Total demobilization

...two smart people

sat with a bottle of good wine

Alexander Aronov

Former Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government Alfred Koch and famous journalist Igor Svinarenko wrote one book between them. That is, according to the co-authors, they didn’t write, but chatted, talked into a tape recorder in the intervals between drinks and snacks. But in any case it turned out great.

Although the "Box of Vodka" is made very simply. Two friends are sitting, doing exactly what the title says. Naturally, they remember their youth: who worked where, who read what, who slept with whom, who drank what. Along the way, they are distracted by all sorts of historical events - well, Brezhnev’s funeral, the arrival of Andropov, the rise of Gorbachev. The process has not yet gone beyond Gorbachev - we have before us only the first volume, covering the period from 1982 to 1986 . It is not difficult to calculate that if the co-authors intend to continue to advance at this pace, they will never be able to complete it in less than four volumes. It is possible that after some time children at school will study this “War and Peace” as a textbook on Russian history - the everyday life of a Soviet person, something in the spirit of the “Annals”.

Although no, Koch and his accomplice will probably not be allowed to visit the schoolchildren. Because they swear a lot and preach polygamy. Well, the name again. It's a pity. Because it turned out very funny. It’s clear that people had a blast chatting with each other, and the readers got their share of the pleasure from the text.

Quoting “The Box of Vodka” is a difficult and thankless task. The co-authors discuss each episode at length, with taste, savoring the details. This is exactly the case when the cut does not give an adequate idea of ​​the whole - the atmosphere is lost.

Svinarenko: I also remembered an important event in 1985: one girl didn’t give it to me. This happened on July 10th.
Koch: Was this the first time this happened to you? You even remembered the date...
S.: No, not the first time, of course. And I remembered the date completely by accident, and that’s how it happened. And also, maybe because she did it with particular cynicism. Years have passed, and this girl calls me.
K.: Oh, fathers!
S.: He calls - he wants to get a job! Coming...
K.: And you tell her: “Remember, you didn’t give it to me?”
S.: “No, I said: “What selfish people you women are! Only for material gain! And when I was young, promising, poor...” I didn’t hire her. And I also shamed her.
K.: “And I don’t need all of you either.”
S.: No need. So what else did we have in ’85?
K.: Yes and nothing more.

For variety, all this is diluted with inserted short stories, anecdotes, journalistic essays, lyrical and philosophical digressions. Which are practically in no way inferior to the main text - the one about women and vodka. Events that changed the course of Russian history are interpreted in simple and accessible images to the mass consciousness:

S.: By the way, I now understand what capitalism and privatization are. Look: you and I had two fish, a small one and a large one. You immediately told me that small is cooler. I started eating it, thinking I could take another big piece from you. But you ate the big one faster than I ate the little one.
K.: No.
S.: I can see it.
K.: Here, eat some more. (Koch took out another small fish from under the newspaper.) Here, eat it. Two small ones are almost one big one.
S.: Oh, that is, you want to say that you carried out privatization honestly... Well, well...

He doesn't want to. Koch does not want to say that he carried out privatization honestly. In general, he doesn’t really want to talk about this topic, and not because he’s afraid or has nothing to say, but simply because he doesn’t want to. Not interested. The secret of this book’s charm is that its authors-heroes don’t need anything. Koch’s political career, after the unsuccessful SPS election campaign, is apparently over. According to him, he was also tired of doing business. Svinarenko - well, he actually achieved almost everything a reporter could dream of. So people say what they think, in the language in which they usually converse in the presence of vodka and roach.

