Region will be twelve years old. We deal with young people, but not in general, but with advanced youth, who make up ten percent of the total mass, but determine the behavior of the “mainstream”. In the fact that youth became my main topic, a large role was played by my acquaintance with the works of the English researcher, professor of sociology Hilary Pilkington. I met her by chance about fifteen years ago, when there was no “Region” yet, and I realized that youth is a bright, hot topic, there are a lot of myths there that are interesting to understand. We did a joint project, it was very interesting, and during the work the topic “caught me.”

From the point of view of our work, not only does it make no difference where to live - in the capital or in the provinces, but we even have an advantage. It is that there is the Country of Muscovy, and there is Russia. And if we want to study all-Russian processes, we have nothing to do in Moscow. We have three areas in which we position ourselves as an independent scientific school. First: rejection of the subcultural approach to the youth problem, i.e. rejection of the perception of youth as a source of social risk, a factor of danger, threat, and degradation of the nation. Although this approach prevails not only in the Russian academic environment, but also in foreign ones. Second: we are one of the leading specialists in youth drug addiction. And third: we are one of the leaders in the study of xenophobia among young people - we find out how stereotypes, phobias, attitudes towards ethnic minorities, and so on are transmitted.

We at Region are moving away from public opinion polls and moving on to the study of personal biographies and destinies. “Personalization” of research is an expressed desire to get closer to sincerity, to move away from imposed constructs and discourses. Positivist sociology relies on the illusion of big numbers. This is “sociological Bolshevism”, yesterday. If you rely on the majority opinion, you can make a mistake. A survey is a general picture, a probability distribution, and no questionnaire will answer why a person made this or that choice. And “qualitative” research helps a person say what he thinks. This is participant observation, allowing you to see not only what a person thinks, but also what he does.

Over ten years, Region has become a sociological brand, and there are few of them in Russia - the Center for Independent Sociological Research in St. Petersburg, the Institute of Sociology in Moscow, the Irkutsk and Saratov centers. If in the first five years we had a problem of personnel drain, now this is no longer the case, because young specialists understand that working at the Center is important for their resume. And, to be honest, we don’t take everyone.

We publish books that are read not only by scientists, because they are written in normal, not “bird” language. The most important works of recent times: “Normal youth: beer, partying, drugs”, “Heroin of our time” and “Field kitchen”. The latter focuses on how to conduct sociological research taking into account qualitative methodology. How to work “in the field” - talk with guys, achieve trust, overcome “pressures”.

Ulyanovsk is a suitable place to work also because, despite all the difficulties, we exist at the university, and this is a powerful incentive. We all teach, constantly communicate with these very young people, do some projects, watch young people in action.

I am attracted by the image of Ulyanovsk, the unique history of the city. Despite the fact that Samara or Kazan are developing faster, we still managed to preserve the old city. Bye. I don’t want it to go away - all these old streets and houses. What's annoying? Philistinism, philistinism, provincial spirit, which can be felt even at our university. It seems to me that provincialism is when anyone coming from Moscow is more significant than a worthy one. The attitude towards the “Region” is annoying when everything is relegated to the category of money: if we bring money, then the importance increases. But symbolic capital is more valuable; it takes years to earn.

Isaac Grinberg, entrepreneur, Doctor of Technical Sciences, laureate of the State Prize in the field of science and technology, honored inventor, member of the Public Chamber of the Ulyanovsk Region, 69 years old.

— I came to Ulyanovsk from Zhitomir in January 1988. There was a resolution of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers on the creation of the Ulyanovsk Microelectronics Center. Scientists flocked here from all over the country. The then head of the Ministry of Instrumentation, Mikhail Sergeevich Shkabardnya, sent me as Deputy General Director of the Center for Scientific Work. Before that, in Zhitomir, I graduated from the general technical department of Kyiv University, worked for 30 years at the same plant: I started as a helper and ended up as a general designer. He defended his candidate's and doctoral thesis and received all his scientific regalia even when they could not be bought. But even then he did not sycophancy, for which he received penalties as if from a cornucopia. By sending me to Ulyanovsk, the minister saved me from expulsion from the party.

