The artist in the zone

Participants in the conversation: Alexander Yakulov (musician); Vyacheslav Sysoev (artist artist); Vadim Kosmachev (sculptor)

For some reason, the experience of the Gulag does not become a Russian western. It is long to be, because Western is an entertaining genre. And yet entertainment does not come out of the Gulag. This conversation is about creativity, one way or another connected with the camp and prison. Let's start with the sculptor. His name is Vadim Kosmachev . He is a Muscovite, but has been living in Germany for many years. Ashgabatians know his abstract sculpture of the "construct". For twenty years now, this sculpture has been decorating Engels Square in Ashgabat. In the work on the sculpture of Cosmachev, Ashgabat prisoners helped. They cut and welded metal, made installation, in short, transferred the model by templates to the original. The sculptor often had to be in the zone. I invited him to share camp impressions.

Here I am with a passing pass. On the one hand is a city, followed by a steep wall of the Iranian plateau, then - Iran. On the other hand, closely, the pride of Soviet nature is the Karakum canal overgrown with reed and sedge, and immediately behind it is a desert, a 1200 kilometer fervist. The zone was built on the model of the Roman military camp - the square. Four towers, passing, workshops. The territory is 500 by 500 meters.

First about workers. There were four of them. Two killers and two thieves. Kolya - 12, for felts - 14, Sashka - 5, and Shurik ends in spring. After a short conversation with them, I realized that these people had the golden hands of the artisans. Then there was a lunch - a table, people, civilian, craftsmen, engineers, some officers, a waiter - for the local Shnir. This waiter made an indelible impression on me: he forced himself to wait. And suddenly one of the sitting in a thunderous voice, literally thundering (I never heard such a voice), yelled so that the table shook, the cardboard walls came in: "Apollo!", "Apollo!" - Even louder, a few more times. And with the tray of the smoking cabbage soup brought from the Zekov canteen, a man of a rare ugliness of appearance entered. I was dumbfounded. Such accuracy, such a game of words, imagination, such a connection with the Hellenic Olympus I did not expect to meet sorrow in this house.

For you, there was no moral problem to use the hands of prisoners?

It was, of course. My guys (this somehow facilitated my conscience or my relationship with them) very firmly promised to throw out the deadline for a good job. Deceived, of course. Or maybe the scandal of the sculpture that played after the opening of the sculpture prevented. I don't know for sure. For seven months I was among these people. “We have seventy syphilitics in the zone. The plates are common,” the lieutenant used to scare me. But I carried me.

I saw that these people are very pleased to do something unusual. Tower, soldiers, prickly wire, plowed strip, a three -meter wall, everywhere of targets, for which it is dangerous to stick out their heads, and suddenly - the sculpture - twenty meters. For the local population and protection, this is some kind of nonsense, so these guys were incredibly pleased that they were chosen from 1,500 inhabitants of this institution and then it was pleasant for them that although they were punished in the zone, infringed on everything, and this sculpture would stand in the city center.

The atmosphere in the zone, the atmosphere of violence and communication with criminals somehow influenced the creative process?

For example, I remember the pigeon. Imagine - a dovecote in the zone. It is possible to compare the right to have the right to have pigeons in the zone in general, perhaps, by the difficulties of implementing, except with the departure from the then USSR with the Russian nationality to call their Israel. And so I often drove into the dovecote birds at the request of the owner. After ranging, of course. That is, after the departure of the prisoners at the end of the working day in a live zone. I literally, you know, I was literally inspired by the strength of the spirit of this convict. They told me that no matter how much he was sitting,- and he sat for a long time and in different zones- everywhere, there were always pigeons, dovecote with him. You see, this is the second absurdity. I perceived so: there are two absurdities in the zone - my sculpture and this dovecote. But there was another, of course. I saw blood, saw for several nights who did not sleep the guys because of the night murders-they brought some scores. What was the work here! I fussed, made a lot of noise - they slept during the day to have the strength not to sleep at night. At such moments, it happened, Alik, a lawyer with a 30 year old experience, approached me. He pressed quietly on his stomach, and from a rubber hose hidden in the gate of a shirt with a thin stream of text alcohol - some kind of mutter. But very strong. “What,” he said, “freedom. My own,” he nodded to the rows of wires, concrete, wall, plowed, “and yours,” and he showed towards the border with Iran. It was visible, this border. It was in the zone that I made a firm decision to leave.

Who was closer to you in the zone, emotional, psychologically prisoners, administration, civilians?

I somehow naturally said from the very beginning, no, I felt that they were all levels for me. I did not even have the thought of one convict to separate from another. This Kolya Zaikin with twelve years from the small, but real crook Shurik, painted in a very interesting way with tattoos - they gave me incredible pleasure - these texts on his legs, on the stomach, on his back, on his arms. We all did one thing. I myself, you know, by the end I looked like all those who are there. After returning from the zone, they told me that I had changed a lot, and the first three months my communication with friends was not the same as before these experiments with sculpture in the Ashgabat zone.