And when Koch throws out: “ I don’t care what they write about me... I’m interested in the opinion of a very limited number of close people about me ,” you believe that this is “not an act, not a pose.” How can you believe that he mentions his childhood judo lessons not in order to hit on you-know-who ? Moreover, about the first person of the state, Koch-who-needs-nothing and his interlocutor allow themselves to talk in the same vodka-vobel manner:

S.: The meaning of 1983 is this: it was the first time a security officer came to power.
K.: Yes... It was like John the Baptist.
S.: I wanted to say “Baptist,” but I kept silent. And you blurted out without thinking.
K.: Why didn’t you think about it?
S.: Well, which security officer is the baptist?
K.: Well, you won’t deny that V.V. Putin is the Christ of the Russian land? Or are you against it? Look into your eyes, look into your eyes!
S.: Hey, you exiles are sick...
K.: Just, like, a savior...
S.: Perhaps, when comparing Putin with Christ, you want to say that both of them were doing something incomprehensible for most of their lives?
K.: And then immediately - oops, and the entrance to Jerusalem.
S.: Let’s say... And who then played the role of the donkey on which the entry took place?
K.: Pasha Borodin! Ha ha ha!..

And further, developing the same comparison between the Secretary General and the President:

K.: It is much worse and more dangerous for the nation as a whole, especially for such a law-abiding nation as the Russians, when a firm hand is not a firm hand. And deep down, in front of himself, a person understands this.
S.: Are you talking about Andropov?
K: I'm talking about another person now.
S.: Oh, there is such a person, and you know him.
K.: Yes, yes. And he probably understands deep down in his soul that he is not a steady hand. That this retinue plays a firm hand. But he doesn’t manage his retinue.
S.: A firm hand - like a handshake that is as firm as ever.
K.: And there are solid people in the retinue. Even if they are not very smart, they are firm... And then, in order not to fall face first in the dirt in front of the retinue, an unsteady hand begins to play a firm hand. And he usually overacts. Like that prosecutor with Voinovich, who was afraid that everyone would find out that he was kind, and, so that they would not find out, he handed down death sentences to everyone. And a strong person who knows for sure that he is strong does not need to appear strong. Understand?
S.: It’s like a fagot who demonstratively walks around whores.
K.: Well, this is a latent fagot. But real fagots do not hide the fact that they are fagots.

Having warmed up on Putin and the special services, the interlocutors get to religious issues. The views of the Orthodox Koch on these problems are so unorthodox that even the atheist Svinarenko begins to argue:

S.: Gluttony is a mortal sin!
K: Where is this written? The monks wrote this! The Lord didn't talk about this.
S.: Come on! To listen to you, the Lord only meant for you to drink, smoke, run after women and generally not deny yourself anything.
K.: He definitely didn’t say anything about smoking anywhere.
S.: Well, yes, in your opinion, do what you want, stand on your head...
K.: ...just love people - that’s all. And do not forget your Lord. That's all!
S.: Well, well...

Next on the list of targets are politically correct America, thieving Russia, Hollywood with black cowboys, Chumak fans, whom Koch proposes to limit their voting rights, etc. Having gone through the entire mournful list, you understand another feature of this book: “A Box of Vodka” is a dialogue between normal people. They distinguish between black and white, they know what is good and what is bad, they understand the difference between a scoop and freedom. In short, they don’t argue about those things with which everything is already clear - a rare quality, it must be said, especially in recent times.

It is no coincidence that in the conversation between Koch and Svinarenko the name of a character emerges who in Russian literature of the 20th century precisely personifies the concept of norm, including everyday life:

K.: The table at which I wrote my thesis was a gap between a bookcase and a window sill - I filled it with the bottom of a crib and felt great there! The oilcloth is lying, the pieces of paper are laid out, the typewriter is standing, the light bulb is shining...
S.: After we learned that Nabokov wrote his immortal works while sitting on a bidet in a shared bathroom (his son Dmitry told me), what right do we have to complain about our everyday difficulties?
K.: But in a communal apartment you cannot follow Nabokov’s example for two reasons: firstly, there is no bidet there.
S.: Yeah. “They didn’t shoot because, firstly, there were no shells.”
K.: But there is another reason, and it is also a good one: the neighbors could give a piz...ley. For occupying the bathroom all night.
S.: And now how many bidets do you have here at your dacha?
K.: I have two bidets here. So I, as a writer, can safely occupy one bidet. I can even sit on the toilet.
S.: How many toilets do you have at the moment?
K.: Now I’ll count... One, two, three... Four, five, six...
S.: But you write not on them, but in the kitchen.
K.: No, I must disappoint you: I’m writing in my office. You know, I write in the office, operate in the operating room, and have lunch in the dining room.
S.: Ha ha ha. Purely professor, b... Preobrazhensky!
K.: Yes, I returned to this ideal, to this primitive old-fashioned scheme. I didn’t invent the bicycle and I don’t want to invent it. I try to shit on the toilet, sleep in the bedroom, work out in the gym, and swim in the pool.
S.: But Professor Preobrazhensky, unlike you, did not have his own swimming pool...

Koch and Svinarenko are standard right-wing liberals. The main problem of Russian liberalism is that its adherents do not know how to speak their own language: they are either embarrassed or afraid that the people will not understand. Hence their love - some out of obligation, some sincere - for various kinds of monstrous rattles: “social justice”, “honorable duty”, “strong state”. In this regard, "Box of Vodka" is an example of adequacy. The book sets the language for self-determination of liberals, outlining the boundaries and revealing the structure of liberal discourse in relation to today's Russian reality.

To be convinced of this, it is enough to read Alfred Koch’s essay “Demobilization,” which concludes the book, which amusingly rhymes with the cycle of “Jungerian” reflections of the famous “conservative” publicist Yegor Kholmogorov, “ Total Mobilization .” Here the whole difference between statists and liberals is in full view, and it turns out to be extremely simple, no clever words or complex theories are needed.

Some believe that all people from birth are at their undivided disposal and are just waiting for someone to line them up in orderly ranks and send them to a collection point. “To clarify itself, Russia should invent a war,” Kholmogorov drops melancholy. The simple thought that I may have slightly different plans for the future, into which the war for the phantoms born of the fevered imagination of a kitchen commando does not fit into, simply does not occur to the thinker.

Second... “You don’t owe anyone anything,” Koch insists. You were deceived, you were lied to, go home, independently, according to your personal project, build a future for yourself and your children.

They don't disperse. They are not building. They are still trampling around the recruiting stations, inventing more and more new enemies for themselves and rummaging around with their eyes in search of a pillbox to fall on.

The best description of this situation was given back in the 60s by the writer Boris Balter, author of the wonderful story “ Goodbye, boys! ”:

In the army, I often had to sacrifice personal desires to the demands of service. This gradually became a habit. Over time, I began to like subordinating my life to oath and duty: each time I did this, I felt more acutely my need and importance. When, many years later, I was discharged from the army and asked the colonel at whose disposal I was being sent, the colonel replied: “To your own.” I have never heard anything more terrible than these words.

Kholmogorov claims that “Russia has remained a warring state for almost 10 years now.” Alas, this is indeed so. There is a cold civil war in the country between those who look at people as tin soldiers and those who tell them: "Wake up. You are free. Free, free, free at last." Between those who shout "Yes, death!" and those who, coming home from work, put on a CD: “ To hell with the war, fuck it! - Wife and a bottle of wine at home... ”

The book by Koch and Svinarenko is a story about people who have learned to live without war. About our future?

PS Introducing Koch to readers, Svinarenko writes:

While they were talking, I was still worried: I would suddenly lose my temper and tell him everything that I began to think about him in the spring of 2001 - when they put pressure on NTV. I didn't lose my temper. He answered all my questions about that scandal exhaustively. Oddly enough, he answered these questions of mine.

But mine don't. Moreover, in fact, both then and now I have only one question for Alfred Reingoldovich. The same one that, according to legend, Vladimir Kara-Murza asked Oleg Dobrodeev that night in the Ostankino corridor: “Tell me, do you even understand that you are working for goats?” I don't know if such an episode actually happened. But I want to ask Koch exactly about this.