Theater, sports, Ordynka

Continuing the series of conversations “Adults” with classics - scientists, cultural figures, public figures who have become national treasures - we talked with the famous sports journalist and writer Alexander Nilin. Interviewed by Lyubov Borusyak.

Lyubov Borusyak: Today we are visiting Alexander Pavlovich Nilin, a famous sports journalist and writer. Now he has a new two-volume book out, but in general he is the author of more than ten books, and mostly they are all about sports: “Sports Interest”, “Red Car”, etc. Alexander Pavlovich is the son of the wonderful writer Pavel Nilin, whom many people do not very young people remember him from his novel “Cruelty,” which, like the film adaptation, enjoyed enormous popularity among the mass reader. In addition, Alexander Pavlovich was his own man for many years in the famous Ardov house on Ordynka, where Akhmatova often visited and lived. At first, Alexander Pavlovich wanted to become an actor, but then life changed and he went into journalism.

Alexander Pavlovich, in your memoirs, which are called “The Modigliani Line,” you describe that your circle, your friends, including those from the Horde, dreamed of glory from a young age, and you too. Why was there such an attitude toward fame and success?

Alexander Nilin: Yes , because we all had parents in public professions. I just want to make a small correction. Everything you said is wonderful, but not entirely accurate, and this is important for the plot, in my opinion. I wasn't actually a sports journalist. I’ll now tell you an interesting story from life, and then you will understand why everyone wanted fame, and whether everyone wanted fame. Some later became famous, but not all of them - everyone failed.

So, I was not a sports journalist. Since I didn’t want to study at university...

L.B.: And at school too?

A.N.: Yes, and at school too. Just after the theater institute, getting into an ordinary student environment was no longer very interesting. I didn’t come from the first year, I came in the middle. I’m used to a theater institute, where there are twenty people in each course, and the whole institute is at most eighty, and you know everyone. Therefore, at the university, at the Faculty of Journalism, it was not very interesting for me. And I got there largely by accident. In “The Modigliani Line” I tell you that there was such a very good person - the director of the Moscow Art Theater School, Veniamin Zakharovich Radomyslensky. Everyone knows him, all the artists studied with him, and we all owe something to him. Firstly, it is very difficult to get there, so, of course, everyone has a feeling of being chosen at the first moment. Secondly, at some point I was very praised. It was undeserved, but it was praised.

It was then that a new theater, the Sovremennik, was just beginning. This was not a theater yet - it was a studio. He was so unknown that when I saw Oleg Efremov at the exams - I think it was the second round - I only knew that he was in the Children's Theater and that he had some kind of studio. When he asked me how old I was, and I was seventeen, I went out into the corridor and thought: “They probably won’t take me here, but they’ll take me to him.” It seemed to me that it was a lower rank, some kind of studio, because I knew nothing about it. But then it turned out that he was a teacher at this institute and had to recruit a course for the new theater. It didn’t work out very well then; he was just a senior teacher.

The head of the course was the great director - Mikhail Nikolaevich Kedrov. Nobody remembers him now, but he is a huge figure in the Russian theater. He was the director of the Art Theater, and I consider him one of the best directors. The time when I talked with him a little gave me a lot. For some reason, he didn’t exactly like me, but his daughter studied in our course, and she told him about me at home. That's why he often stopped me in the corridor, and we talked. “Often” - I’m exaggerating a little, because he came once a month. I still remember how I talked to him, and I had the feeling of a very great actor. And he really was a famous actor, one of the first figures of the Art Theater - everyone just forgot about it.

The head of our course was Alexander Mikhailovich Karev, a wonderful theater teacher. Almost all of our famous actors studied with him. I will tell you a lot of famous names, and everyone studied with Alexander Mikhailovich: Igor Kvasha, Sasha Lazarev, Tanya Lavrova, Alla Pokrovskaya, Slava Nevinny. But he didn't love me.

In the new theater they wanted to arrange everything in a new way. Efremov liked me as material: I seemed very funny to him. That's why he always patronized me. And until the end of his life - then we no longer collided at work - he could not change his attitude towards me. I remained in his memory as a funny young man from whom he wanted to mold into a comedian. He thought that my business was comedy, and I didn’t really want to play comedic roles, because I was in love with a girl from my third year, Tanya Andrikanis, whom everyone later recognized as Tatyana Lavrova. And she was the wife of Yevgeny Urbansky. It seemed wrong to me: this one is a hero, and I am Petrushka.

L.B.: Was it difficult to compete?

A.N.: Yes. I was somehow not very attracted to the comedic side. And Efremov said that this was just mine, that everyone would laugh: he came out and smiled, and so on... Well, and then everything didn’t go very well. I tell it as a plot, from which much will be clear later. I already understood that from a person on whom such hopes seemed to be pinned, I became almost the last student of the course. This always happens in theatre, art, literature: a person thinks that if something has been achieved, then it is forever, and you can stop. In fact, it's for life. Now a person starts doing something, and until the very last second his reputation can change many times. And I lost interest.

L.B.: Why?

A.N.: Because I was not yet very ready for that study. If I did it now, it would be much easier for me. And then I was confused at the first difficulties. I have always done poorly at school, but this is, after all, an institute - there are many general education subjects here, and I do poorly in all of them. I look - everything is bad, I finish the second year - and I already understand that I am not the main person, but in fact no one.

I go up to Efremov and say:

- Maybe I should leave?

Oleg was not in the mood and said:

- Well, go away!

Then I realized that such questions are not asked. If you come to the theater, you need to fight for your place. What is it like to leave in case of any failure: if you didn’t like it - you left, if you doubted - you left?! Efremov believed that it was incorrect to ask such things. You work and fight for your place, otherwise why come to the theater? I didn’t fully understand this then, so I went to Radomyslensky:

- Veniamin Zakharovich, I’m probably leaving.

