How a Kommersant correspondent managed to add his modest torch to the full bowl of Vancouver fire

// Out of the game

with Andrey Kolesnikov

A Kommersant special correspondent begins a series of reports from Vancouver with the story of how he carried the Olympic torch and what happened to him in connection with it.

This whole story began six months ago, when the IOC allocated a quota in the Olympic relay for a Russian journalist. The IOC, after consulting with the Sochi 2014 organizing committee, offered me this quota, that is, a 400-meter torchlight procession across Canada. I didn't think long. Or rather, I didn’t think at all. That is, I refused. Joke.

Over the next six months, I filled out various forms. I told the IOC race committee more about myself than I have ever told anyone or even thought I would tell. My friend, who knows everything about me, would be surprised by at least half of this information. Such an abyss opened up there... With their letters and questionnaires, they took the whole soul out of me, but I didn’t even notice.

They asked about more than just work. In no case. They were much more interested in my not only family, but personal and generally private life. And all this hiding behind the flag of the Olympic ideals, which I, like all the other torchbearers, obviously had to comply with as fully as possible. In the end, I even wanted to write them a letter and say that I was refusing this honor, because with their endless interrogations they achieved their goal: they made me understand what a nonentity I really am.

And at that moment confirmation came from them: yes, we understood that you are exactly who you say you are, that is, you are suitable for us. The letter expressed the hope that I realize what an honor all this is for me personally and for my newspaper, and that I will be able to tell about this moment in my life not only to my children, but also to my grandchildren, so that the organizers are confident that that the editors will cover all travel and accommodation expenses in Vancouver. She accepted, sharing their burden with the Bosco company.

In the last letter, the organizers asked how I wanted to run: very quickly, quickly, not very quickly, slowly, walk, move in a wheelchair on my own, or use the help of a friend. It was tempting - to make the trip truly memorable for a lifetime - to choose the latter, but I did not want to begin serving the Olympic ideals with their betrayal.

I chose "not very fast".

A few days later, a package with a uniform arrived at my home (I indicated my sizes at the very beginning): a windbreaker, pants, a hat and mittens. Everything is shaped, white-green-blue and almost weightless. They tried to make this path as easy as possible for me, I understood.

The order was to arrive in the town of White Rock exactly at five in the morning. We arrived at 4.45. The journey from Vancouver took half an hour. We moved through a dark, gloomy town, in which traffic lights blinked, swaying in the wind, paper rustled on the asphalt, and the sighs of cats were occasionally heard. Low-budget horror films are shot in this town. We didn't meet a single person on the streets. The town was extinct, and this did not seem to me an exaggeration.

I no longer even thought about the fact that it was simply a disgrace to run with a torch through such a place, but consoled myself with at least the fact that while it was dark, the light of the torch would scare away the rats on the road (I believed that they were rustling on the asphalt after all, not wrapping paper).

We arrived at the school. The lights were off, like everywhere else in the city. I knocked carefully on the only door. They didn’t open it for a long time, I had already left, but then the locks clicked, and the old woman, I think a cleaning lady or a watchwoman, grumpily asked what I wanted here. I tried to explain to her that the torchbearers were gathering here, and she laughed in my face.

“Maybe they’re meeting somewhere else,” she said, relenting, “but not here, my friend.”

“But this is elementery skul, as it is written,” I objected cautiously.

“That’s right,” she nodded. “School.” But there are many of them here. It's a five-minute drive to the American border, you can see it from here. Maybe you'd be better off in America? Seattle is not far...

I didn't argue with her. I was just very sad. I imagined a celebration of world sports that was supposed to begin here, at least for me, and now I felt very sorry for myself, and I blamed myself for suddenly succumbing to some illusions that I thought I had abandoned long ago even in thoughts. And life is nothing like that.

And then he gave in. And here's the payback.

I wanted to leave, because there was clearly nothing to do here, I mixed something up or they didn’t matter... And then, one after another, cars began to drive up to the school, from which my clones began to jump out: people in the same white caps and Bolognese jackets and pants. I looked at my watch: 5.00. As scheduled. Another car drove up, a girl ran out, opened the school door with her key, turned on the lights, waved her hand to us all - and we found ourselves in the school gym, where a few minutes later her assistant brought and handed out 13 weighty torches.

The girl gave us all time to get to know each other, and I didn’t miss my chance. Since they put number 12 on my jacket, I first found number 11. It turned out to be an Indian, a top manager, as he put it, from White Rock (so I realized that people still live in White Rock). The Hindu was very worried. He transferred the torch from one hand to the other, leaned on it in terrible and irreparable thoughtfulness, until the girl reprimanded him. She explained that all the torches were handmade and that if they were twisted like he was, they could explode. As an example, she even dismantled one torch before our eyes, and I saw two copper tubes that led to a gas cartridge. Yes, we could turn out to be ambassadors of peace, or we could also be terrorists on a global scale - the same as the Olympics itself.

The girl explained to us the rules of behavior on the street during the race. The policeman used a special device to open the valve, gas flowed, and I had to light my torch from my colleague’s torch. Then, when I ran my four hundred, the same policeman blocked the gate (I would like to know how he would get there).

