How "Interlocutor" made history

And I think: when the anniversary fog clears, what will remain? Time is so fleeting, and memory is so selective that only the best remains “for later”. The very first. The sharpest. The most daring thing. The funny thing is. The most bitter thing... I, as the editor-in-chief of Sobesednik with 20 years of experience, was very lucky, because the newspaper was always rich in both sensational materials and talented journalists. And today, on three pages in a row, we decided to focus only on those notes and those heroes who left a strong mark in the memory and, I hope, became bright pages of modern journalism. Read, remember, envy.

Perhaps this is the main advantage and main advantage of “Interlocutor”: to do what others cannot, to see what others do not want to see, to write in a way that others cannot.

Yuri Pilipenko.


2006 Putin's first love

“Interlocutor” managed not only to find Vladimir Putin’s first love, Vera Fedorovna Brileva, but also to persuade her to remember the details of their relationship.
They met in 1969, when the Putins bought a dacha in Tosno. He was 16 years old, Vera was 14. She liked his neighbor right away: “Even though Vova was short, the girls just jumped on him: “Oh, Volodya! Oh, Volodya! For some reason he attracted us. Probably with his charm." Putin, in turn, did not remain indifferent to her hard work and blond curls. By the way, according to Brileva, Putin always liked blondes exclusively.

Vera and Volodya's first love developed according to all the laws of the genre. Moreover, he was going to marry her, but his parents allegedly thought it was “too early.” And in the end their paths diverged. She admitted to our newspaper that their union was to a certain extent hindered by her pride, as well as the fact that she and Vladimir Putin were “completely different people”: “I read that Lyuda waited for him in the subway for two hours. I'm not like that." Vera Brileva is unfamiliar with Lyudmila Putina, but speaks well of her: “She’s great. Volodya is one of the breed of men who need to marry. She managed to do this. I like her." Interlocutor correspondent Dmitry Titorenko managed to persuade Vera Fedorovna to open up.

– Dima, by the time your interview was published, Putin had already been president for 6 years and everything possible had been dug up about his past. How did you manage to find your first love?

“Finding Vera Fedorovna turned out to be no easy matter. She got married, changed her last name, and moved from Tosno to St. Petersburg. But the world is not without good people. Through joint efforts, Vera Fedorovna was found. She didn’t want to stir up the past, much less something like this. But I would not be a journalist if I had not persuaded her to give a sincere confession. Vera Fedorovna received me at her home, set a luxurious table (although she lives more than modestly). I had to extract the information bit by bit, but the result was worth it.
– Were you not reproached for lifting the veil of the president’s personal life?

– A discussion has started on the newspaper’s website – journalists are already delving into the personal life of the country’s leader: whether this is right or not. If the material is discussed, this is an indicator that the material did not leave anyone indifferent. This is the most important thing for a journalist.

– Did this meeting influence your future in the profession? After all, you were a very young man then, just starting to make a career.
– Soon after this material I was invited to work for NTV. Now I am the chief producer of the Russian Sensations program. It is impossible to do something similar on television due to various nuances. This is why you begin to appreciate working at Sobesednik even more, in a newspaper where you can write about what others don’t write or talk about. For your courage - respect to the newspaper! And happy anniversary!

Ekaterina Barova.

1989 Waiting for Solzhenitsyn

The communists are still in power, but perestroika is already on the streets. In February, a decision was made to place the previously forbidden Solzhenitsyn’s books from a special fund on the shelves of libraries, and already in April, the first interview with the writer’s ex-wife Natalya Reshetovskaya appeared in Sobesednik.
Reshetovskaya spoke for the first time about whether Solzhenitsyn was an informer (more likely no than yes), how he expected to be arrested in 1965 (with folded arms) and why he gave the go-ahead to print “Archipelago” in the West (there was nothing to lose). A large two-page material entitled “In a Dispute with the Strong” was prepared by special correspondent for Sobesednik (and now political commentator for Radio Liberty) Mikhail Sokolov.

– Was it difficult to get an interview on such a seditious topic in a Komsomol publication like Sobesednik then?
– 89th is not 87th. At that moment, something could already be pushed through. Moreover, this was a conversation not with the exile himself, but with his first wife, who also published a book with facts speaking against the writer. In any case, it seemed so to the functionaries then, although people reading pulled out quotes from her book that spoke more in favor of Solzhenitsyn.

– What did they take out of your article? Was there a big response?
– To be honest, after the interview with Rybakov about “Children of the Arbat” in 1987, there were more responses. At that time, I had whole boxes of letters in my office. But this time there were enough letters. Very different.

– Has your attitude towards Solzhenitsyn changed?
– I read his books even before the ban was lifted - I had access to the special storage facility. And already in 1989 I disagreed with him in many respects: I am a Westerner, he is a Slavophile. But his contribution to the fight against communist ideology was significant. This is undeniable.