And he was a very good person and, apparently, strongly doubted my acting future. He asked:

-Where do you want to go, my friend?

“I’ll go to VGIK,” I said.

And Radomyslensky:

- Well, I hope, my friend, what about the directing department?

And Radomyslensky did something that is never done. He said:

- Fine. I'll give you a staff position, and you can transfer with it.

And they gave me a staff position. It was a very broad gesture that I cannot forget. But somehow it didn’t work out with VGIK either. Probably, we should have shown more patience there too. In general, I found myself in a stupid situation; the only thing left was the university, the Faculty of Journalism. It was not a good idea to go to the physics department. And here there were similar objects, and the help of Veniamin Zakharovich turned out to be decisive.

L.B.: Didn’t you consult with your parents?

A.N.: Of course, this theater institute seemed stupid to my parents. It wasn't even discussed. What kind of theater is there? However, no one was happy about the Faculty of Journalism. But it’s better than on the street - after all, I studied at the university. Of course, the Faculty of Journalism was not considered the most important faculty at that time, but I did not take the philology department in my preparation. I started studying journalism, but somehow it didn’t work out very well there either. First of all, I didn't write anything. Only in practice, I wrote several notes in the large-circulation newspaper “Moskovsky Zheleznodorozhnik”, and when I returned, I was already praised. And I was so lacking in praise, I was already lost in this life without encouragement. Moreover, there is also Ordynka...

L.B.: ... and it was necessary to present something there.

A.N.: At Ordynka they treated me well even without it. I just came there one day... and stayed. We lived nearby, so every day my friend Borya Ardov, my youngest son, with whom I started studying at the theater, came to see me every day, and he continued to study there. Before that, I came for him - we went to classes in the morning. We didn’t really have to go anywhere – everything was nearby. But everyone had already made their way somewhere by that moment. Misha Ardov, in my opinion, had already finished studying, he was older. Misha also had great doubts. He worked in the humorous program “The Cheerful Sputnik”, was an administrator at some point - he also didn’t really understand what to do next. But he has already graduated from the Faculty of Journalism. Why did I actually go there? – Because there were many acquaintances there, but they had already finished studying. And when I arrived, I had no one left there.

When I was praised after practice, I said to myself: “Well, I’ll stay for now.” Before that, I kept thinking that I would go somewhere. Well, at least there should be some encouragement in life. And after practice, they seemed to somehow praise me. Well, it’s clear that I won’t go to Ordynka to tell you that I was praised for participating in a large-circulation newspaper. Those weren't the kind of people there. When many years ago Alexei Batalov was not doing very well - his eye hurt - I had a conversation with him in Nedel. I asked him:

- Lesha, when there was such great fame, how did you live in the first days?

He answered me:

- Of course, I woke up with happiness that everyone loved me, but at the same time, who is greater than Akhmatova? Well, what is my glory compared to this?..

L.B.: But still, his fame was fantastic.

A.N.: Fantastic, but he understood that Akhmatova was superior. We all understood that there was something else. Why am I lucky with Ordynka? These are not only anecdotes, jokes, everyone tells something wonderful: Viktor Efimovich, the same amazing Batalov. Not in this case. We children - myself included - still did not really understand the very meaning of Akhmatova, but we felt that this was something greater than our understanding. We all already understood that there is some other life that is not written about in the newspapers, that the world is not so simple, that they gave you the Stalin Prize - and you are already something of yourself. Maybe we formulated it differently than we do now, but we already understood that the Soviet government values ​​something else, and that there is something huge beyond all this. Akhmatova herself once told a story about how she read some of her work to Pasternak, and he said:

- Yes, great. But, in my opinion, this is part of something huge.

And Akhmatova realized that he was going to write this huge thing himself.

This formula itself is remarkable, that there is something huge, bigger than us. Therefore, all my microscopic successes were not very important. Except that I stayed at the university and realized that there was no need to rush anywhere. Then there was the next practice - and I suddenly saw that I was already in my fourth year. And there it is already easy to study - all the difficult subjects are over.

L.B.: Were you already interested in sports in your youth?

A.N.: I was interested in sports, but not fanatically. Yes, of course, I loved football, but to say that I was such a fanatical fan, collecting badges and so on - no, that was not the case.

L.B.: Many people loved football then.

A.N.: Everyone loved me, I was also very interested in football. And then, I lived on Begovaya - many football players lived next to me. But that wasn't the main thing for me. In my fourth year, I again began to feel euphoric, like at the beginning of the Studio School, that I was the most important student.

L.B.: Did you really become one?

A.N.: I didn’t become one. It’s just that, as Professor Zapadov said well, the requirements for higher education have dropped so much that even such a lazy person as Sasha Nilin is considered one of the best students of the faculty. This was very relative praise. By this time I had already learned how to pass exams - after all, before that I studied at the theater institute for two years. I know - I don’t know, but I always ring out something, creating the impression of a thinking student. In my fourth year I already had all the “A” grades.

I took a free visit, which made everyone in the training department laugh: they say he doesn’t go, but he also officially wants not to go. But then I made one mistake - I didn’t sign up for the special seminar, because I didn’t even know that it existed. It's like studying at a conservatory and not practicing vocals. This is a major subject, but I didn’t know that you had to specially sign up for it. And it wasn’t me who was scared, but the training part, because this is a colossal overhead. How can you study at the Faculty of Journalism and not take a special seminar when you only have a year left to study?!

L.B.: What special seminar, in what subject could you register?

