Translated material
Your letters. November 23, 2013
I remembered the conversation of two Georgians at the post office in Pitsunda in the eighty -fifth year. One asks: "Have you been to Leningrad?" The other replies that it was, but what, they say, the sense - there is nothing in Leningrad either. Already almost a quarter of a century, like everything or almost everything is in Leningrad, and in Moscow, and in Tbilisi, and in Uryupinsk with Pitsunda, and people cannot get used to it - that is, that the goal of their life is achieved and proud of it when they are abroad, in the west. “We are already like the French and other Swedes,” - this is what I can hear behind their words: “We have it too.” "We are no longer hiding wires." I don’t know if the time will come when they say: we also have the police, not the bandits in uniform, and there are judges, and not bribe takers and bitch, throwing innocent people for the thorny wire on command, we have parliament, and not gathering crooks and thieves.
The author of the next letter already wrote to us. He does not like Radio “Freedom” by all, as I understand it, by the fibers of the soul, but (and just, apparently, therefore) he listens to us from A to me, and for many years and, apparently, will be as much as we will be with us. There are many of them, such listeners. Yes, he cannot stand us. For what - it is easy to guess: for everything. He cannot endure not only the Radio “Freedom”, but also the United States of America, where he has been living for fifteen years, in my opinion, but before he lived in the Soviet Union, either in Russia, or in Ukraine, I don’t remember. In America, he learned on a nurse, works in the hospital, three days a week, bought a house, a car, of course, or, it seems, two, married an American, they already have three children, study in private schools. I’ll still say for those who listen to us for the first time, for which he does not like America. For the fact that the Americans, according to his observation, are very stupid people, and they are not suitable for his former compatriots, everyone knows only their own business, their specialty, and general development - no, while Soviet people were very developed, he recalls, and still remain quite developed. Next. He does not like America for her, according to him, the unjust, inept, mired in the bureaucracy, in formalities, a soulless and cowardly authorities, for a disgusting government, they say, it serves a lot of money, and big money only think about how to increase at the expense of the population. I read his last letter: “Hello, Anatoly Ivanovich. You read a letter from a Russian woman who, obviously, lived in the United States for a month or two and decided to enlighten former compatriots what America is. “America is when you will not see minors with cigarettes or alcohol,” she writes. And now remove the noodles from your ears. According to statistics in the United States, twenty percent of high school students have tried to smoke marijuana. According to the same statistics, drunkenness among American schoolchildren and students are also raising. It is also popular among school youth in the vagina or the rear passage of the tampons, soaked in vodka. Cabriolet, ”writes your listener. I saw American grandmothers. A more typical picture is a grandmother who takes fifteen to twenty tablets per day, barely drags her legs. Russian grandparents have the best health. I came to this conclusion, working with American grandmothers from the fifth year. “America,” your listener writes, “when people can come to the store, at school, at school, at the doctor’s appointment, and no one will look with contempt.” In other words, she says that America is a lack of culture. When such types come to our hospital, we, of course, say nothing to them, but they would listen to the health workers behind the backs of such patients. Every I would also advise these “friendly” ones that they say behind your back ” - this is in which country, that’s what people have to live and work after Russia, he is far from old, so he will have to go to his homeland for a long time.