We were given a few more minutes of introspection, and I decided that since I was at the gym, I'd better warm up before the race. I began to actively warm up, which attracted the attention of my colleagues. Number 13 approached me. It turned out to be London journalist Martin Ziegler. He, too, one of all British journalists, was entrusted with the great honor as a representative of the country where the Olympics will be held.

We rehearsed with him the transfer of the Olympic flame. It's a shame we didn't do this with the Indian.

Then I asked the girl, our curator, if I could still buy a torch. The fact is that the organizers long ago proposed doing this in an online store especially for torchbearers, and I completely forgot about it and remembered it just before the trip, but then, of course, it turned out that the store closed seven days before the Olympics, then there is literally yesterday.

Previously, torches were given for nothing, but the Canadians confidently changed this tradition and asked for 400 Canadian dollars for a torch, and 99 for a stand for it. This girl, Marie, explained to me that she would try to help me, I just need to look for a credit card machine, where She had it just in case on the bus that would take us for a run. And in fact, she brought it. Only Visa was suitable for them, I had it.

But the bank received a categorical refusal. And on the second card, and on the third. All the torchbearers, without exception, were rooting for me. They all took care of themselves in advance in the online store and did not really understand why this strange Russian takes out and takes out cards from his wallet one after another, and they are all fake, or something, and it is not clear what he hopes for. And suddenly it became clear to me. I just arrived from Ukraine and used them there, but the bank considers this zone to be criminally dangerous for banking transactions and blocked them. That's how it turned out later.

The girl smiled guiltily, and then photographer Andrei Golovanov, who was nearby all the time, pulled out another card, his own, and, saving the honor of the homeland that issued it, offered to try it. When the payment went through and the check slowly came out, the torchbearers applauded wildly. Only Mr. Golovanov seemed not very happy. But still, in the future, he had, if the money that had not returned to him from me, then a torch.

We were put on a bus, decorated inside and out, like a Christmas tree, with garlands and beads. Marie tried to turn on the music, and it turned out that the loudspeaker installed on the roof was also working, and then turned it off (so as not to wake up anyone in the city, I guessed, but then they’ll drag you through the courts).

I thought with horror that we were now leaving on this bus full of torchbearers onto the central street along which we would run, and slowly, enjoying life and the glory that had fallen upon us, we were driving through an empty pre-dawn city that despised us with its infantile strength. sleep. Crazy bus with crazy torchbearers.

We turned onto the main street, and I shuddered. Along the road, as far as the eye could see, stood hundreds of people. The adults brought the children (or vice versa), all of them were wearing maple leaves and the colors of the national flag, each with a camera in their hands, or even two. They shouted something to us, clapped the sides of the bus approvingly, Marie turned the music up to full volume, but she could no longer be heard.

This is what happens when the hero of the film, tired, comes home without turning on the light in the hallway, dumps his shopping on the floor, opens the door to the bedroom to collapse into bed in his clothes and forget himself, and then the light turns on, three dozen people in the bedroom shout at him: "Happy birthday!!!" And he forgot.

So it is with us. The horror film was suddenly replaced by a sentimental melodrama. Yes, many wiped away tears. And on our bus, the torchbearer grandmother from Belgium cried her eyes out, and no one tried to calm her down, because it was clear: she was so happy.

The bus started dropping us off at a distance of 400 meters, like bushes; to be expelled directly into the human mass, where they were strangled in embraces and kissed, also to the point of suffocation, and photographed until they were blind. When my turn came, I became scared - it was like being the first to jump with a parachute, I wanted to stay on this bus, better forever, but Marie pushed me: go towards your happiness!

And so I went. I won't talk about it. I'll remember this. I will remember two red double-decker buses that passed me a couple of minutes before the Indian with a torch appeared, and from the very top of the bus some people shouted through a megaphone to the whole city that now I, Andrei Kolesnikov, a simple Yaroslavl guy, would run with the torch. I will remember the proud Indian, with whom we did not have time to rehearse, he ran with his head held high and with a brightly burning torch and absolutely, completely happy, did not notice anyone around, including me. He ran past me, although the police tried to stop him, he ran for another 50 of my meters, and was ready, I’m sure, to run to Vancouver and, with the same senselessly clear eyes, carry him into the Olympic stadium. And it seems that he really intended to do this.

Finally, the police firmly blocked his way and forced him to return, and he, proud and happy, returned to me, and we lit my torch. I ran, not feeling the country beneath me, and I was only thinking about not tripping, and all around me there was the same happy cry that was bursting from me, only no one heard my cry, because I was holding on.

I ran my four hundred, hugged the Englishman, gave him a light, and he rushed forward - and then I saw that my torch was still burning. The policeman apparently did not screw the plug in completely. And for some time I walked with this burning torch in the crowd, and they followed me, submitting to the flame.

Then, when they asked me if I dedicated this race to anyone, I said that, of course, to my children - Masha and Vanya, who practices jiu-jitsu, and that even after this torchlight procession I have something to fight for in life: It is necessary that jiu-jitsu be included in the program of the Olympic Games.

At Starbucks, where we stopped a few minutes later to wet my throat, which was dry even as we approached the school, they gave me coffee without queuing.

And without money.

"Kommersant Bosco Sport". Appendix No. 1 dated 02/11/2010, page 1

Authors:

Andrey Kolesnikov

Themes:

2010 Olympics in Vancouver

Alignment with the flame