A.N.: Some take a special essay seminar, some take a theater criticism seminar, or somewhere else. And in the training department they told me:

- Listen, there is this Boyko, she conducts a seminar on essays - she really praised you for your practice. Approach her and she will take you to her seminar. I walked up, confident that everyone knew me, and said:

- Hello, can I sign up for your seminar?

And she told me:

-Are you crazy? People sign up for the seminar in September, and now it’s February.

It turns out that she didn’t know me by sight. Then she said:

- Well, he at least introduced himself, said what his last name was, I would take him. And then some guy came up with a stupid smile and said that he was going to sign up for the seminar. I didn’t understand him and replied that I should have signed up earlier.

And there was only one seminar left - sports journalism, for which no one signed up at all. And it was led by the editor of Soviet Sport, Novoskoltsev, he was the son-in-law of Pospelov, a very famous party functionary. He didn't want to go to university, and he said:

- Come to classes at “Soviet Sport”, to the editorial office.

Well, I came there. He said that I needed to write a term paper:

- Take the newspapers and look.

That’s why, when it came to graduating from university, I was called to “Soviet Sport”. There were no young people there at all, all were experienced people who had previously worked in newspapers. Some non-party members, some Jews - there were such opposition people there, since sports journalism was considered a non-prestigious occupation.

L.B.: Alexander Pavlovich, why? I remember very well the film by Alexei Gabrilovich “Football of my childhood”, where the whole country, in one impulse, watches football and listens to Sinyavsky. Sports in Soviet times were considered extremely important, so how could sports journalism be unprestigious?

A.N.: You see, everyone loves a restaurant, but not everyone appreciates the waiters. Sports journalism is last in the hierarchy.

L.B.: Even when sport was a matter of extreme national importance?

A.N.: There were big newspapers, and they had sports departments. If you take over the sports department in this capacity, it will be prestigious. But “Soviet Sport” is a sports newspaper, this is a completely different matter, a different rank. But the people who worked there were very interesting, people whose careers were ruined for some reason, after which they came to work there. Therefore, when I got there, they all advised me not to take up this business, because I could have a different, great future. And I didn’t stick to this sport either. When I graduated from university, at a resort I met a guy who worked at the APN. I really liked the APN - the center of Moscow, they show movies - and I entered the APN. Moreover, they called me to “Soviet Sport” again. They spoke:

- No one will know you at APN.

Soviet Sport had the only advantage: a large circulation.

LB: Circulation and surname.

A.N.: If you printed a note, your signature is under it. And there were several cases...

L.B.: ...when a person woke up famous.

A.N.: Yes, they know you for a few days, and then they might forget you. This has happened to me many times: they know you for three days, and then there is no next step - and everything starts all over again. You think that this will last forever. So I published a long essay in Yunost - and thought that now everything was in order. But the next incident didn’t happen for a long time, and somehow it all went away. What I'm talking about? - I'm talking about life strategy. So I talked about Ordynka, but Ordynka wasn’t always there either. On Ordynka, if a smart person spent a little time and gained intelligence, he moved on from there. For example, I had a friend - may he rest in heaven - Zhora Weiner. He became a famous writer, but he stayed on Ordynka exactly as long as necessary.

L.B.: What does it mean “how much is needed”? For yourself or for what?

A.N.: Ordynka is very addictive. You can sit there all day without rushing anywhere.

L.B.: And get maximum pleasure.

A.N.: It’s not like you came to visit, where you must leave at 8 o’clock. You can leave, or you can not leave.

L.B.: And in general to be there.

A.N.: It happened that I was there. Ordynka is not every day Akhmatova. This was all episodic, because Akhmatova lived in Leningrad. True, she was there for a long time, but this does not mean that you talk to Akhmatova all day. Another thing is that it was commonplace, any nonsense came to mind - he came and told. Akhmatova also told Efremov that what I was saying was very funny. She kept laughing and saying:

- Sasha, I pass on your jokes in Leningrad.

L.B.: You must have been incredibly proud of this?

A.N.: No. I wanted her to praise me for my philosophical understanding of life. But he wasn’t there. Now Andrei Sergeev’s notes have been published in Questions of Literature, in which he recorded a conversation with Akhmatova. She even said there that Nilin was the wittiest person she had ever met. Where then will Bulgakov or Zoshchenko go? - Well, you never know what they said in conversation with their friends. This doesn't change anything. And on Ordynka you could sit and talk all day like this.

Until Zhora Weiner wrote his first novel about the police, he, in fact, was nothing. But how did Ordynka help him? There is always someone reading Tsvetaeva, someone telling something...

L.B.: So it gave a common culture?

A.N.: Something was added that others did not have. Well, who wrote detective stories? - Former police officers. Zhora had a brother Arkady in the police, so the police side was maintained. And then, Arkashka was also a very smart person, very tenacious, he was in no way a pure policeman. They had a very smart father. He had no education at all, but he understood very well how Soviet life worked. And they understood this better than we did, because our parents were afraid to say such things. And they knew that in this life they had to live like this: we are Jews, which means we have to become members of the Communist Party.

L.B.: And they did?

A.N.: Of course. After all, Arkady worked at Petrovka. And they simply outplayed all this Soviet power, which they did not like. They didn’t argue, as, say, I did: somewhere they blurted out something unnecessary, someone laughed, and so on. They understood that they could only have one option - to be in this system, not to skip any phases. I now understand to myself how many phases I missed.

L.B.: What phases?

A.N.: Well, for example, you need to get into a good newspaper, and certainly on the staff. I remember it was very important whether you were in the state or not. I got there right away, and then it happened in my life that I was out of state for twenty-five years. Then perestroika began. Due to someone’s oversight, my friend, playwright Sasha Misharin, was appointed editor-in-chief of the magazine “New Russia” (this is the former magazine “Soviet Union”), and I became the first deputy editor-in-chief.