This is where I put down roots. I got married for the third time and have two children. The people here are wonderful, the city is beautiful, the Volga is beautiful, nature has not deprived us. The biggest scourge is indifference. We have been deceived so much that people in general have become indifferent. I have always struggled with this evil.

In 1988, they began to prepare for elections to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. The secretary of the party committee called me and gave me instructions to head the election campaign. At that time, about three thousand people worked at the Center. I developed a questionnaire for employees: who would you like to see as a candidate for deputy from UCM? Thirty names were named. Someone suggested the editor-in-chief of AiF Starkov, someone suggested the Bishop of Ulyanovsk and Melekess Proclus. In this district, the candidate for deputy was the secretary of the regional committee, Kazarov, and the scientists nominated a priest to oppose him! Those were interesting times...

We established contact with all thirty, I called Starkov myself, he thanked him, but said that he had already been nominated. We held a conference of the labor collective. Of the 30 people, seven agreed to run, including Bishop Proclus. He received the majority of votes at the conference. But it turned out that in order to be nominated, the bishop must receive the blessing of the Patriarch of All Rus', Pimen. Proclus himself did not want to resolve this issue. And so I’m going to Moscow for a blessing for Proclus. They will arrange a meeting for me with the Metropolitan. He thanks me, a convinced atheist, “for my ascetic activity for the benefit of the Russian Orthodox Church,” but he cannot give a blessing: they called him from the CPSU Central Committee and recommended not to do this, because the secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU had already been nominated for the district. I asked the Metropolitan: “Who called you?” He named Tyazhelnikov, the former first secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee, who at that time was in charge of the propaganda and agitation department of the CPSU Central Committee. And I was familiar with some instructors of the Central Committee and closely with a member of the CPSU Central Committee, Minister of Instrument Making Shkabardny. I call everyone and ask them to help arrange a meeting for me at the Central Committee with the right people. I hang around in the corridors for several days and come out to Tyazhelnikov. In front of me, he calls the Metropolitan back and says: “Well, since Bishop Proclus is so popular, I don’t mind him receiving a blessing.” I'm over the moon. I go to the Patriarch in the Central Committee car, but there is also bureaucracy there: the blessing for Proclus is given only the next day. The next morning I’m in Ulyanovsk, but alas. Registration of candidates has ended. I'm one day late! As a result, Kazarov became a deputy of the Supreme Council. And since then he hasn't loved me. Maybe also because I went to all his campaign meetings and criticized him. He ultimately received 50.5% of the votes. But now he is one of the few who is not afraid to tell the truth.

Fig.

In 1999, we conducted a campaign for the State Duma elections in favor of the Union of Right Forces. The campaign required money. I begged my business partners to withdraw a decent amount from the company’s turnover, assuming that I would then take out a bank loan and pay it off. But they didn’t give me a loan, so I had to pay my partners with my share of the business. But the SPS in Ulyanovsk then received 12.8% of the votes, and in Moscow - 10.8%!

When I started my business in 1990, I was already 53 years old. By that time, it became clear that there would be no Microelectronics Center, construction stopped, and the specialists left. I could have left, but family circumstances held me back. Again, there was housing, but going to a new place means starting all over again. A small state enterprise was created, and I became its director. Contracted to produce measuring instruments and sensors. In general, they worked fine. But things in the country were getting worse. 1991, even large state enterprises are collapsing, not to mention small ones. He created a private enterprise and began to do everything in a row - everything that gives profit and salaries to people. What I’m proud of today: in addition to all trade and catering, I have a company that produces methane and carbon monoxide gas detectors, which, according to technical parameters, have nothing comparable to them in the country.

I do business not because I like it, but because I have to. I have more than 300 inventions of the USSR and the Russian Federation, about 50 foreign patents. I dream about formulas and sensors at night. That's where I belong. But our government doesn't need this. How much does the head of the department, professor, earn? Six thousand. The girl at the kiosk gets the same amount, and even steals it. Since I have five children and three mothers-in-law, I realized that I had nowhere to go - I need to go where the money is, and not puff up my cheeks, saying, I’m a professor. Professor? Well, sit there hungry. Two minor children live with me. I want them, like the children of my friends, to have a chance in life. While I'm spinning, I'll feed them. I have 55 years of experience, at the age of 14 I received a work book, and my pension is 3,100 rubles. With all the regalia and patents, should he really receive these 3,100 in his old age? That's why I went into business.