And here is also an American from the Russians, Igor Petrovich Telok, he is in the States for forty years old ... I have been telling. He, according to him, has four lives. He calls the first life of a simple Soviet worker. "Pioneer, three drives to the police, Komsomolets activist, a student of the caricaturist in the journal" Crocodile ", the first-heart-old first unit." After the institute, he became an engineer for cars for the construction of roads. And then this happened: “I married an American!”, He writes with an exclamation mark. He calls this the most funny of the twists of his fate. “The vulture appeared on my dossier in the KGB:“ Undergradually in the family, ”I became a disadvantageous and unhappy, although everyone wanted me - an inventor and an unconditional handsome man nominated for a state award, and a winner of three engineering competitions.” Then fate brought him to the beginning of his life number two. He is silent about details, but in general he writes this: “Entertainment is not for the faint of heart. There was a period when I generally ceased to exist! Without a passport, citizenship, paying taxes and hopes for an apartment. ” At the same time, he sacredly executed the well -known order of the leader: to study, study and study. His first work in America: a repairman -repairman, the second is an engineer. So he discovered that he could find a place for himself even in the oversaturated American labor market. I read: “Yeah! I now know what the bourgeois bourgeois love me for, why licks me! And I find the second engineering work myself - I tickle in their sensitive place: America loves the inventors! No one is interested in where you studied, why you have an alien accent, only - what you can, know and can. And can you work for the result, and not for a salary. ” So his third life began. What did he do in this life? I read: “From the press for pressing salt for cows to the parts of the minitman, the extraction of sulfur from the bottom of the sea, deep drilling, printing computer boards, cleaning oil storage facilities, refueling by natural gas, work at the bottom of oceans and so on - without any preparation, at a time ... everything was unusually interesting, even weapons of the Portuguese fleet with speed -shoot guns.” Well, then - a jump into the fourth life: a pensioner. “In the United States, this moment is so frightening, many simply do not dare. My income for one day fell eight times! I thought - everything! Even in the crematorium you will have to walk with your firewood ... You need to urgently look for a lesson so that the rest of the energy does not hit the head with the night pot. American pensioners are active in adolescents - they are everywhere, from ballroom dancing to garbage on Frivey. Volunteered. And they also catch fish. Sing in choirs. Driving around the country on motorcycles. They become so politically active - who would stop them! I found several classes: I engineer a little - now I am making devices for paralyzed with a Chinese doctor. I go for mushrooms to the Pacific Ocean. The eldest granddaughter takes Russian lessons from me, ”writes Igor Petrovich Telok from the United States of America.
The next letter: “You once said a couple of unpleasant and strange words about one of your friends, or a acquaintance-estate of the Russian Orthodox Church. "A drunkard, an ohanik and a river, but in God and in Russia, the president and the Patriarch, he believes firmly and, I would say, have fun." This place is especially interesting. I do not communicate with the priests and even more so, bishops, but I would like to ask them a question for filling, who will go to heaven according to their version? Whatever the righteous Buddhist, Magametanin, Catholic, Protestant, Judaist or atheist, the road is closed to paradise. Except the Orthodox, of course. And Orthodox live only in specific countries. The most crowded country is Rus'. Here from Australia, from America, from Poland, no one will get to Paradise, and a large flow of candidates from us. Well, is there really no righteous from other countries at all in paradise? The theology of the Russian Orthodox Church is very interesting to answer this question. God is omnipotent - if he wants, then he can miraculously lead such a person to the Russian priests. That's how they got out, ” - here I am delaying this letter. And about that bishop I will say for more clarity. Yes, he is a row, and a drunkard, and an ohkhlik, and an important pop with an academy behind him, but simple as a board, like any church grandmother: he is firmly convinced with her that faith in God will not be left without gratitude on his part, everything will be forgiven for faith. According to his concepts, faith frees from sin, live as you want, throw out any numbers and knees - just believe, and nothing more is required of you. He, like his parishioners, does not occur to him to connect his life, his behavior with his faith, faith in itself, and life itself. This is a barren, empty faith, it is zero, but there is something almost cute in it, we must admit. Yes, believe it in paradise. Very nice.
“I re -read, Anatoly Ivanovich, for the first time after school, and this is two decades,“ the hero of our time, ”the next letter. - Well, what will I say. Of course, it is not for me to overthrow the classic. It's stupid. But on the other hand - well, I will not lie. I see nothing special. It is written, to my modern taste, too simple and boring. Although, of course, I understand that for the time of Lermontov, when others wrote prying and ornate, it was a kind of discovery - what can be written in a simple language. But time does not stand still. The first thing that occurred after a duel Pechorin was a joke. "Lieutenant Rzhevsky, I heard you shot yesterday because of Natasha Rostova with Kornet Obolensky." -“Yes, sir, it's true. I was shooting because of Natasha, but the corn corn was shooting from behind a tree. ” Someone once said that they would take place at the Hero of our Time-and half the class becomes Pechorin. I completely believe that maybe even in the sixties it was so. But I remember the end of the eighties, my Moscow school - well, the idea itself would have caused schoolchildren's explosion. And now-well, if one of the schoolchildren will read the novel itself, not a digest, then I think he can only cause a stalk ... I understand that Lermontov wrote seriously, although in his time they lived much easier than his heroes, but in general two years ago people thought and behaved differently, not like now. The main, in my opinion, the value of the old literature for us is that it forces us to think about the depth of changes in life, not political, but cultural and human, ”-here is the author of this unusual letter, of course, is right. I'm not talking about what is the benefit of old literature, but about changes in people. In some ways, a person does not change since the time of Adam and Eve, and in some way it becomes more unrecognizable, and it cannot be said that the main thing remains in it, but the secondary is changing, although I want to say so, not, everything is the main thing: that remains unchanged, and what changes under the influence of new living conditions. In such conversations, I still recall one letter to Chernyshevsky Nekrasov. Chernyshevsky-a writer-revolutionary, a revolutionary from revolutionaries, called Rus' to the ax, the meaning of life declared the struggle for happiness, and not love and family joys. In full accordance with his teaching, he granted complete freedom to his wife, Olga Socrates unforgettable. In the diary he wrote: “Well, she won’t be helicopter!”, And how she went, how she went to this and do this ... And now he writes Nekrasov, also a large fighter for the folk happiness, about his last book of verses: beautiful, they say, you have poems of civil content, but most of all I like pure lyrics, poems without any politics, and about the deeply personal, and about the concerned, and about the so -personal. Which, not from politics, is not from world questions, not from the non-unity of social problems, people hang, shoot, go crazy, and adds amazing words: I already know, I know ... I once cried over this letter from pity and tenderness for this remarkable and unhappy person, one of the most remarkable and unhappy great Russian people.