L.B.: Was this your first experience in administrative work?

A.N.: Actually. To be honest, I used to be some kind of microscopic boss, manager, and so on, but there were very few prospects there. I am a non-party member, I did not behave like that, I am generally a bad employee. It was difficult for me to spend the whole day at work. What did I like most about APN? – You went outside, and it seemed like you were at work, but it seemed like you weren’t. It is clear that there could be no career. I had to learn the language and go abroad. Still, this organization was created not in order to talk, but in order to make a career. And many of my friends spent their entire lives abroad, now they have returned and are living a prosperous life.

And my life is just beginning. One of these days I will be 71 years old, but I have the same feelings as when I was 17, as if something like this is about to start. There is no status, no property, but the feeling of confidence is much greater than when there was no freedom. I am hopelessly ill - but I never take it into account, because I hope that in my new works I will be able to consider something so interesting.

L.B.: This is the happiest feeling.

A.N.: I don’t know. Maybe this is the feeling of being crazy, because everyone around me, my peers, have ended this life. At one level or another, but - finished. Someone was the editor-in-chief of Izvestia, someone was someone, but today they no longer take part in active life. I don’t even feel comfortable saying that I’m writing something. Well, what can you write now?..

L.B.: What about these two volumes that I see in front of me?

A.N.: And there is more. Still, there is a feeling that everything is just beginning. And my generation started then - and has already finished. It’s not that I didn’t get into it, but I didn’t take the right steps that my peers did. That's why I say that some phases are skipped. And when, 25 years later, I suddenly find myself in the former “Soviet Union,” I see a branch of the Moscow Art Theater opposite. That's all! The circle closes again: the former Korsh Theater, the Moscow Art Theater passage - this was my favorite place in Moscow, it remains my favorite. I haven’t been to the theater for about 15 years. I came to the Moscow Art Theater - and I was left with something that I really wanted in my youth.

L.B.: Why? This seems like a somewhat old-fashioned theater. It seems that your generation, and especially your circle, looked at this as some kind of anachronism.

A.N.: Well, why? Now Efremov has returned.

L.B.: But he returned in ’70. Precisely because they wanted to break down and modernize such a theater, which spectators no longer went to, so old-fashioned, belonging to another era.

A.N.: Probably. But I haven’t been a theater person for many years, I wasn’t even a spectator. Simply, talking with my friends, who later became people's artists, I understood what was happening in the theater. I still remained interested in this, although it’s not very clear why. My previous wife said that according to my horoscope I am a dragon, a chimera. That I may not exist at all, it’s all a fiction. But this is not entirely true, because Efremov, for example, said:

- You know Shura, maybe you should play yourself, and not someone else.

But he was also wrong, because often I am someone else, not always real. Why did I become interested in literary work? In recent years, it has been interesting to understand the real self. After all, it’s very easy to come up with a version of your life that will suit everyone: with Ordynka, journalism... In fact, there’s nothing in common, everything is wrong. This is what is interesting about literary pursuits, even, perhaps, more than any fame. Although, of course, it should be.

L.B.: Should it be?

A.N.: Of course, if you are engaged in a public profession. When you visit a doctor at a clinic, it’s always awkward to say what you do - they don’t know you. A person who writes must be famous, otherwise his activities are treated humorously. Well, two volumes have been published, but who is going to read them?

L.B.: Why do you think that no one is going to read them?

A.N.: Because somehow there never was a reader. You always think that he will appear, that he will be able to tell you something so interesting. You see the public on the street and think, something must interest them after all? It’s easy to say: oh well, they read Dontsov. But this is also funny. As Pushkin said, there are things that are insignificant, but remarkable in their success. This girl is the daughter of the writer Arkady Vasilyev, whom no one loved.

L.B.: He had a monstrous reputation.

A.N.: The reputation was like that. They lived in Peredelkino - opposite us, I lived with my parents then. And I remember that after the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel in Peredelkino, many did not say hello to Arkady Vasilyev. And my father, just between you and me, was afraid of dogs. And when he walked, and Arkady Vasiliev stood with the dog, his father said defiantly:

- Hello, Bim! - Not Vasiliev, the dog.

L.B.: Judging by your recollections, your father did not like such opposition and was a very cautious person.

A.N.: No, I didn’t. But since this was the case, he said hello to the dog. This was the attitude towards Vasiliev. And here you go, the girl wrote books that the whole country reads. She’s already rehabilitating dad too.

L.B.: I think that there is no longer any need to rehabilitate: no one remembers either his reputation or this dad.

A.N.: She wrote an autobiography.

L.B.: This is in addition to detective stories?

A.N.: Yes. Detectives all read it, so how can you look down on it? The public is interested in this. The easiest way is to take the position that we understand more, but they read it. All this literature, in my opinion, is bad, it’s even difficult for me to force myself to read it, but I still always read several pages. Where does this come from? From the theater. In the theater, this cannot be allowed to happen, so that the audience leaves the performance. The audience definitely needs to watch it.

Probably, intuitively, this is also in me. I would like it to be clear what I am writing about. Although everything is still unclear. Why, in fact, did the sport arise? Because they didn’t print it all the time, they said it was very difficult. No matter what you wrote in the newspaper, you could hear about any phrase: “Well, that’s impossible... It’s very difficult.”

L.B.: Why is it difficult?

A.N.: I also didn’t understand why it was difficult. Probably, it was meant that it should be written more simply so that everything would be clear.

L.B.: Be simpler, and people will be drawn to you.

