Radio Liberty - Programs - Time Difference

Author and presenter Vladimir Tolts

"Radio Liberty, Moscow: family photography for history"

Vladimir Tolts:

I have long wanted to make a program about Radio Liberty and history. Not about the history of our radio station, we will still talk about this: now we are beginning to organize our sound archive, and one of the results of this difficult work will certainly be a series of programs about the past of Freedom, in which you will hear recordings of the voices of many outstanding people who spoke at our microphones in Munich, New York, Paris, Prague and Moscow.

No, today we are talking about something else - about how the history of the last century is perceived by people who reflect it on the air every day. And about these people.

Anastasia Gorokhova:

Since I am a young person, I would start my story from the very last decades of the 20th century. I would tell you that I was born and lived in a completely different country until I was 16 years old. It is quite difficult for modern children to imagine that just 10-15 years ago the lives of their peers were organized completely differently.

Vladimir Tolts:

So, today’s topic is history, in one of the epicenters of which we are, and people - my Moscow colleagues, who tell you about it every day in Russian Service programs from Moscow. Precisely from Moscow, not because I am here now, and not only because events quite often happen here that echo much more audibly in the life of the rest of the world than what happens, for example, in beautiful Florence or Munich, which has become close to me. But also because the Moscow Bureau of Freedom is perceived by me as a special friendly and young family (just don’t interpret this word in accordance with modern Russian political vocabulary), perceived as a community in many ways different from its brothers in the corporation both in Prague, where I now constantly work, and in New York. Differing from them not only in life experience, social circle, cultural baggage, lifestyle, but also in age. They, I think, are destined to live in the next century longer than ours, and therefore, to tell their descendants longer about our history.

The topic of today's program was suggested to me by a discussion that has been going on for some time in the Internet "Russian Journal" within the framework of "Distance Communication" (this is a project of the Public Opinion Foundation and the Effective Policy Foundation). Its presenter, Leonid Blekher, asked his correspondent interlocutors the following question: what will we tell our children and grandchildren about Russia in the 20th century? Explaining the reason for his interest, Leonid Iosifovich, whom I invited to the Moscow Freedom Studio, says...

Leonid Blekher:

Some time ago I had to tell my son the history of Russia in the 20th century, and I suddenly realized that I was telling him something differently, differently than I would write about it, or differently than I would like to read about it myself. While telling the story to the child, I began to pay attention to completely different aspects of this story. (Obviously, first of all, because you tell a child, you want to simplify something, but this is not the whole truth, there was something else...) I didn’t just tell him about historical events, I highlighted some of them: either especially important, or especially dangerous, or some other special ones. It was as if I wanted to draw his attention to sample events, on the one hand, and on the other hand, as if to warn him, to show him, they say, look at what terrible events happened before, be careful, beware, think about it. And I realized that no matter how much I studied the history of Russia, no matter how much I thought about it, in the end, in recent years it has become much more difficult for me to understand what really happened, what is the meaning of what happened to us, both over the last 10-15 years, and in general in the 20th century. And since it is very difficult for a child or teenager to tell about an event, so to speak, in its pure form, speaking about the meaning of the event, the task began to seem completely overwhelming to me. The son has grown up, thank God, he has stopped asking, but grandchildren will appear soon...

Vladimir Tolts:

Most of my colleagues from the Moscow bureau of Radio Liberty will not have grandchildren any time soon (many of them don’t even have children yet), they, I repeat, are very young. But the question posed in “Distance Communication” by Leonid Blekher interested them very much. Now, knowing their answers, I think there are several reasons for this. This is also an understandable, grateful responsiveness to interest in your personal opinion, in your person, and not just in what you report on the air every day about events in the world. This is also nostalgia for the past and the passing, which, despite the young age of many of my colleagues, they can no longer return. And the opportunity to feel older and more significant, probably, too, and much more.

