BOTTLE FOR LIKHACHEV

PRIVATE BUSSINESS

Actually, he was afraid. He did not like power, did not particularly trust her, having served time in Solovki, but he was afraid, never admitting this publicly. He worked hard and achieved a lot. He cared for Russian culture, for the preservation of the language, for respect for ...

Actually, he was afraid. He did not like power, did not particularly trust her, having served time in Solovki, but he was afraid, never admitting this publicly. He worked hard and achieved a lot. He cared for Russian culture, for the preservation of the language, for respect for the great heritage of the past, and was tolerant and sincere.

It wasn't his fault they needed a personality.

Sakharov was exiled, Solzhenitsyn was expelled (and he was not suitable in those years for an example and implementation of the national idea). Averintsev is generally non-public, quiet, religious, academic ...

And who could be found moderately critical, reasonable, decent, authoritative, modest, with a name, intelligent?

Yes, Likhachev Dmitry Sergeevich. Very good. Let him be the main proclaimed Russian intellectual. Let's be patient, if so. Is he tactful?

Tactful. He didn’t rush to Moscow, he didn’t intrigue, he had an apartment in St. Petersburg already at the Forestry Engineering Academy (further than the place from where Lenin, pretending to be a worker Ivanov, went to the revolution and was late). Wonderful wife, alone; two daughters. Oak sideboard, oak table, always white tablecloth, "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" with comments is good.

And he was a mandatory person: he didn’t really like to perform, but he performed. He realized, embarrassed, the role that he was assigned to in the poor life of the country, but he performed the function, observing that real efforts give results and he uses them sometimes and more than they do him.

Dmitry Sergeevich was a legalized bold example: here you are, you can be a decent person, achieve your own goals and at the same time understand. (But he suffered from the Soviet regime.)

What he really thought about this very power is little known. He was reluctant to talk about the ugliness of life. Only sad.

We sit in his office among books and manuscripts. In the yard, Brezhnev is building, Andropov's projects are being carried out regarding the benefits of the stay of dissidents in prisons for strengthening the unity of the country. And Dmitry Sergeevich about the western gardens that he loved, and the Russian culture that he defended ... Then he thinks and is silent for a long time, as if listening to how the alternative wraps around his site with two sleeves. It's bad, everything that happens is bad. He does not support all this, but he does not particularly argue either. He is not a warrior, what can I say.

He can describe the catapult and provide drawings anonymously, but making and shooting through the Kremlin fence is not his role. And it is not necessary!

He had common sense and helped where he could. (Thank you.) And where it was impossible, he sympathized. He knew, a good man, how to live. Yes, he lived. He retained his name and face and, taking advantage of his position and disposition, could successfully intercede for the impeccable.

The rulers have always been drawn to become comrades to those whom they have not appointed, but they themselves have achieved. Even fawning over them, observing, however, what they call dignity, they did not consider it shameful. He tolerated signs of attention with inherent politeness, with age, as if having learned to explain weaknesses, he left their strengths out of the brackets: treachery, bad taste, meanness, deceit, intolerance to a different way of perceiving the world.

Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev lived like a freeman. The enclosure was large, the fence pushed back, hidden in the woods or disguised as a hedge. Yes, he did not go to her. I did not think about it and was engaged in honest agriculture. There was enough to do.

And it would be foolish to provoke him to feats. He plowed and sowed. He had no passion for wrestling. I remembered a lot. And what he allowed himself to remember, he retold honestly. Evaluated accurately. Within the bounds of the enclosure. Like ourselves. And so it was important to listen to what he said and that his words matched ours. And that quite others listen to them, although they do not hear.

He lived with restraint, fully aware of his role, without destroying the image and rarely showing a lively and "wrong" feeling. In any case, few people outside the family saw it. He gave the impression of the right person, perhaps believing that his way influences the behavior of others. Although, probably, he missed living irregularities.

... There was some evening in his honor, organized not by him, of course, in the luxurious Moscow hotel "Aurora" on Petrovka. Round tables laid without economy, strangers and familiar with polite and excessive words at the pulpit (as in the White House). And an elderly far-sighted man with a wand, nodding politely at platitudes and tired of this work.

“Why don’t we, Dmitry Sergeevich, go up to the room, taking, without advertising, a bottle of wine!”

"Red," Likhachev perked up. “It’s not stealing, we could drink it here too…”

I took Bordeaux (and you thought?), My daughter took Dmitry Sergeevich, and went to the room.

We drank some wine and began to make plans for life, that is, conversations and filming. They said how nice it was in early autumn in Komarov, how much time we would have there.

Likhachev was sitting in an armchair, as he was at the reception - in a jacket, white shirt and tie. I just put on slippers and put my feet on the ottoman to rest. The socks were old, solid, thread, but the fact that the elastic bands were stretched was nothing. They were seized with safety pins and held tight.

... We did not meet in Komarov ...

That evening we probably drank his last wine and I took the last pictures of Dmitry Sergeevich.