A.N.: Yes. It just so happened that I actually wrote something about sports. And if they print, why not? What did sport have to do with it? Everything that I basically wanted to write then, I collected in these two volumes, although, of course, I have written much more. But this was not related to sports - it was related to my life. I told it all like this. Sport did not occupy a big place in my life. It just so happened that I knew really very famous athletes. I met them not as a journalist, but just like that. Otherwise I would have a completely different book. I didn’t interview them - we met with them, drank, walked, talked.

L.B.: Even when you write about your buddies and friends, you still look at them from the outside, as if objectifying them. Now, if we take the memories of Ordynka...

A.N.: Ordynka is not memories. The main thing here is to understand the situation. It was important to explain what Ordynka gave me. And she may have taken more.

L.B.: Now a whole literary genre of memoirs about Ordynka has appeared. Everyone who has appeared there at least once considers it their duty to write about it.

A.N.: Almost no one has written anything similar to the truth, because everyone is retelling myths. Firstly, not everyone saw Akhmatova. Akhmatova - what, sat in public? There was a tiny room, Akhmatova was there almost all the time. If there were no strangers, she could go out to dinner or drink tea. But did she really go out in public just like that, to scratch her tongue... Many simply did not see her, but to say that I was on Ordynka and did not see Akhmatova is like not seeing an elephant in the cabinet of curiosities. So, you had to see her. There was a very small circle of people who talked to her there. Her acquaintances and admirers, whom she allowed, came to her, and they usually sat with her in a small room. I described in “The Modigliani Line” how I went to borrow money, and Emma Grigorievna Gershtein, a famous literary critic, whom, naturally, the youth of the Horde did not know, was sitting with her.

L.B.: Yes, you describe how you ask for money behind Gerstein’s back, and she doesn’t even see who it is.

A.N.: Yes, she is sitting in this small room - two old women, they are fat, and there are only six meters there. And for her to sit in public, as in a theater, this almost never happened. Well, there were some narrow family holidays at which I was like a family person. But this does not mean that there were a million people there.

After Mishka’s book, a lot of apocrypha arose, which they all repeat and retell in their own words. But this was written by them, Misha Ardov. And then it is retold and played out by others, as if they saw it themselves. And then, it cannot be said that famous people visited Ordynka every day. Of course not. For example, I never saw Pasternak there - after 1950 he always lived in Peredelkino. But since these stories were being told all the time, I had the impression that I saw him there. I saw him in Peredelkino, because I lived there, but I never met him on Ordynka. You see, this did not happen every minute, everything was condensed, like a play: then Pasternak came in, then Brodsky came in... It wasn’t like that. Brodsky, firstly, did not sit there because of a good life; he had nowhere to escape. It happened that Brodsky sat there for a long time, and he was a business man.

L.B.: What does “business person” mean?

A.N.: Well, a working man. If he hadn't worked so hard, he wouldn't have become what he became.

L.B.: You said that Ordynka not only gave you a lot, but also took it away. What did you mean? This is a completely unexpected turn.

A.N.: It took me away in the sense that I spent a lot of time there as one of my own people. And there were other life options, which is why I say that people who left Ordynka gained new points faster. You could sit and talk all day on Ordynka - this is not a normal life for a young man. That's how I was, that's how Boris was, may he rest in heaven. It was a wonderful talent.

L.B.: By the way, his daughter is a very talented actress.

A.N.: And Borya was an extremely gifted man, but because he was Ordynka’s man, all this did not manifest itself. Nobody knows Bori, no one knows me or other people who were also at Ordynka and also occupied a certain place there - in a purely domestic hierarchy. The people who left managed to do more because they didn’t have to spend the whole day talking. It's chilling.

L.B.: But you become richer internally.

A.N.: Yes, yes. But what is not written is not written. In general, a lot of time was lost. Should I say that I regret it? No. It seems to me that at that stage I was less ready than I am now. You can blame everything on some circumstances, say that you drank a lot and so on. But many also drank, and this did not stop them. They may not have lived long, but that didn't stop them from doing something and dying. I lived my life sparingly, and now I understand this, because for many years I did not work the way a writer should work.

But at that stage I did not yet have the feeling that I should write. I took on any job with pleasure, and it seemed to me that I put everything into it. But not everyone was going to read it there . If a book is positioned to a person as a book about the football player Streltsov, no one is going to read my life and the lives of my friends. They don't see her there. This is also the law of the theater: the mise-en-scene is built so that they can see where you are standing. And when you structure a book in such a way that you give out one thing or another, it often only causes irritation.

Therefore, on the one hand, I am glad that, after all, something has already been collected in two volumes - at least I myself understand what goes behind what - but I am absolutely not sure that at least some writer, critic or anything else someone will read this. Because they only watch today's matches on TV. What about football in the 60s? “But I wasn’t even alive then, why read about it?” But the book is not written about this, it is written about this time, it’s just that there are other people acting there, unusual ones. But everyone is interested in footballers while they are playing.

L.B.: But there are also football legends that you wrote about.

A.N.: Voronin was such a legend, but no one remembers him today. Based on the way he played, he would be one of the best football players in the world today, but he is not remembered. You can't force people to remember. But for some reason I was always interested in the past, interested in adults, old people. I was the only young man in the group of adults at Soviet Sport, where I worked for a year. I was always interested in adults, because when communicating with them, listening to their memories, in my imagination I could participate in what happened in the past, what happened yesterday. It seemed to me that I, too, was already there then. It's interesting to imagine what happened before you. This is how the sport came into being.