Well, in these answers I was interested not only in the eternal “time difference,” but also in the possibility of creating for us, and for posterity too, a kind of amateur group photograph, in which, years later, everyone’s image could be closely examined for a long time, each time, as usual, amazed at the youthful naivety of the faces, their irrevocable gaiety and the unpredictability of what happened after.

So, a “family” photo for history. In the first row, as is customary, are the youngest. When asked what they will tell their grandchildren about the history of the 20th century, they answer...

Albina Lear:

It is very difficult to answer the question of what I would tell my children, especially grandchildren, about the history of the 20th century, because I am at such a tender age that it is time for me to hear about this history myself.

Therefore, I’ll tell you a joke: the plane crashes, falls into the territory where the Ju-Ju tribe lives, only three survive - an Englishman, a Frenchman and a Russian. The Ju-ju people surrounded them and said: “We will eat you now, so it’s our last wish.” The Englishman says: “I want a pipe of English tobacco, a blanket and to be by the fireplace.” His wish was granted and he was eaten. The Frenchman asked for a woman and a glass of wine. They arranged it and ate it. It’s the Russian’s turn, he says: “I need a podium.” Juju people ask: “What is this?” The Russian explained to them, they built a wooden platform for him, he climbed onto it and began: “Comrades, did you have a revolution in 1917?” “No,” the tribe answers. - “What about collectivization on the 33rd?” “No,” the tribe answers. - “What about the repressions of ’37?” - “No” - “And the war of 41-45? And the restoration of what was destroyed and the construction of a bright future?” “No,” the Jujuites answer. - “And the five-year plans and perestroika?” - “No” - “Why are you so angry?” This is an anecdote, I think, very correct, and probably really about the history of our country in the 20th century.

Of course, I didn’t see any of this, but I found my grandmother alive, who was born in 1904 and died in 1997 and understood very well that Boris Nikolaevich was not a tsar. For me it is truly the living history of the century and I will definitely tell my descendants about it.

For my children and grandchildren, I myself will be a living history of only the last decades of the 20th century, and to be precise, the 80s and 90s. And I can only tell them about my Soviet childhood. Of course, regardless of whether it is Soviet or not, for almost everyone it is bright and kind. I’ll tell you about the parades on November 7th, May 1st and 9th with the obligatory morning watching of TV - a live broadcast from Red Square, with the obligatory festive table and the same obligatory Olivier salad, and then going to visit, and there: “women shouted “Hurray!” and threw caps into the air” - in general, booze. I remember very well that on such days I was especially offended that my parents were not members of the party, which means I could not walk in the front row at the parade and nod towards the Mausoleum, but most importantly, I would never have a bright, large paper carnation...

But I will tell them how I was an October child and even a pioneer, but I didn’t have time to become a Komsomol member. (By the way, having realized this irreparable loss, the first thing I thought was that I wouldn’t be able to tell my grandchildren about this.) But I will show them my tie, which at first I ironed every day, then, admittedly, every other day, and then a week later (but we’ll leave that out). I will show them my certificates, including first place in the city reading competition on the topic “My Homeland - the Soviet Union” and the prize for first place - the book “The Childhood of Grandfather Lenin”. By the way, I keep one more book - “Sex Education of a Soviet Girl.” This is a masterpiece, believe me for those who haven’t read it! Although, I think it will be difficult for me to explain to them how the sex education of a Soviet girl differs from a non-Soviet one. And it will be difficult to explain the sleepless night, like a bride before her wedding, before the day of joining the pioneer organization. Flour, sew on clean collars and iron school uniforms every day, and then steam in them in the summer and freeze in the winter. But I will try, because all this also had its own thrill, which my children are unlikely to experience, because they will be born in a different country than the one in which I was born. And they will understand the history of the 20th century, in which they did not live, differently, in their own way.

Vladimir Tolts:

This is Alya Lear. She is our youngest among those who sound “in the mornings and evenings.” But Nastya Gorokhova, she is also still very far from retirement. She usually appears on morning programs, and now she has also become the coordinator of my “MAIN PROJECT” and has already felt nostalgia for the irrevocable Soviet past we shared with her.