The next letter: “I am writing to you about the problems of hunger strikes. Recently, this strange method of political struggle or a rather desire to attract attention is again gaining popularity. But, in essence, a hunger strike is blackmail. Imagine a citizen announcing a hunger strike in protest against the departure of her beloved woman and requiring her return, as described with humor in the Golden Calf. Everyone will say: here is a scoundrel-step-by-step! And how does the "political" starving differ from him? It seems to me that it is high time to adopt the following law: "On blackmail with the threat of harm to your own health or suicide." First. Any adult citizen has the right to suicide or the destruction of his own health. State bodies are strictly forbidden to prevent him from this. Second. The nomination of any requirements under the threat of suicide or harm harm to your own health as a criminal crime is blackmail. Make an appropriate addition to the Criminal Code. Third. Any state authorities are strictly forbidden under any circumstances to comply with any requirements of a blackmailer, threatening harm to their own health or suicide. It is also forbidden to conduct any negotiations with the blackmail. Fourth. The media is prohibited from publicizing the requirements of a blackmailer, threatening harm to his own health or suicide. The violation of this item is equated with the propaganda of terrorism. Mr. Goloshchekov from Saransk, to make appropriate amendments to the Criminal Code, ”such a project was sent to the Radio“ Freedom ”. I hesitated whether to announce this document. I thought how you guess about the State Duma. You can use such a hint. Walking towards the wishes of the workers ... A person who resorts to a hunger strike is seriously, he is invulnerable or almost invulnerable to any “law of scoundrels”. In my opinion, this is understandable. Not to intimidate this, not to stop. I will die, he will say, and the matter of your conscience is how to treat it. There are people who really like to draw up laws. Inhabited lawmakers. It will get up in the morning ... or before going to bed, or even in the middle of the night will wake up and let's write down the next law ... there are big lovers of legislative activity, large. All their laws - all, without exception - promise to humanity prohibitions and punishment. This is the only way. No permits and incentives. It is not interesting to allow and encourage them. Permissions and encouragements do not give the head of the proper importance, do not inspire the population of proper trepidation. And their favorite expression: "is strictly forbidden."
The author of the next letter is perplexed why - then I quote - “By the number of different taxes, Ukraine took first place in the world, according to the World Bank. In one form or another, Ukrainian business pays one hundred and thirty -five taxes. World record. Romania has a second place - one hundred and thirteen taxes. In third place, Jamaica, where only seventy -two. But in Hong Kong - only three. I am not interested in, ”the author writes,“ your opinion about why Ukraine is not Hong Kong, but why this Hong Kong continues to exist in such unbearable crooks and thieves. ” My answer will be like that. Only I will answer not this satirical-ribbon question, but I will say in essence, as I understand it. The World Bank does not think well. If the Ukrainian business paid only one hundred and thirty -five taxes, it would be still tolerant. In fact, he pays more. It is possible in Ukraine to reduce the number of taxes to three. But for this it is necessary to reduce them, but here they are busy with an increase. What they do, it turns out. They would be engaged in reduction, it would have been reduced. The business, however, is also not a bast. The language of the robber, the rapist, the crook for many entrepreneurs are more understandable than the human. Set them one tax instead of one hundred and thirty-five-they and him, this single tax, will try, and many will succeed, it will definitely work out!, Not to pay. To establish the correct orders - this must be able to. And not just to be able to, but to live. There are skillful people in the country, but they do not climb into the leadership, they are not invited. They usually say: it did not pin it. Here, they say, the need will truly have a lot ... But we are already quite shot sparrows to understand: this is by no means necessary, there is no such universal law. Not all societies are trained, not everywhere everything goes without interruptions only for the better and better. The last quarter of a century that in Ukraine, which in Russia makes us wait not only the best, but also the worst.