Together with Solzhenitsyn, his first wife Natalya Reshetovskaya went down in history. She died in May 2003, five years before the writer’s death, but her prediction, made in an interview with Sobesednik, still came true. Even with interest. In it she said: “I always believed that Solzhenitsyn’s books would return to their homeland.” Following the books, Solzhenitsyn himself returned.

Oleg Roldugin.

1997 The Terminator Didn't Sell Us

At the end of October 1997, together with my comrades from the TV program “Top Secret” - journalists Mikhail Markelov and Dmitry Novoselov, I flew to Grozny. It was a rather rare period when we seemed to have made peace with Chechnya and a supposedly new life began there.

Officially, the republic was ruled by President Maskhadov. In life, it’s all and sundry. Field commanders had a special status. And although one of them, the most famous, Basayev, held the post of prime minister, this did not change the essence. The militant was all there. A civilian is nothing. Although, of course, it depends on what kind of civilian you are. If you are visiting, with a name, and even with money, or at least a representative of a well-known office or company, you are welcome. People are a commodity for which they paid a lot of money right in the city center - in cash, at the bazaar.

It so happened that we ended up with Salman Raduev, the “hero” of Kizlyar and Pervomaisky, the son-in-law of Dzhokhar Dudayev, the main leader of the separatists, who by that time had already been sent to the best of worlds. Raduev was nicknamed the Terminator because of his eyes. Or rather, for his eye, which he lost after a special forces sniper blew off part of his skull with an explosive bullet, and the virtuoso surgeon managed to patch up his head with a titanium plate, built his nose out of plastic, and his eye, of course, out of glass. Raduev himself wore black glasses and styled himself a brigadier general and commander of Dudayev’s army. We asked for a visit, said that we had recently flown to Afghanistan, where we met with the legendary Ahmad Shah Masoud, learned a lot of interesting and instructive things... This immediately interested the home-grown militant, and after some hesitation, he received us in his two-story mansion on the outskirts of the city. There, the Terminator regained his health and strength, surrounded by his wife Lida, tiny sons Dzhokhar and Zelimkhan, as well as the always formidable Vakha Jafarov, a criminal with extensive experience and chief of staff at the same time. The modest estate was guarded by militants armed with machine guns.

Raduev gave us coffee, fed us barbecue and happily, it seemed to us, began talking about his “exploits” and no less shocking plans for the future. For dessert, he suggested meeting the “nice ladies” who blew up the railway stations in Armavir and Pyatigorsk. We were stunned: what about Dadasheva and Taimuskhanova, who seemed to have been detained by the special services? “No,” said the Terminator, “they are not the heroines at all, but these modest women. Admire!” The flames of fire began to glow on the well-fed cheeks of the terrorists. “I swear on the Koran: Russian special services arrested innocent girls! I affirm: they blew up the station on my orders!” - the restless Raduev assured us, who somehow did not welcome the nickname Terminator, but was thrilled with pleasure when someone called him... Goebbels.

The performance was being played out, but we didn’t show it. This, it seems to me, saved us from the stinking zindan, and our editorial offices from the tearful collection of millions for the ransom of their journalists. After all, on the way to the airport, the people of another “fiery fighter for the freedom of Ichkeria” - Arbi Barayev - tried to attack us. He specialized in the modern slave trade and did not want to miss what seemed to be real booty. (Enteveshnikov Elena Masyuk and the guys had been bought out by Berezovsky by that time.) And we were detained according to the classic scheme: the car “broke down” halfway, a Volga with tinted windows drove up, unambiguous-looking guys with weapons got out. But at the most critical moment, we still managed to contact Raduev and remind him whose guests we were after all...

The law of hospitality in Chechnya is a holy law. We were released. The Terminator rushed to the airport with two jeeps of submachine gunners and personally escorted us to the ramp of the scheduled plane.
Vakha Jafarov was killed a year later near a local television center in a shootout with Maskhadov’s people. Salman Raduev was arrested in 2000 during his last night in his homeland - right in his underpants, a few hours before flying to Turkey, where his wife and children were not waiting for him. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, assigned to Solikamsk - to the White Swan zone, where he died under very strange circumstances. They put a cross on his unmarked grave...

Mikhail Serdyukov.

1992 Daria Aslamova: We made peace with Abdulov

“Notes of a Mean Girl” by Dasha Aslamova was the first erotic bomb to explode the still quite chaste newspaper space. Moscow trembled - 23-year-old journalist Aslamova spoke about how, having arrived to conquer the capital during the era of perestroika, she met and entered into a love affair with men whose names appeared in the press almost every day. Among the heroes of the novel “little Dasha” were State Duma Speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, democrat Nikolai Travkin, and actor Alexander Abdulov.
In the preamble to the article, the editors allowed themselves to clarify: “I would like to emphasize: Aslamova’s notes have nothing to do with politics or the professional sphere of the heroes.”
We found a special correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda, Daria Aslamova, in Strasbourg, where she was carrying out another editorial assignment.