Anastasia Gorokhova:

Since I am a young man, I would begin my story from the very last decades of the 20th century. I would tell you that I was born and lived in a completely different country until I was 16 years old. It is quite difficult for modern children to imagine that just 10-15 years ago the life of their peers was organized completely differently, that they were Octoberists, then pioneers, then joined the Komsomol. I would talk about my school (I have the warmest memories of it), even about the meetings of the Druzhina Council, political information, ceremonial assemblies and other attributes of the “ideological education of youth.” Because in addition to this there were trips throughout the Soviet Union, then still a single state. And this is an amazing feeling that you live in a huge, powerful, united country. Because there was a performance at a political song competition with a hit by pioneers of many generations about a young drummer. Apparently, as the ideal embodiment of a young enthusiast, a girl with an optimistic expression, although with a complete lack of hearing, I was placed in the very middle, and I was proud and happy. Because, finally, my blue dream was about a certain Eldorado - the All-Union camp "Artek", where my parents never let me go because of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986.

In general, this would not be a story about any specific events of the 20th century, but rather about childhood in a completely different country, which for children of the 21st century will be a distant, distant history.

Vladimir Tolts:

Valentin Baryshnikov is usually at the microphone, introducing you to the obsession of newspapers. Unlike the young beauties who just performed, Valya is a respectable man, he is already 27 years old, he is married and has a big son - one and a half years old.

Valentin Baryshnikov:

I will tell my son about the life of his grandfather. My father was born in 26 and was named Marat, in honor of the French Marat. The first thing he remembers about his life is how he is placed in a cab driver’s carriage, wrapped in a bearskin and driven along the cobblestones of the Kuznetsky Bridge. So he, together with his cousin, accelerates on scooters down Neglinnaya, publishes a school newspaper and, together with his older brother, begins to write a book about the War of 1812. In 1937, my father’s parents and his uncle were arrested. My father’s uncle is a diplomat, he was in the USA at that moment and understood well why he was being recalled, but he returned. My grandfather, Joseph Epstein, who worked in the Ministry of Finance, was shot, and my grandmother died later in the camp. I know almost nothing about how my father and his brother lived after this. I know that in winter they cooked pea soup and, to prevent it from spoiling, they tied the pan outside the window. On June 22, 1941, my father and his friend left a matinee performance at the Vakhtangov Theater, and a passerby interrupted their laughter: “War.” My father’s brother had a reservation, he studied at MIIT, but went to the front, because the son of an “enemy of the people” must atone for the guilt of his parents. He was wounded, but still did not stay in the rear. He died, in my opinion, near Kharkov. My father recalled that he was eager to join the army from the hunger of evacuation. For 10 years he served in Western Ukraine in a motorcycle unit, rode a Harley and said that Bandera’s men always pulled wire across country roads at the level of the motorcyclist’s neck. Demobilized and returned to Moscow.

My father says that when Stalin died, he cried. After the 20th Congress, I learned about the fate of my parents; they were rehabilitated, posthumously. My father worked in a taxi fleet, studied, and became a journalist. He remembers with pleasure how everyone stopped work and went outside when Gagarin flew into space. He named his first son Yulik - like his dead brother. In the 70s, I visited the entire Union on business trips, and together with a friend I wrote a very funny book. In the 80s, I remember, my father read and re-read “Children of the Arbat”; he still considers this book almost the reliable truth about his generation and his brother. Despite the difficult economic situation of his magazine and long past retirement age, he still works and feels completely young.

Vladimir Tolts:

And here’s what Lilya Paveleva, familiar to Svoboda listeners from reporting on miners’ strikes and other serious events of the late Russian 20th century, thinks about telling children of the 21st century about our history.