“Hello, Anatoly!, - The next letter. - First, a quote from Dovlatov: Lenizdat printed a book about the war. Под одной из фотоиллюстраций значилось: "Личные вещи партизана Боснюка. Пуля из его черепа, а также гвоздь, которым он ранил фашиста..." Широко жил партизан Боснюк! Теперь из недавней российской прессы на сходную тему: "В российском Приморье наводнение. Жители полузатопленных домов отказываются покидать свои жилища из-за угрозы мародерства. Чтобы как-то скоротать время, они влезают на крыши своих домов и ловят оттуда рыбу" Нет, такая страна непобедима в принципе, как и непобедим ее герой — партизан Боснюк. Она может развалиться только под воздействием собственной силы тяжести. Эта территория падет, когда ее населению перестанет клевать рыба», — конец письма. Хочется иногда сделать вид, что не понимаешь, о чём речь.
«Вы говорите, — следующее письмо, — что лучше всего просто понимать, откуда это всё, из каких исторических далей... Вот я и следую вашему совету, заглядываю в даль. Почему в Московии дворяне получили совершенно чудовищные привилегии? Их подкупали. В отличие от тёмного и забитого населения, они были людьми с гонором и образованными в большом проценте. Их надо было стимулировать служить этой стране и быть её патриотами. А за что любить эту страну и её народ? Вот сегодня огромная часть элиты вывозит капиталы и семьи на 3апад, а тогда помещиков ублажали немыслимыми правами за счёт рабов. Но вся эта система была взрывная. Искусственная и поверхностная культура, инородная элита, говорившая по-французски и состоявшая в большом проценте из немцев. У всего происходящего в РФ сейчас есть одна сторона — всё это ужасно пошло и скучно. И кто бы ни пришёл к власти, всё будет так же ничтожно. Будут кривляться на все лады. Изображать из себя православных, коммунистов, демократов, путчистов, Но это блеф, пошлые клоуны. Ничего нет впереди, ни свершений, ни трагедий. Ни свободы, ни диктатуры, ни православия, ни коммунизма, ни фашизма, ни революций. Но это будет продолжаться ещё очень долго и нудно!», - говорится в этом письме. Да, существует такое мнение, и отнюдь не только о России, но обо всём евроатлантическом мире, высказано оно было полтора столетия назад, между прочим, в России, развито это предсказание было в Германии после Первой мировой войны, произвело большое впечатление на европейский мир, долго и бурно обсуждалось, сейчас к нему то и дело возвращаются, гадают, так ли будет или как-то иначе, — попса и гламур как образ жизни, потребительство как её цель, сменяющие друг друга дурацкие верования и поветрия.
«Россия, — пишет Александр из Киева, — не способна в принципе перейти к демократии, как, например, Туркменистан, — грамматически сказано не совсем точно, но мы понимаем, что хотел автор. — Это только на первый взгляд кажется, — продолжает он, — что легко перейти к независимым судам, парламенту, местному самоуправлению. Сколько было попыток за последние двести лет, начиная с реформ Сперанского, а воз и ныне там. А Горбачев, Ельцин, Путин — это только отсрочка деградации, распада, хаоса, идеологического, политического, экономического краха». Да, Александр, иногда так и думаешь, и не только о России, не говоря о Туркменистане, но и об Украине, особенно — восточной и южной. А вот в Белоруссию у меня, как ни странно, чуть-чуть больше веры. После нынешнего дикого, унизительного, неправдоподобного режима она может оклематься быстрее, чем та же Украина — после своих конкретных пацанов и Россия — после путинизма. Долго объяснять, а наше время истекло… Может быть, кто-то, кто понимает, что я имею в виду, напишет, а я прочитаю и что-нибудь добавлю.