Here I have a toy store. They told me: “What fool would go to the third floor to buy toys?” I came up with an idea: let’s put up a trampoline. Free, all year round. The child jumped, the juice was free for him. Then he is photographed with a digital camera, and after two or three minutes - a free photo. The people left. There is also a pizzeria. They told me: who would go to a pizzeria in a residential neighborhood? But first of all, I keep my prices down. Secondly, this is the only point in the city where there is internal television. There is a TV in every booth. If you want, they will show you how the pizza you ordered is prepared, and there are 150 types. The main thing is that the pizza is made in front of your eyes, and not reheated from yesterday, and according to the technology, it will remain in the oven for 12 minutes. As a result, if you don’t book a booth, you may not get a seat.

I also hope that if people are less indifferent, normal life will, at least slowly, improve in our country. If anything happens, I'll go to court. Are the firefighters wrong? I calculate the damage caused by their actions, then I demand compensation, but in the amount of one ruble. I already have seven “rubles” in storage, and now I’m thinking about the eighth.

Sometimes people look at me like I'm schizophrenic. I take no offence. I understand that this is how I look. But I have already won one case on freedom of speech in the European Court, and now two more are waiting for their turn. The essence of the latest claims: before the elections to the Legislative Assembly, the “Communists” bloc was created, although they had nothing to do with the Communist Party. When it became clear that the opposition bloc “Ulyanovtsy”, which I created [5] , had a chance of entering the regional parliament, leaflets of these “communists” appeared: a worker with a hammer and sickle is strangling a man of clearly Semitic appearance. I appealed two such materials, lost in all instances, and filed them in Strasbourg.

The authorities are touchy. As soon as you criticize her, they immediately try to “tax her.” There was a time when, in public, General Shamanov promised to hang me from an aspen tree [6] . The last example. I recently spoke at a congress of entrepreneurs and said: “Our government works well with big business, this is understandable - large projects, and besides, big business can pay for foreign trips for officials. And small and medium businesses are abandoned. Last year, the governor signed a decree to support small businesses, but everything remained in place. How to organize loans for small businesses in a simplified form? You don't have to go far. Sergey Ivanovich [7] , skip one trip to China, go to Tambov, where all these issues are resolved in the best possible way. It’s closer, cheaper, and most importantly, there are more benefits than from China.” When the governor came to the podium, he had never been seen so irritated. After that speech, one of the organizations received an official letter on the letterhead of the regional government office: they requested information about my enterprise - “for the governor of the Ulyanovsk region.” I had to respond to attempts at pressure with an open letter to Morozov.

The point is not that you can get a better job somewhere. In the 80s, my eldest daughter got married and emigrated to Israel, ten years later she moved to Canada, and now lives there with her husband and my two granddaughters. I have two cousins ​​in New York. Another daughter left for permanent residence in Israel, although her mother is Ukrainian. I have friends all over the world - in America, Germany. And I myself am something: Doctor of Science, State Prize laureate, and so on. I could live and earn money anywhere. But I won’t leave, no matter how bad I feel. I want my children to live in a better country than this. The only thing that can save it is civil society. But it is created from below! All my hopes are for the creation of such a society. For this, all concerned people must unite.

For a long time I did not agree to participate in the regional public chamber, because I was afraid that this was not for business, but for show. There was a team from Moscow to create public chambers, and all the governors are creating them. I hesitated whether to be a front for democracy. Then his comrades began to put pressure: “Can you help one person a month in some simple matter?” - “Well, I can.” - “So that’s 24 people in two years, and there are forty of you in the ward.” He waved his hand and agreed. Let's see how the authorities react.

Svetlana Samsonova, director of the SaVo-Catwalk modeling agency, 39 years old.

— I was born in Ulyanovsk, but from ten to sixteen years old I lived with my parents in Germany. When I returned to Ulyanovsk, I felt out of place for a long time. In 1992, my husband encouraged me to participate in the first “Simbirsk Beauty” competition - I already had two children.