Lilya Paveleva:

I think it will be necessary to talk not so much about specific events, but about how people’s sense of self changed at different times. What remains in my memory from the 70s and the first half of the 80s is that your time is constantly being stolen. Long hours had to be spent in lines for scarce supplies: food, clothing, plane or train tickets, literally everything. Shopping for a festive table, for example, for the New Year or a birthday, began to be made about two months in advance. Gradually, in the refrigerator, a chicken nicknamed “blue bird” was added to a can of “green peas”, followed by a can of “sprats” and a bottle of champagne. The guests’ phrase: “There is nothing in the stores, but you have plenty,” sounded like an exquisite compliment to the owners.

And yet, first at school, and then at the institute, I had to spend time in the most senseless way, taking notes on the works of the founders of scientific communism, studying disciplines whose names alone made my cheekbones cringe: “scientific communism”, “political economy of socialism” and so on in the same spirit. Passing exams in these disciplines was the most difficult; the language of the textbooks was the harsh language of a poster; there was little meaning there.

Then a record appeared with Vysotsky’s songs for Carroll’s innocent, from an ideological point of view, fairy tale “Alice in Wonderland.” The song “About spoiled time” with the phrase “It’s bad and sad to live in timelessness” sounded like a revelation to many. It seemed like it would always be like this...

And when the time came for the rallies, and then the barricades of August 1991, you got the feeling that History was being made before your eyes. The last time I experienced this feeling, but already colored in gloomy tones, was in October 1993, when shells roared past the windows of my house on Korolev Street from the direction of the Ostankino television center.

Vladimir Tolts:

Answer from Vladimir Baburin, Moscow editor of the Liberty Live program. Volodya’s 14-year-old son lives in the States, and his father in Russia is already thinking about the future historical education of his future American grandson.

Vladimir Baburin:

In fact, I would like, if not me, for my son Zhenya to tell him one incident. When my son came to Moscow last year after a rather long break, we visited my uncle, his grandfather. He was such a combat tanker, orders, medals, he told him a lot of things. And then, when Zhenya returned to America, there was a history lesson - “World War II.” Naturally, they told who won it, he listened very carefully, then raised his hand and said: “Miss, you know, you are a little wrong, because my grandfather won the Second World War.”

In American schools it is not customary to call parents to school; there was such a case when my ex-wife was called to school.

Vladimir Tolts:

But Sophie Lambroschini, who works for the central news department in Prague, will tell her grandchildren a completely different story:

Sophie Lambroschini:

What I will tell my children or grandchildren in the 21st century is the moment when, in December 1989, the border in the middle of Berlin between the Western and Eastern parts was first opened. This means that at the end of December 1989, for the first time, West Berliners were allowed to cross the border on foot into the eastern part of Berlin and into the GDR without the visa system that previously existed. I'm half German and half French, my mother is from Berlin, I was born there myself, and my grandparents grew up in Brandenburg, in what later became the eastern part of Berlin. They talked about their youth before the Second World War, how the eastern part of Berlin was very beautiful, that all the balls were organized, American orchestras played there, how they walked there and about the beautiful nature of Brandenburg... But for me everything was, as it were, a “closed paradise” that no longer existed, since the dictatorship of the GDR was established there.

At the end of December 1989 (in my opinion, it was on the eve of Christmas), my mother and I crossed this border, and on the other side all the residents of those villages were waiting for us, who greeted us with hot wine, cigarettes, and sweets. This was a very important moment, of course, because for me it may have meant, to some extent, the end of the 20th century, in the sense that the end of the difficult post-war period...

Vladimir Tolts:

Mumin Shakirov was born in a completely different country - in Tajikistan.

Mumin Shakirov:

The city of Dushanbe, where I grew up, could have become an amazing capital, but, unfortunately, it did not, and the country itself could have become a resort area like Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, because I have never seen anything like it in terms of beauty...

The second very important event in my life in this past century was probably studying at VGIK, when for the first time before my eyes changes took place in the country, when the famous 5th Congress of Cinematographers took place. And the first sips of freedom, they were just in our classrooms, when it reached such an absurdity that even we, the students! - we certified the teachers in the humanities who taught us and many of them were forced to leave, some to retire, some to leave their jobs altogether.