Art is freedom. You sculpted in the zone. Did it somehow affect the quality of your sculpture?

You know, Igor, maybe this was affected. I realized that I am here, in this zone, sculpture is as if it is allowed by fate, in my country, maybe this is the last thing that I have allowed and allowed in this place where I should feel the reality of life - it is without deception, it is quite terrible there, life in the zone. This made an indelible impression on me, and I did, in general, not a trifle in Ashgabat ...

My next interlocutor is Vyacheslav Sysoev . He is a cartoonist. Lives in Berlin. In the late 70s - then he lived in Moscow - came into the sight of the KGB. State security did not like the drawings of an unofficial artist. Sysoev was charged with a criminal article for the distribution of pornography. About four years, the artist was hiding. In the end, he was arrested and condemned for two years. He served the term of imprisonment in a criminal camp in the Arkhangelsk region. Our conversation began with the question whether the prisoners knew that Sysoev was an artist.

The fact is that in prison, and then in the zone it is generally impossible to hide something. The first question is when you enter the camera: "What is the article?" My article was purely criminal, 228th - "Production and sale of pornographic products". What does pornography mean? This is either a photo or a drawing on this topic. Well, so that they don’t attach to me, “Draw something like that,” I said at first that I was arrested for finding just a photo. And they ask me:

“Did you sell them or what?”

I speak:

- Yes.

- In the train?

I speak:

- Well, like that. Small for 15 kopecks sold, and large - 30 each.

They told me: "Why did you sell so cheaply?" Well, after I found myself in the zone, I already said that I was drawing something that was not related to pornography. And they put it under this article, so as not to make a political process.

The ability to draw easier for you in the camp?

No, unfortunately, in this situation, this not only did not facilitate, but in every possible way complicated. Why? Because the authorities knew why they punished me and, following the instructions from Moscow, did not allow paints and brushes. He worked only on general work. Well, there was really one such case entertaining. Once, before some anniversary, in my opinion it was before the November holidays, the chief of the detachment asked, personally asked me to make a newspaper. Well, I said that I can’t, since I am forbidden to draw. And the boss says:

I have a damn you in the Lenin room for the whole night - there is paper, paints ... you will sit, do - no one will know, the next day you will also draw, and then you will rest for two days. Well, I agreed. So, he sat in this Leninist room, painted and painted a huge red banner on paper. But it was very damp and the paint did not dry. I went to sleep. In the morning I came - I look, which means that half of the paint is eaten, and all such red traces are on all paper - these are cockroaches. I went to the boss, said: "Citizen chief, cockroaches ate the banner, it is necessary to do it again." And at this time they called me to the headquarters. There, the kum sits and says:

If I see you in the Lenin room again, I will go out in Shiznyak - that is, it means I "put in the penalty area." Well, so I did not do the newspaper.

And the convicts asked you to draw?

They asked, but since I immediately said that I would not draw anything, since everything that I will draw will definitely go to the authorities, and it will be reported, they are behind me.

Have you been able to or did not want to retrain? You could make tattoos?

Tattoos are strictly prohibited in the zone. Up to the point that they can give a deadline for this. Therefore, there are “woolen”, thieves, at least in our zone were afraid to make tattoos. It came there that the authorities had such a register in which every tattoo with which the prisoner received was noted, so an inspection was carried out from time to time - God forbid if someone had a new tattoo! They would immediately determine who did it. So I didn’t even have such a thought.

Have you found a source or even sources of inspiration in the camp?

For me, the source of inspiration is all Soviet power. I had four years generally completely free before arrest when I was hiding. What was drawn? For example, two such drawings: the first is the opening of the monument to the barbed wire - below the orchestra, pioneers, uncles with portfolios in front of the microphone ... or, for example, such a drawing: sits in the chamber under the pennant of labor and knit the barbed wire. I even once in a camp in a barn saw some kind of car that made a prickly wire with a terrible clang-the wire was bad, though. Not with a sign of quality. All these thorns could be shifted in one direction with a hand. Many years ago, Varlam Shalamov said that the camp experience is completely negative. And you just can’t say stronger. For me, the artistic experience of the camp is a continuous blackness.

In a sense, at least it seems to me that the zone is a very cruel parody, a cruel cartoon to freedom. Does it not turn out that in the zone the caricaturist, as it were, becomes a realist?

It was really a parody of our lives. We all played the role of statists there, about the same as we are released in life without wire. That is, it means that most of the convicts depicted obedient criminals who embarked on the path of “denying” correction, the so -called “woolen” are strict guardians of the thieves' law. The bosses are wise, fair engineers of human souls. Realism was that a few years before landing, knowing that it still could not be avoided, I began to mark almost all my drawings in 1984, the year of Orwell. And when they put me in the year 83, in the West they began to publish a lot of my works, and almost all were marked with this year, 84th, and in the camp almost every day, it was with me, they arranged a shmon. Apparently, they were looking for materials and drawings that I do, as they thought. The knocks were constantly sniffed. And I did not draw at all.