It’s convenient to call this “a writer in sports journalism” - for God’s sake. But it’s a little annoying for me, because sports journalism is now a profitable business that gives a lot of money, but I’m not involved in it. When I became the chief - first deputy editor-in-chief at the Soviet Union, the magazine Sports in the USSR was still published there, and I was the curator of this magazine. That's why I went to the Olympics in Berlin. And there I saw all these sports journalists who looked at me like I was a black sheep: I had never come before, and then some boss arrived. They write to the newspaper every day, but I’m the manager - I don’t need to write anything, I just went there and had fun. And I understood the life they lived - for the sake of these trips, a lot of money. They know what to buy there, they built garages and dachas - this is a very profitable profession.

L.B.: Well, they also looked at the world very well.

A.N.: What did they watch? They came and passed on football. In any case, it was very important to go. And I went when it became possible. That's why they began to say: “writer.” It’s more convenient to talk this way in that world, because somehow it had to be explained. It's like the Americans say that the Russians invented love so as not to pay women. In order not to publish me in the newspaper, it is more convenient to say that I am a writer. We now have 30 sports magazines in Moscow, no less. I don't participate in any of them. Never! Because my sport is not needed there.

But for a literary camp it’s all sport. But I'm interested in style, I'm interested in how it's written. And before, when I was at university, I was subconsciously interested in this. At university I could have ended up in a theater criticism or essay seminar, but instead I ended up in a sports seminar. It just happened that way, the stars stood that way. I cannot say that I am very upset, although it happens that sometimes I experience a feeling of irritation.

With the contempt that the literary community expresses for sports journalism, everyone knows that I am into football. In Peredelkino, writers don’t talk to me about literature, they always ask me: “How did you like yesterday’s match?” And now I rarely watch football - well, it’s just inconvenient not to know at all. I wonder if I wrote about medicine, what would the effect be? Difficult to verify. But they only ask me about football. I could have stayed in Soviet Sport from the very beginning, and now I would be the oldest sports journalist, the patriarch of the genre, and so on. But I didn’t stay. There was a case when I was the editor-in-chief of the Moscow magazine “Sport Club” for three years - this was sports journalism. A year at Sovetsky Sport plus three years at the Sports Club, that is, four years in total - that’s all my experience in sports journalism. Then at some point - already in this century - I was suddenly offered to write columns in Sport Express. I probably wrote a hundred of them, but I always felt that I was taking away someone else’s.

L.B.: Why “alien”?

A.N.: Because that’s not how they imagine it. They go to the match and write about how they played today: there was such and such a stopper, there was a holding defender, and so on. But all this no longer seems interesting to me, and never did. I was interested in the philosophy of this matter. I really was friends with great football players, and I understood: they were going through the same thing as my friends - artists, writers. Only this is a different nomenclature - they don’t know how to talk like that, and they don’t intend to. It's like a sailor on the shore, or a fish thrown ashore. Everyone is interested in them as long as they remember their football. And when it ends, everyone doesn’t quite understand what to do with these silent people.

L.B.: It seems to me that there is some kind of tragedy in this.

A.N.: Why the tragedy? This is the price for fame. We always pay for everything, so I can’t call it a tragedy.

L.B.: I mean human tragedies. Today everyone knows you, everyone carries you in their arms, but tomorrow everyone has forgotten about you, and no one needs you anymore. A person becomes an alcoholic or dies - how many athletes have such fates! The actors too, of course.

A.N.: This happens not only with public people, famous athletes or actors. Such fates also happen to ordinary people: they become drunkards and die in the same way. There are just certain stereotypes of thinking. Actually, literature is the fight against such stereotypes.

L.B.: Alexander Pavlovich, have you ever taken serious risks in your life?

A.N.: Physically, maybe not, but I believe that I risked my life. I would have died long ago in my life. My whole life was a risk, if only because I did not want to go so gradually, phase by phase, as was customary. I often find it awkward to name my profession, because it doesn’t exist in its pure form. Probably, it was necessary to get a more precise profession. If this is journalism, then you had to master it. Now I theoretically understand what a journalist should be like - if I were the dean of the faculty, I would explain everything to everyone. But I didn’t want to do this myself. I'm not interested in interviews, because I'm interested in talking myself. Reportage? This is also boring.

L.B.: What’s interesting?

A.N.: I was interested in the text itself. But journalism does not need text, it deals with information. Choose your garden bed and work on it. It so happened that, thanks to physical education, I somehow managed to study literature.

It was the 100th anniversary of Viktor Aleksandrovich Maslov, the famous Torpedo coach. This is one of the best coaches in the world, and one of our best. I was invited to some evening, and I thought, why am I coming empty-handed? I should write a note in the newspaper about him. In the end, who besides me saw him and knows him. I called Izvestia myself and asked if they wanted to celebrate this?

- Yes, - they said.

Then a journalist from there called me and said:

- Just remember that you need to do this and this...

I was joking:

- Maybe I can't handle this?

And he told me:

- Well, Alexander Pavlovich, if you yourself are not sure, then don’t.

Then I thought: maybe they will write it themselves? No. Nobody needs Maslov's anniversary. Neither I nor Maslov are needed - no one.

And everyone is fighting for fame. You know, my even microscopic fame did not give me anything, no dividends. I always had doubts: whether they would publish it or not. Now I take this very calmly. The newspaper is really built on a cliché: it is necessary that the person who paid thirty kopecks for the newspaper immediately understood what it was about. Why should he get used to my style? Why the hell does he need this? Here's a book - write it, one or two copies will be published - read it yourself.

The newspaper does not exist for literature - this is clear. There was such a famous man Kapler who loved the daughter of Comrade Stalin. And he wrote an essay in which he described the Kremlin windows and so on. And Comrade Stalin said a wonderful phrase to this: “The newspaper Pravda does not exist for love correspondence.” Now I understand it, but I used to get upset about it because most of the time they didn’t print.