The idea of ​​the competition was not bad. The nominations are as follows: girls - girls - women - grandmothers. Mothers carried the smallest “models” onto the stage in their arms. There were about ten of us “women”. Everything is serious: training, choreography... Besides, I used to do sports and rhythmic gymnastics, ballroom dancing. At that time I was a couple of points short of first place. But after that I was invited to Svetlana Shamshina’s fashion theater as a model. I recently watched the recording of our first shoot - I laughed so much! It turns out it looked so vulgar. Then they persuaded me to create a modeling agency. They called it “Terminal Models”. I collected information bit by bit. I went to Moscow to visit a relative who worked in the modeling business and watched her videotapes. Then, when she already headed “Terminal”, she once again took part in the competition and became “Mrs. Simbirsk”. This was in 1997, when the third child was one year old.

Today I have a professional agency. We deal only with advertising firms and clothing designers and do not provide “additional services”, which is what other modeling agencies do to one degree or another. Because of this, I left the founders of Terminal. While I was on maternity leave, irreversible changes occurred there. Once they told me: “Your girls are dancing in a restaurant.” I was shocked, because the image of a reputable agency takes years to develop. I went to find out. They told me that I was a fool and didn’t know how to make money. Then I left. True, they soon called me back and promised to kick out the extra people. She didn’t return, although she was unemployed for a year and a half. I swore off getting involved with the modeling business, but my friends and colleagues Sasha Belov and Natalya Wenger (both now in Moscow) persuaded me to come to SaVo, which has always been distinguished by good professional standards.

I achieved some success in Ulyanovsk, but relations with the capital were cool. They consider us provincials there, they think that we don’t even have to pay. However, they haven’t offered anything for eight years now. Last year there was a call from a Moscow agency: “We need girls to organize VIP parties.” “Don’t you need girls in the bathhouse?” - I answer. “Why are you doing this? “You don’t believe in the development of the modeling business in Russia?” “No,” I say, “I don’t believe it.” This is the reason for my current mood. I believe that there is no modeling business in Russia, because the fashion industry is not developed.

Over the past ten years, we have annually held the Fashion Light festival, dedicated to fashion, style, and makeup. The festival was designed to promote the young and talented. Each time they came up with a new topic. Last year, for example, “Time to look stunning”, even earlier - “Fire to kill” (meaning beauty). When they held a festival on the theme “Male in female, female in male,” a boy and a girl demonstrated body art on stage, and no one could figure out which one was which. Journalists look at our work with interest, and for some reason ordinary viewers sit with sour faces. Maybe this is our mentality?

I even disbanded my modeling school. In order for the school to exist, it is necessary to carry out promotions. And to advertise yourself, you need to know why. Well, I’ll recruit girls, train them, so what? Which exit? The practice has developed like this: if a girl wants to leave and work as a model, her parents won’t let her, they’re afraid. To be honest, I would also be afraid to send my daughters somewhere, because many modeling agencies are simply a front for the sphere of intimate services. But it also happens the other way around: a girl is so good that she is “torn to pieces,” but she doesn’t want anything. Of all my students, no more than a dozen went into this business. One of them, Natasha Yarovikova, now works as a model in Japan and Thailand. And Zhanna Salimzyanova became the face of Playboy last year. But I have nothing to do with either one. But usually agencies live from a percentage of the model’s earnings. After all, she was taught and raised.

All my life I have been drawn to beauty: I wanted to enter the Institute of Culture in Moscow or Samara, but my parents did not let me. I went to the planning institute, graduated, put my accounting diploma on the shelf, and it has been there ever since. Now I’m studying in the presidential program for management personnel, there’s nothing particularly new either, except for a foreign language - it’s a bit difficult. I tried to look for another job. But I won’t go anywhere from this city, the anchor is heavy: three children study here. It should have been earlier.

I don’t like that Moscow is developing, but we are not. It should not be. Ulyanovsk is quite a beautiful and cozy city, it’s quite possible to live here, if not for the impenetrable stupidity - just look at our bosses on TV. There has been a wave of unprofessionalism in various industries, and sycophancy is flourishing. The atmosphere in the city is not very good right now. It feels like we are returning to the “Council of Deputies”, when the one who is friends with the authorities is on horseback. “Honor boards” in the city center are such bad taste, such a “scoop”...