The most interesting thing in my life is that a paradox occurred in my family, that is, our family scattered, one might say, all over the world, my sister lives in London with English citizenship, my parents live in Uzbekistan with Uzbek citizenship, my sister (another) remained in Tajikistan with Tajik citizenship, I have now acquired Russian citizenship. One family, it has scattered all over the world and of course it’s worth telling your grandchildren about it!

Of course, I would talk about my life, of course, about those events that shocked me the most. Unfortunately, these turned out to be wars: the war in Afghanistan, the war in Tajikistan, the war in Yugoslavia, the war in Chechnya. As a correspondent, I visited these wars and covered these events. And this, of course, had a very strong impact on the worldview, on the worldview, of course.

Vladimir Tolts:

Karen Agamirov, who is so resourceful in surveying Moscow residents on the streets, heard my question and thought...

Karen Agamirov:

What I will tell my descendants about the 20th century is a big question. After all, this will require at least two conditions: that I live to see the day when the desire or need to talk about it comes, and that by that time I will be able to speak clearly. And also, will my descendants want to listen to me?

This was in my pioneer years: go, boy, grandfather will tell you how he talked to Lenin. Will it be interesting for descendants to listen to something that, in fact, has nothing to do with them? They are completely different. - Enough of stupid altruism, it will forever remain in the 20th century along with the “moral code of the builder of communism.”

Well, okay, let’s say dad, uncle and perhaps also Karen’s grandfather are sitting in a chair, inviting the generation to sit on his lap in order to tell something interesting about the 20th century. A very strange time: the greatest discoveries and wars, ridiculous theories and paranoid leaders who entered the history of the 20th century precisely thanks to the practical embodiment of their delirium. Let them sit on my lap and better tell me something themselves. About how he (she) is doing with his girlfriend (boyfriend), about whether they are finishing renovations in the apartment, about whether they drink too much - after all, this is harmful to health! (Here, perhaps, I will share my own experience 30 years ago - from the 20th century).

I won’t tell them anything, let them, if they want, take smart books and read what interests them! Otherwise, if I start telling, I can get into a frenzy and misinterpret, and then I’ll go completely wild and lose my temper. But if it comes to this, I’m left alone, then I’ll take a volume of Yesenin from the shelf and find in it the main idea about the 20th century from “Confessions of a Hooligan”: “Not everyone can sing, not everyone can fall like an apple at someone else’s feet.” Our generation of the 20th century basically did just that.

Here I will unload and go to the kitchen...

Vladimir Tolts:

A word to a person you never hear, although he is present every day in our programs - Elena Kolupaeva, producer.

Elena Kolupaeva:

The greater the time difference between us and our children, the more different our worldviews and interests are. But despite everything, the family continues to exist, and the child, of course, receives his first information in it. I think the most interesting time comes when he starts asking questions. These questions force us to rummage through our memory in order to extract from it everything that can satisfy our curiosity, which is growing every day. And above all, I want this connection to remain between me and my children. Otherwise, who should listen and why tell?

And no matter what time and where we live, there are always a lot of topics for conversations that spark learning about the history of our family or country; we just want to preserve in ourselves and cultivate in our children an interest in understanding the world, as long as there is enough time.

Vladimir Tolts:

And here are two more people whose voices you usually don’t hear, but they are the ones who ensure the audibility of other voices from Moscow - producers Mark Shtilman and Oleg Lvov.

Mark Shtilman:

It’s difficult for me to talk about this topic, I don’t have children yet, however, if they appear, they will already be children of the 21st century. I probably won’t tell my children anything purely historical, political or economic; there are teachers for this in schools and universities. I will try to talk more about myself, about my friends with whom I was lucky in life, about how at school I was a hooligan teenager who was even somehow expelled from school for two whole weeks, and at the same time from the pioneers. I will talk about how, after the 8th grade of school, I went to study at a technical school, where I reached the top of the local Komsomol government and voted for expulsion from the Komsomol at the slightest hint of dissent. (Who would have imagined then that life would bring me together with people who would make me think differently.) I will talk about how I served in the army, where I quickly and completely became disillusioned with the Komsomol and began to suspect that the CPSU was also not much better. Well, I placed myself in the socio-political context. Of course, I will still talk more about myself among my friends.