However, if you take away these twenty-five years without service, then I was the chief editor of the Observer magazine for three years. I remember when I was driving home from the editorial office of the Soviet Union for the first time in a black Volga - I’m the boss - I looked at myself from the outside. And somehow it became funny to me: here I am driving a black Volga, I’m the boss, I’m thinking something with my chicken head... And I thought that I won’t drive it for a long time, because a boss shouldn’t think about it , because he goes and goes...

L.B.: Alexander Pavlovich, this was probably an unnatural state for your life strategy?

A.N.: I was the editor-in-chief of Obozrevatel and also drove a car, then I was the editor-in-chief of the Sports Club - everything happened. But these are roles. But I didn’t work in the theater, I was there only in practice as a student, in the crowd. And now I see that I no longer played some roles. But as a writer, it would be interesting for me to figure out what I really am. If I still live the two years that I have left, maybe I’ll write something like this. And Ordynka, to some extent, was the beginning of this: I wanted to understand what I owe to Ordynka.

L.B.: And with what?

A.N.: I found it interesting there. And not only because Akhmatova and Batalov were there, but because there was a house where you could come, sit and not be in a hurry to leave.

L.B.: It just became famous, this house, because all these people were there.

A.N.: This is all greatly exaggerated. Akhmatova had another life besides Ordynka, and Batalov, as far as I remember, no longer lived in Ordynka. And in general he was against such a pastime. I remember we were sitting at the table and talking. Batalov went somewhere, then, after a while, returned and was surprised: how can you sit and joke for so long. He didn’t have the habit of sitting and talking all day.

L.B.: Was there a lot of such communication just for the sake of communication?

A.N.: Borya and I certainly do, and I think that Borya and I got in the way of each other.

L.B.: His acting profession didn’t work out the way he wanted?

A.N.: I think that everyone would leave acting if there was somewhere to go. But most people cannot leave acting - they have nowhere to go if it doesn’t work out.

L.B.: Didn’t it work out for him?

A.N.: The devil knows. In general, it turned out that no, although Borya also played the main roles - and that was it. Perhaps it wasn't entirely his. It was as much not his as it was not mine, and it is still unknown which was more so. It’s just that Borya was more like an artist: he was handsome, he knew how to portray someone, but he was never natural.

L.B.: Alexander Pavlovich, when you talked about the Weiners, you talked about people who fought seriously for their place in life. But did the Horde atmosphere affect your mood, or is it more connected with general generational sentiments, when it is better not to get involved and not fight?

A.N.: Zhora fought is not the right word. He graduated from an engineering institute. In general, he had a case when they didn’t want to hire him because he was Jewish. He came, and they told him:

- You see, we have such a job here, you need to at least be a Komsomol member.

Jorah:

- I am a party member.

They:

- But we have engineering problems here.

Jorah:

- I graduated from technical school, but I also understand legal issues: I am studying law by correspondence.

Well, what not to take? They still didn't take it. And eventually he began to write.

L.B.: Do you need an iron grip to break through?

A.N.: I don’t know. I can only judge myself. Actually, I had a lot of friends in my life; I can’t say that I lived that lonely. But my relationship with Boris was abnormal, because both of us, like slackers, could talk on the phone for a long time. Even when we went to visit each other, we still discussed something on the phone.

I remember there was such a case. We went to visit a general’s house, but we had to be there in another hour, and we had to somehow kill that hour. I say to Bora:

- There is a store there. Let's quickly buy a bottle of port and drink it in front of the guests.

Borya left the store with two large bottles like this.

- Why two? - I ask.

He says:

- It's more convenient to talk.

And I also told him:

- Do you know, Borya, when your ulcer will perforate? When you come to Paris to receive the “Order of the Legion of Honor”, ​​at the most inopportune moment.

But no one came to Paris to receive the order. No, of course, I have been to Paris several times, but not for this reason. We just wanted something extraordinary back then, but nothing was done for it.

I remember Boris and I were sitting in the kitchen, watching TV and discussing something. And his mother, Nina Antonovna Olshevskaya, listening to our thoughtful remarks, sincerely said:

- How strange it is that nothing came of you.

L.B.: Whether it worked out or not is generally a very difficult question. For example, Viktor Ardov is the owner of the Horde house, he was a very famous person then. Recently I decided to re-read his works, but they did not seem interesting or funny to me.

A.N.: What made Viktor Efimovich an interesting person? He received a very good education. The jokes he wrote had no value, but I remember he once wrote memoirs about Meyerhold. Viktor Efimovich understood theater very well, but apparently he did not have any instrument to do it. He was also more involved in conversation, but he earned his own bread. Of course, Mikhail was partly exaggerating when he criticized everyone. But this is natural, everyone likes to somehow present their parents, write memories of them. My brother and I were probably wrong for not wanting to do anything for our father.

L.B.: What could you do?

A.N.: Well, they still do something, write memories and so on. But for us this was a position, because my father always said that a writer lives only at his own expense. They read - good, if they don’t read - nothing can be done about it.

L.B.: There was a period when there was enormous interest in his work.

A.N.: My father did not celebrate any anniversaries during his lifetime, and I think that’s correct. And although everyone sincerely writes memories about their parents - both Dontsov and the daughter of Yulian Semenov, I wrote a book about Streltsov - I took a different path. Well, maybe we weren’t soulful enough people. In our family, everyone treated each other without enthusiasm. Brother Misha said that our parents never praised us, but there was nothing to praise us for.

L.B.: Maybe in the Ardovo house you received just this warmth?

A.N.: No, not warmth, but more relaxedness. Firstly, this is the Soviet Union - not everyone had separate apartments.

L.B.: Few people had such apartments.