Nikolai Yatsenko, President of the International Club of Friends of Saint-Exupéry, 70 years old.

— I come from Siberia, from the Krasnoyarsk Territory. In 1958, after graduating from the Kharkov Aviation School, he was sent to Ulyanovsk to attend dispatcher courses for international airports. But then they told us: you won’t learn English, you will work in third-class airports, that is, almost in villages. I immediately left these courses because I wanted to fly. Retrained on the Il-14, flew on different types of aircraft as a navigator-instructor. Wrote textbooks on air navigation for the Yak-42, Tu-154 and Tu-204.

Fig.

In 1970, I created the city book club “Prometheus” and led it for almost two decades. And in 1988 he organized the Saint-Exupéry Lovers Club, which ten years later became international; today we have members in nine countries around the world.

My collection includes 300 volumes of Exupery's books, published all over the world. I have been collecting materials about him for thirty years. It all started with the fact that in 1963 Marcel Mijo’s book “Saint-Exupery” was published in the “ZhZL” series. When I read it, I realized that Exupery is a kindred spirit to me, no matter what he talks about. His thought alone about the luxury of human communication is worth something. He was complex, like all great people. But I love him because he said and wrote only what he did. He said: I hate war, but I don’t want to be just an observer. And he fought. This is a clear position for me. When China was at war with Vietnam, I was ready to volunteer, although I was already 50 years old. We corresponded with Mijo, a friend and peer of Exupery, until 1990. I have been to France three times and know all the writer’s friends. His heirs send me everything that is published about him in France. I have a collection of 1,500 bookplates on the theme of Saint-Exupéry.

Today our main goal is the creation of the Cultural Center “Planet of People Saint-Exupéry” in Ulyanovsk. This year we will open it on the second floor of the Meteorological Station museum. There is exhibition material: I have already donated almost all of my materials to the museum.

How did I convince Zubov [8] that such a museum is needed in Ulyanovsk? Saint-Exupéry visited the Soviet Union once - in 1935, and only in Moscow. But from 1950 to 1955, journalist Horace Velle, a repatriate from France, lived in Ulyanovsk. After the war, he came to the USSR, but he was not allowed into the capital, but was offered to choose a place in the provinces. He came here. It was he who first translated the book “The Land of Men” (now known as “The Planet of People”), which was published in 1957. He translated Mijo's book about Saint-Exupéry, and not only translated it, but also added his own material. And “The Little Prince” was also translated for the first time by Velle, back in 1955. I sought the publication of the book, but they did not publish it, because in those days Saint-Exupery was considered an “abstract humanist” who was not needed by us. Therefore, Nora Gal remained the only translator of The Little Prince.

So Ulyanovsk is still connected with Saint-Exupéry, especially considering that he was not only a writer, but also a pilot, and Ulyanovsk is a huge aviation center. The most important thing: the headquarters of the International Club of Friends of Exupery is located not just anywhere, but in Ulyanovsk. I devote all my time to Exupery - answering letters, ordering bookplates, writing books. My wife is already used to the fact that I don’t help her with housework, she’s not even offended.

I don’t think about leaving Ulyanovsk. Officials are annoying, but I can do without them. I did my job and will do it under any government.

Lidia Larina, head of the department of folk instruments at Ulyanovsk State University, director of the Russian Soul ensemble, 35 years old. Laureate of international competitions and festivals. She recorded three CDs with the Russian Soul ensemble.

A simple story. You are six years old, your mom and dad are taking you to music school, and, like all parents, they want you to play the piano. To buy it, they sold the motorcycle. But I said: I will only play the balalaika. Why - no one can understand. And the piano has stood like that ever since...

I myself am from the Southern Urals, from Miass (near Chelyabinsk). Graduated from the Kazan Conservatory. The ensemble “Russian Soul” of five people was born at the conservatory, the idea was mine. We were offered to go to Naberezhnye Chelny: apartments for all the musicians of the ensemble and work at a ten-year school at the conservatory. But in Chelny Tatar music prevails, and over the years of studying in Kazan we were fed up with it. Three of our guys were from Ulyanovsk, and we decided, why not try here? I was immediately invited to work by several music schools, a music school, and a university. We all found ourselves overwhelmed with teaching work, with only evenings left for our own creativity.