– Dasha, do you even remember the famous table in the editorial office?
“This table has gone down in history. Then there was a dark period in my life. I was fired from Komsomolskaya Pravda for not attending work. I wrote “Memoirs of a Mean Girl” and tried to fit it into a bunch of publications. Everywhere they refused, saying that it was too dangerous. I called Dima Bykov, to be honest, on a whim. Like, there is such an article. He says: “Cool, let’s bring it.” I brought it, and they immediately decided to print it. In the editor-in-chief’s office they laid me, stretched out to the full length of my legs, on the table for a photo.

- Of course, no one has reprinted it along with your legs!
- It was very funny. Western publications, including the English The Independent, wrote: they say that it is absolutely obvious that this article is a dirty trick by Yeltsin’s entourage, which made PR for itself in the Sobesednik newspaper. The surroundings, of course, were nothing like a dream. But “Interlocutor” gave me a start in life. This is my, one might consider, Komsomol voucher.

– Do you remember that some of the heroes of the article got into a big scandal?
– Alexander Abdulov was the most furious. But seven years passed, I called and said: “My name is Dasha Aslamova. Can I interview you? I thought he was going to beat me, but he said: “Come right now.” We made peace with him. He officially declared in Komsomolskaya Pravda: “I have forgiven Dasha.” I didn't interact with other characters.

– You eventually became a famous writer, published the book “Notes of a Mean Girl”...
– I have five books published. The adventures expanded, grew and became better. “Sweet Life”, “Love is like War” - the titles of the latest books. I stopped writing them when I met my second husband, the famous Croatian journalist Robert Valdetz. I'm done with my criminal past.

– So now you’re not a “mean woman” at all?
- Deeply decent. When a woman's body is satisfied, her head begins to work.

Svetlana Khrustaleva.

1995 Sorry for our “Mother”...

In 1995, I was the leading editor of the April Fool's issue, which Sobesednik always does with special passion.

People responded to many of our jokes in a manner that was not childish, but to the one described, perhaps, the most serious reaction followed. I decided to make a parody insert in the issue - a newspaper about the current moment, written with extensive inclusions of Russian obscenities. Because the time was, if you remember, such that the only adequate language to describe it was swearing.
I invited my friend, the now famous publicist Alexander Nikonov, to be a co-author: he had just released a very touching autobiographical novel “The X ... book”, he mastered swearing artistically and even compiled a small witty dictionary of the best expressions. We quickly composed a hoax about Lenin’s newly discovered obscene notes on Kautsky’s books, an obscene article about the prospects for the domestic economy, and an equally obscene review of cultural events...

Swearing was everywhere then - collections of swearing ditties were sold on every corner, the book “Russian swearing” was on trays in the city center - and it seemed to us that everything would work out. It didn’t work out: a criminal case was opened against us under Art. 206, part 2 (malicious hooliganism). Soon Nikonov was arrested, and then me. We were placed in the temporary detention center of the 64th police station, not far from our native editorial office.

The journalistic community was influential then, they listened to it, several pickets were staged in our defense, there was a noise, we were actively defended by Yunna Moritz, Alexander Kushner, Yuliy Kim, Rustam Ibragimbekov and many other wonderful people, public defenders at the trial were Andrei Sinyavsky and Maria Rozanova, as well as Eduard Limonov. The judge decided to change the preventive measure, and two days later we left. True, the process dragged on for another two years. And at the beginning of 1997, the case was generally decriminalized, because only violent actions were considered hooliganism under the new Criminal Code. But we didn’t force anyone to read our newspaper.

I can’t help but bow to my lawyer Evgeny Shalman and Nikonov’s lawyer Andrei Rakhmilovich. And also to the editor-in-chief of Sobesednik Yuri Pilipenko, who demanded - personally, on his own initiative - to be brought in as a co-defendant. Such things, you understand, are not forgotten. This threatened him with many things, including restrictions on traveling abroad, but he insisted on his own and was acquitted along with us.

In general, I won’t forget a lot of things. Including several colleagues who refused to sign a letter in our defense because they also really didn’t like the swearing. These moral, pure people can always count on my deep gratitude.

But seriously speaking, I deeply repent of what I did. Deeper and more serious than you probably think. Not because I stopped loving Russian swearing or changed my attitude towards our joke at that time. But because I temporarily forgot in 1995 where I live. Since then I have tried to remember this. Our joke at that time was not worth what my family went through because of it (the old people were still alive), and it was not worth my mother’s gray hair either. No poems, novels or journalistic investigations have ever obscured this story; I am reminded of it at every opportunity.

I'm very ashamed. I would never repeat this joke. When you live in such a spiritual country as ours, you must always remember the power of the printed word.

Dmitry Bykov.