Vladimir Tolts:

Oleg is also going to talk to his grandchildren about himself and his friends against the backdrop of the rest of Russian history.

Oleg Lvov:

It would be better, of course, more interesting for history teachers to tell my children or grandchildren about the history of the 20th century. Moreover, for example, I did not see the Great Patriotic War at all, although my grandfather died in it.

But I witnessed other events that were no less important in the history of our country, and the whole world: perestroika, the first and second putsch, the war in Afghanistan, in Chechnya...

For some reason I remember a funny incident: one evening on the eve of the putsch on August 18, my friends and I were returning from a country picnic. Cheerful, well-fed, slightly intoxicated, we waited for almost two hours for the train at Monikino station, and meanwhile trains with military equipment and soldiers were moving towards Moscow. We joked, waved our hands to the soldiers, and at one point I said: “They are bringing too much equipment, Moscow is probably arming itself.” The next morning, my friend Victor, who was with us on the picnic, called and said in an eerie voice: “What have you done? What did you say on the platform when we were standing and waiting for the train? You said that Moscow was arming itself, so you croaked, that’s why the putsch, so turn on the TV and watch”...

Vladimir Tolts:

But Ilya Dadashidze is going to definitely talk about what didn’t happen.

Ilya Dadashidze:

For me there was an event of the 20th century - the death of Stalin. It turns out that we were all on the threshold of the Third World War, that Stalin was preparing it very hard, that if he had died a year later, it is quite possible that there would have been some Parisian city party committee and a district food store in some of the London districts. Because he was really preparing the seizure of Europe and only the Providence of the Lord seemed to prevent him, he died in time.

Therefore, for me, the greatest event of the 20th century is the event that did not happen.

Vladimir Tolts:

Mikhail Sokolov is a veteran of the Moscow Freedom Bureau. Misha started working for our Radio even when there was no bureau in Moscow.

Mikhail Sokolov:

I would say that I was luckier with the 20th century than my parents and grandfathers. First of all, I will tell my children and grandchildren about their broken destinies, about the civil war, exile, work. Nothing threatened me globally, except for the prospects of a rather dreary, stagnant life, if perestroika had not started, and later, somehow, a stray bullet on a Tskhinvali street at night. So it was the end of the century, wonderfully interesting years for a journalist and amazing people.

I would tell my children only one lesson: that the fate of millions is determined by the actions, sometimes even crazy ones, of a few and their choices. Russian publicist Ivan Solonevich wrote that if he had known on October 25, 1717 what would happen later, many strong people with revolvers, like him, would not have stayed at home.

I remember how, in August 1991, a company of tanks was led to the White House by a now forgotten captain without permission. It was then the president of the RSFSR who climbed onto his car, and the feeling at that time was that it was this act of the military man that frightened the State Emergency Committee more than the crowds of defenders of the White House. And only then Andrei Babitsky and I wandered through the offices of the White House, waited for the assault, pressing Yeltsin to the elevator, interviewed him, and I wrote the text of the presidential decree on the accreditation of Radio Liberty in Russia.

So on October 3, 1993, I also remember well how we drove through an empty, powerless, immense city. I remember the fleeing riot police, the crowd walking along Sadovoy to Ostankino and the frightened head of the First TV channel. I remember the ministerial office of Sergei Yushenkov, who called on the turntable, first to one figure, now an ally of Luzhkov, and then this KGB general, when asked directly what he advised to do, boldly answered: “Get out!” They called the government to Yegor Gaidar, Yushenkov convinced the first prime minister more than once or twice that they should not wait for the troops and gather people. He was in a revolutionary mood. Volodya Korsunsky and I stood nearby, shouted and pressed: they say, any more delay, and the fate of the Provisional Government, which no one began to defend, will repeat. Gaidar hesitated for half an hour and then went on television. People came to the Moscow Soviet, they managed to find a loyal company of tanks, and the government survived.