I have been heading the department of Russian folk instruments for the sixth year now. My students are laureates of various competitions, including international ones. Teaching is the main thing for me now, and concerts are like a second “I”, a way of self-realization. Over the course of ten years, “Russian Soul” has developed an extensive repertoire; we can perform five or six two-hour programs. Our specialty is synthesis: we take a folk melody and layer a broken rhythm. I can’t say that I’m not interested in folk music. But how to present it without people snorting? After all, in our country, “folk” is often something that is bawled while dressed in a Russian costume. That’s why we try to “get into” all genres, even those that folk musicians probably shouldn’t venture into.

Fig.

But we have bass, drums, balalaika and domra-alto, that is, almost the entire layer of registers, and the button accordion, as the heart of the orchestra, connects all this. We are trying to work with the classics. There were big projects, for example, Vivaldi’s “Seasons” program, when we played with a guitar and a violin. Outstanding vocalists, performers of romances and opera classics were invited. Well, and jazz, of course. Jazz on folk instruments sounds very interesting and lively.

During our work in Ulyanovsk, we were never able to find a base for rehearsals. But the heads of private companies helped us - both morally and financially. It cannot be said that in Ulyanovsk we are not valued; rather, they are not noticed. There is no prophet in his own country. We opened the beginning of the concert season at the Saransk Philharmonic, in November we gave a solo concert in the State Concert Hall of Tatarstan, attracting a thousand people. Tickets cost up to 350 rubles, the sold-out crowd was great. But I think that in Ulyanovsk people are able to respond to some kind of project. “Russian soul” is our hobby; we can work without money. Although professional musicians should be paid a professional fee. This is an indicator of demand.

I feel comfortable in Ulyanovsk: I have a teaching job plus tours. If you are in demand, it doesn’t matter where you live. When you leave and then return, you perceive the city as your home, where you are not bothered. I crawled home, took a break, and an impetus for new achievements appeared. But, on the other hand, the quiet harbor sucks in, and besides, there is not the required number of high-quality musicians here. They say: if a musician sits in an orchestra that “does not work,” his hearing gradually disappears. A musician who plays in “advanced” orchestras, even on the last console, will be higher in class than the one who plays on the first console in an ordinary group. Unfortunately it is so.

With the birth of my son, my values ​​have changed: it’s not that there is less zeal for work, but now I look at people differently. Softer, maybe? I don't know how life will turn out. Recently they offered to teach at Moscow University, but I was not attracted. Now, if it was something related to concert activities, then, probably...

Yuri Kakichev, artist, 47 years old.

My wife and I studied together at the Kostroma Institute of Culture. She herself is from Ulyanovsk, after graduating from college she wanted to go home to her mother, and she persuaded me. When we moved here in 1991, the city surprised and disappointed us. It seemed that communist bureaucrats were in command here. Everywhere it was already quite free, democratic, they were already selling paintings on the streets, but I couldn’t sell a single work here, people avoided me. They kicked me out of the salon because I was not a member of the Union of Artists. There were years when friends fed us: occasionally someone bought inexpensive work or simply brought food.

In Kostroma, we freely submitted our works to the salon. We, still students, were taken to exhibitions, and if an article appeared in the press, then all the more or less interesting artists were mentioned, regardless of their status - whether you were a “folk” or a student. Here, at the first exhibitions, our work seemed to be received with a bang, but not a word in the press. It seems that the journalists asked someone in advance: is it possible to write about this person? This was back in 1995. Then, talking about the exhibition of drawings, a local newspaper correspondent wrote for the first time that “among the ordinary” our works stand out. A personal exhibition followed. That's how they found out about us.

There are few people in Ulyanovsk who buy paintings. And since painting is my main income, it is small. Previously, the main buyers were intellectuals, but now the technical and creative intelligentsia barely earn a living. After all, painting is a luxury; not everyone can afford to hang a canvas on the wall. There are few collectors in Ulyanovsk. I have a client who has more than 40 works - mine and my wife's. He just likes the walls not to be empty. He bought works by Ulyanovsk artists, but filled the entire house and doesn’t buy anymore.

