Oleg Karelin. Our

Our
Oleg Karelin

Publication date: February 23, 2000

Moscow - territory 2000. - M.: GIF, 1999.

There are books that are difficult to define in any way. This is “Moscow - Territory 2000”, published with the support of the Association of Moscow Communities. What is collected under this cover is united only by a common theme, but not by form. The texts are completely diverse in style, in the manner of writing, in the degree of loudness and fame of the names presented, even in their approach to the topic stated by the title. This is probably how it should be when you write about something that is really close to you. Sometimes - closer than we would like. Moreover, for a trivial collection of texts (which are usually called mass graves), this book at times contains too much sincerity. Perhaps it would be more correct to call it simply a declaration of love for this city.

Such is the fate of the capital. It is different for everyone. Sometimes - indifferent. Because he doesn't believe in tears. But everyone has it. Some people are destined to stay there. Some people know her only by her radio and television call signs. Some of those who were born and raised here will never understand the city in which they happened to live.

Being, according to Miroslav Nemirov’s definition, a “Moscow resident” only in the last ten years, I, of course, could not ignore this book. Because much of it is close and experienced in its own way. I happened to grow up in a young Far Eastern city devoid of history, built on a swamp by Komsomol members and prisoners who were not very different from each other. Where far from the rarest books sometimes had to be ordered from the regional center (only a thousand kilometers away). The next step, like many others, is the search for oneself and one’s own home, in which the capital is an almost inevitable point. She is a test. She is life, which is seen through the prism of the cities where you happen to be.

"Moscow - Territory 2000" is exactly about this. For Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, this is the city of her childhood and her favorite literature teacher. Native St. Petersburg resident Andrei Bitov sees in her the embodiment of the feminine principle of Russia. For Vyacheslav Glazychev she is Rome #3. And she is also Babylon, Carthage, Tashkent, Israel, the semi-mystical Moscow outpost of Crimea, Tyumen and all other cities and countries of the world combined. A city that was largely created and is being created by the hands of visitors. No matter how much the native and not so Muscovites may reject this. And also the city where we live and love. Why you don’t need to be famous at all. Just being human is enough.

By the way, I completely agree with the words of one of the initiators of the creation of the Association of Moscow Communities, Sergei Kiriyenko, which prefaced the book. Society is made not by instructions, but by people. And telling a person where to live is, to put it mildly, wrong in our time. Observing politics as a spectator, and not as a participant, I am not inclined to assess how worthy Kiriyenko would be as a mayor of Moscow. But the position itself is certainly close to me. This means there are people close to her who are able to understand and accept her. Be it Muscovite Sergei Gandlevsky or Kiev resident Alexei Parshchikov, Kaliningrad resident Gennady Iosefavicius or “foreigner” from Almaty Aelita Zhumaeva, Ekaterinburg resident Alexander Shaburov or Crimean poet Igor Sid. All of them can be united by a simple word - ours. The concept has been almost forgotten since Soviet times. Those whom you recognize in the most godforsaken wilderness by a worthy book in your hands, by songs sung around the fire, by your ability to talk not only about money and business.

This gives rise to a strange, perhaps, desire not to touch upon the artistic merits of the book at all. Of course they are. The names already given allow the reader to assume at least a fairly serious level of the texts. But I don’t want to evaluate sincerity on any scale at all.

Just a few more words about two appendices to the book, which are quite valuable in themselves. Firstly, this is a color tab, the Museum of Homemade Things by Vladimir Arkhipov. The idea is quite obvious, but the execution deserves special pleasure. Perhaps only in Russia is this still possible. Eternal something from improvised means, but beautiful or useful in the household. Be it a shovel from a road sign torn off by a hurricane, a handmade vase from the remains of a samovar and a piece of plastic, or a mousetrap carved with a file from a strategic missile. And - important - simply the living speech of the author of the creation. Let us remember the words of Fellini: one must come to art as a provincial. In ordinary life too.

And one more application under the heading "Moscow - Babylon". A list of people “does not pretend to be complete or representative.” The purpose of which is to show what role visitors play in the life of Moscow. And the fact that any division into Muscovites and non-Muscovites, between indigenous residents and visitors is very arbitrary.

Or maybe the whole point is that I myself live in this city. Born in Belarus, twenty kilometers from the border with Poland. Lived in many cities from the Far East to Transcaucasia. And he knows Moscow better than many Muscovites. I love this city. To the point of pain. I love you, even when it starts to seem like the city hates me.