And subsequently at large, did you return to the camp topic?

I was not drawn at all. I thought that I could draw something new, but it turned out that in one form or another I portrayed all this ahead of time. I did this. I wrote a book. I made such semi -fantastic illustrations, and in this book I splashed all my emotions, in principle.

Alexander Yakulov was arrested and condemned in the 49th year he was accused of excellent sentiments. In particular, in a negative attitude to the decree of the Central Committee in the field of music. More specifically - in love for German and Austrian composers Bach, Mozart, Richard Strauss. Our conversation began with the question whether the musician hears in prison silence, and then - in camp noise - music.

Certainly. Well, the fact is that I was in terrible prisons. I got into Sukhanovo, for example. Sukhanovo is the most terrible prison, in general. Why did I get there - I don't know. I was demanded that the professor demanded that the professor, I did not give me - and they put me there. Here in this almost solitary chamber, almost without light, bang sounded all the time. Bach and Mozart. Well, why bang? Bach is very close to me, you see, this is a philosophy of music. Especially Chacon. I worked on it for 5 years. After I got into the camp, they gave me a violin, and I played Chacon. The camp was political, mostly the intelligentsia was there. Well, besides, Westerners, Western Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. There were a lot of foreigners whom our army, when entering Europe, simply planted and brought here. There were many Russian emigrants. It was a political camp. Speciallag number 4. I was in Kingira. Then I was transferred to Balkhash. Strange as it may seem, Western Ukrainians saved me. Because I walked and played all kinds of music, from classics and ending with songs. I was 21 years old. Then Western Ukraine, the so -called Bandera, said that if you do not free the lad from the mine, we will stop you all the mines. I was transferred to the zone. I worked in the bathhouse - I distributed soap, and played on the violin.

It turns out that music saved your life?

Certainly. In the full sense of the word. The German turned out to be my accompanist and a great friend. He was a wonderful musician. This was my greatest friend, we were dying with him, we shared a piece of bread with him. Once we promised a cat. And for this cat we played all night. Then they ate this cat. Once he said:

-We have a big holiday today: I found one potato. We divided it in half.

Who was your audience? Who did you speak to?

The audience was huge. There were so -called concerts. That is, the camp was divided into sectors. Three huts are a machine gun. Three huts are a machine gun. I played Paganini, easy music ...

Have you accompanied any camp events?

When women made a sanctuary - and women were the wives of ambassadors, actresses are also intelligent people. That's when they, so to speak, shaved all these places, we were forced to play the tango "La Campparcite" with Klaus. For some reason they loved tango very much. After that, we were given a plate of Balanda for two.

What camp concerts do you remember the most?

Often there were courts in the camp. There was a group of poets who wrote poetry against the leader of the peoples, and they were sentenced to death. The surname Soloviev was his, and Bashlykov. Well, we had a concert. After that, the KGBIST came out, interrupted us and said:

-Such and such such are sentenced to the highest degree of punishment. The verdict is carried out. Continue the concert!

Well, of course, our hands dropped - no one could continue. And they could not - we would just be killed in the camp, you know? Well, we were immediately taken from the stage into the punishment cell: me and Klaus. We had such a regime third camp. It was Western Ukraine. It was already very close to the uprising and there was no one there at all. Well, there they demanded that there be a concert to defuse the situation there. Everyone said: "Where are you going? They will kill you there," but they ordered me. They dragged the piano there. And in this piano put tea, notes, you see, everything in the world. Here we played a concert there. Then I was invited by the leaders of Bandera, and I was sitting there in the hut there - everyone decided that they had already killed me. This was a situation.

There were many musicians in the camp?

There were musicians from all over the world. Since I had a Soviet diploma, I was set by the head of the orchestra. I wrote off the notes. There were German musicians, here, in particular Klaus, then there was Professor Beme. Well, there were musicians from Estonia, from Latvia, from Moscow, from China. They played the classics.

Did you enrich your musical hearing and repertoire in the camp?

Certainly. I just began to perceive music differently. All this was aggravated. Why still love to listen to me? They say: "Your violin is crying, your soul is crying." Of course, I invested ... If I was, so to speak, a more or less professional cold musician, then then became an emotional musician, because every day it was continuous experiences.

In your further musical career, have you happened to meet your listeners - former convicts?

Of course, a lot. Firstly, I must mention Professor Kazakov. This is a professor at the Lviv Conservatory. He played with me. He played incomparably. He played Domra and played the classics so that it was possible to go crazy at all. Of course, I met a lot ... And they kissed, and hugged, and cried, and went to visit each other.