I don't write much. I'm probably lazy. Once upon a time, I used to write sixteen hours a day, but only did about ten works a year. Now I work faster. And it's not even a matter of experience. It’s just that before I had the opportunity to think for months about what to write, but now I don’t have such an opportunity.

I sell my works at a high price. If you go by the prices in the salon, you should sell paintings for a maximum of three thousand rubles. And I spend so much on materials. Whether you sell paintings or not, you need to buy materials; they cost about four thousand rubles a month.

For some reason, in our city they like butter more. And I defended my thesis in watercolors. I loved and love her. So, in Ulyanovsk they practically don’t buy watercolors. The city is kind of materialistic. I believe that oil is a material principle, oil painting is greasy. And watercolor is a spiritual thing, it is transparent, light, bright. But you write it like a surgeon, your hand must be steady. If you put the smear in the wrong way, that’s it—throw away the sheet.

Of course, I would like to leave here. It's difficult to live here. On the other hand, it probably doesn’t matter so much to an artist where to live. It might be better in the capital, because all the creative minds come there. But in a new city I would have to start from scratch and spend five years getting settled. It's like arriving in the desert. And in Ulyanovsk I earned a certain status. There are people who come to the salon specifically for my paintings. That is, they know me in the city.

A house in the wilderness would suit me: I would gather materials and write without getting out. And a big city, like Moscow, is annoying with its bustle. The further from the center, the calmer it is. If you want to make a career, then yes, you need Moscow. In the provinces it is difficult to gain fame: artists will know you, but the general public is unlikely to know you. But I'm more interested in writing something worthwhile than thinking about whether I'll become famous.

The turning point occurred when my son died. Before that, I thought that painting was the most important thing in the world. And then an epiphany came: the child is more important than everything else. It’s probably better for an artist not to have a family at all, then he can only do painting. Now I worry about my daughter and my wife; caring for them consumes my strength, both physical and emotional.

For me, the city is good friends and my workshop. From home to workshop, from workshop to home, I hardly see the city as such. And it is uninteresting in its architecture. There are some corners, but overall it’s normal. It's a pity that the old architecture was destroyed. If there were cathedrals on Venets, it would be very beautiful. The Volga certainly gives the city its charm. A huge expanse of water. In Kostroma the Volga is small, you cross it on a pedestrian bridge, but here it is like the sea. I fell in love with fishing here. In the first years, before I made friends, my wife and I went to symphony concerts and the drama theater a lot. In Kostroma the theater was bad, almost like an amateur one. And there's a decent troupe here.

I have an ambivalent attitude towards Ulyanovsk. On the one hand, I don’t really like him, on the other... But this is purely personal. Our son died at the age of two and a half, and he is buried here. When I had the opportunity to go to St. Petersburg, I couldn’t tear myself away, I had a feeling that he was next to me. It seems that if I leave, he won’t find me. Although we could buy a small apartment in St. Petersburg.

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[1] Boulevard in the center of Ulyanovsk, at the top of the Volga slope.

[2] Pushkin visited Simbirsk in September 1933, when he collected materials on the history of the Pugachev rebellion.

[3] From the reading room, a book that exists in a single copy can be taken home for one night, and this service costs five rubles. In addition, there is a so-called “commercial subscription” - these are the latest book releases purchased with extra-budgetary funds (including funds from the library employees themselves). Renting such a book costs two rubles per day. When keen interest in the book subsides, it switches to a regular subscription and is issued free of charge. That is, if a person cannot or does not want to rent a book, then in a couple of months he will still read it.

[4] For those who do not subscribe to periodicals (due to the high cost of subscription or theft from mailboxes), the library gives the opportunity - for one ruble - to take home a fresh newspaper or magazine for the night. This is especially convenient for those who live nearby.

[5] “Ulyanovsk residents” opposed the dominance of nonresident managers in the regional government, who came along with the regional governor, General Vladimir Shamanov, elected in 2000.

[6] Isaac Grinberg was a consistent critic of the former regional governor Shamanov and his policies.

[7] S.I. Morozov, regional governor.

[8] Director of the Museum-Reserve “Lenin’s Motherland”.