And then there was December 1993, the election headquarters of “Choice of Russia” on Nikitskaya, the shock of second place, the drunken Burbulis and the completely drunken Golovkov, and Chubais and Gaidar with their faithful wives ready to take the blow. In general, personal defeat can also be the price to pay for the country’s albeit unpleasant progress and for obvious courage...

So I will tell the children, after all, one person was able, by the will of Providence, to change the course of history, he just had to understand that he was in that very place, at that very hour, and he would no longer have another.

Vladimir Tolts:

Another veteran of the Moscow bureau is Andrei Babitsky, whom Mikhail Sokolov just mentioned. On duty, he risked his life more than once, visiting, it seems, all the hot spots of the former Union, from where he conducted his reports. But Andrei is going to tell his descendants about the 20th century, first of all, this is not...

Andrey Babitsky:

I don’t yet have the feeling of a watershed between two centuries; rather, there is a feeling of a change of eras. One era is associated with the 20th century, this is the era of Soviet power, the other era will be something completely different, obviously, other forms of power will triumph.

As for Soviet power, in relationships with my grandchildren and children, I imagine myself as Methuselah, a very ancient person who can testify to a unique, almost prehistoric form of life. The fact is, I experienced Soviet power as a personal misfortune, and its passing into oblivion for me is a certain kind of personal victory. Therefore, I will probably tell all sorts of funny stories related to the functioning of this government.

Well, by and large, I think that I can always ask a child, if he turns to me with some question: what this power was like, I can advise him to read Orwell’s novel “The Year 84” and then testify that all this is indeed true, that such a life existed.

Vladimir Tolts:

In group photos, someone from the family is always missing for the story: some are away, others are out of shape, others are busy. So in the Moscow bureau today there is neither its head Savik Shuster, nor the socially concerned Marina Katys, nor Lena Vishnevskaya, who is always in the know about the price of a pound of rubles today. They, like many others, are on vacation.

At the same time, family photographs often include guests who sometimes happened to be there at the time of the photograph. So, when we made this program, a lot of guests came to the Moscow studio. Some of them wanted to speak out about what they would tell their children and grandchildren about history. Poet Veronica Bode.

Veronica Bode:

Once, talking about our life in the 70s, I told my son that we poisoned some domestic insects with a powder called “DDT”, and he began to laugh terribly, because he decided that this powder was named after his favorite rock band, Yuri Shevchuk, the famous one. And this made me think for a long time, because how to explain to him that everything is exactly the opposite, that such times of postmodernism have come, is impossible to explain...

Vladimir Tolts:

And here is what former First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Boris Nemtsov intends to tell.

Boris Nemtsov:

I will tell my granddaughter (I think I will have a granddaughter, not a grandson) that it was the most interesting time not only in my life, but also in the life of my country, and that more exciting events than in Russia simply did not happen anywhere in the world at the end of the 20th century.

I will also say what I failed to do in high government positions. I will say this solely so that my children and grandchildren, firstly, know the truth about their careless relatives, and secondly, so that they do not repeat my mistakes.

Vladimir Tolts:

The last one in our historical photograph today is another respected guest of Freedom - the head of the “NDR” faction in the Duma, Vladimir Ryzhkov.

Vladimir Ryzhkov:

I won’t wait for my grandchildren, my daughter is still small, I can still use my thoughts about the 20th century for her, and when she grows up a little more and begins to understand a little more complex things than now, I will tell her:

Natasha, you know, our people in the 20th century decided to try to do two things: first, to abandon God; and second, to build an ideal society. Here are two such problems.

How did it end? We have lost a hundred million people. There is no God in the soul, a hundred million lives were given in the name of this chimera. And so we end the century in the same painful writhing in which we began it.

I will say: daughter, we must carry God in our souls and remember that man is weak, that there cannot be an ideal society. But only people who carry God in their souls and understand that man is weak and limited can create a truly at least slightly happy society.