A.N.: Yes, it is not as big as it seems. Secondly, you come to visit anyone, but you still have to leave later. This was especially true for children: they played outside all the time and did not come into the house. They could go into the apartment and ask if Sasha would go out for a walk, but in general, children's life usually took place on the street. There were no facilities for children in the house. There weren’t a million rooms on Ordynka either - in fact, one room was large, but you could stay there all the time. Misha and Borya were my friends all my life. I now say that such friends have now all turned into relatives, and you talk about them as if they were relatives, without exaggerating anything.

L.B.: In Ordynka when you were young, were you used to intelligent conversations, or were the conversations not always highly intellectual? What was the actual style of conversation?

A.N.: They were not highly intelligent, but everyone there learned to speak almost in repetitions, otherwise a person would not get through.

L.B.: So it was necessary to hone this skill there?

A.N.: Of course, otherwise the person would not be able to tell any joke. Viktor Efimovich never had the patience to listen.

L.B.: But this is probably also tiring - to talk witty all the time, and not very natural for human relationships?

A.N.: Of course, but meaningless idle talk is just as tiresome. I've been in the hospital a lot over the last year. There people constantly talk to each other, and it is deeply uninteresting. And Horde conversations were more like theater: in the theater it is important that you raise your partner’s line, so that you act it out.

L.B.: And it was always improvisation?

A.N.: You see, I have such a character that even if I come up with something in advance, then later I will definitely forget it, or something will not work out.

L.B.: But it’s hard to joke all the time and be on top of it?

A.N.: No, I really loved it. Of course, when I got there in my youth, I was more constrained, but still it was my world, it was not difficult for me there. I didn’t have any difficulties with my work, it was easy to get ready and start, I had other difficulties in general: I always had difficulty choosing. There was such a test pilot Ginz, in my opinion, he was described by Mishka. He had a dacha in Koktebel. And so in the morning, when he listened to the writers talk, he said:

- You know, I read all this too, but I immediately forget it all. Because in the morning I always think what should I do: tie up the grapes or go to Feodosia?

So I always told myself that I had to make a decision: should I go to Moscow or not. And if you stayed at home, then, you see, you wrote something. And it doesn't require titanic efforts.

L.B.: Alexander Pavlovich, in your book you speak very harshly about those who are called “Akhmatova’s orphans,” even quite sarcastically. And why?

A.N.: Why sarcastically? I didn't think so.

L.B.: You apply them quite harshly.

A.N.: I wouldn’t say it’s harsh. I just said that Tolya Naiman and Zhenya Rein were very interesting to me. I knew them when they were still ignored by public attention. And it was a very long time. Zhenya Rein was not published then, and whoever was not published at that time was a nobody.

L.B.: Well, why? They had their own circle of friends and, accordingly, their own hierarchy.

A.N.: I always wondered how they would hold up as recognized people. So I told you how they behave: Tolya has the arrogance of Brodsky, and this one has the extraordinary swagger of Yevtushenko. That's all I said. And really, it's funny. I thought that they would behave differently, they were also not very happy with those who were published, they were not happy with the way they behaved. Brodsky never loved Yevtushenko until the very end - this was also unfair, and he was not entirely fair to Aksenov either.

L.B.: Because of this?

A.N.: I think that to some extent this feeling remains: some are sitting in a restaurant in the House of Writers, while others are afraid that they may not be allowed there.

L.B.: Despite the fact that a person considers himself a genius?

A.N.: Well, almost everyone considers themselves geniuses. I remember that I didn’t really want to join the Writers’ Union, but they wouldn’t let me into the clinic. I joined there in 1980 and never thought about it; only when I went to the clinic and took a ticket. But I didn’t participate in their lives, no one even knew that I was listed there. I remember I once came to the prose section and said:

- I need to pay fees, but I don’t remember where.

And there one girl laughed a lot, thinking it was a joke. I didn’t even go to a restaurant - we had our own restaurant in the WTO. I didn't like this life.

L.B.: Have you ever known writers or poets who didn’t care whether they were published or not? Because we know how, for example, Vysotsky suffered because he could not publish his poems.

A.N.: Vysotsky suffered because he was an artist.

L.B.: The whole country knew his songs by heart. And, judging by his memoirs, he really wanted to publish his poems.

A.N.: He wanted to, but there is no need to exaggerate his suffering. Lidia Korneevna Chukovskaya recorded such a case. Pasternak came to Akhmatova and told him for a long time that there was an evening of Hungarian translators, and they typed it in the wrong font. Akhmatova says:

- Such a big man, but he is tormented by vanity.

So in the case of Volodya, may he rest in heaven. He is an artist and writes poetry, so it is imperative that a book be published. But the theater is a hierarchical institution, people there are brought up this way from the very beginning: until you play the main role, you are not given the next one. And this carries over throughout life.

That's why I've always been interested in life patterns. Football, sports, theater - all this is transferable to ordinary life. Everything is the same, but it’s not so harsh and obvious. You know, not everyone wants to see how it really is. I often read tabloids about famous people, and these articles always contain only one fact, and there is nothing else besides this. A million books have been written about Vysotsky, but this is not Vysotsky. Because there is no one in particular to consider his life the way it should be.

L.B.: What does “as it should” mean?

A.N.: I remember when I had the idea to write about Streltsov in ZhZL, I wanted to write three books, three characters: Pyotr Aleinikov, Eduard Streltsov and Oleg Efremov. But they didn’t really want Aleinikov then.

L.B.: Because they forgot about him?

A.N.: Even now everyone knows about Alla Pugacheva, so what to write about her - if they forget, then it’s already possible. Well, for now this is not necessary. But I knew Aleinikov a little: he starred in my father’s film, in “The Big Life.”

L.B.: So you knew him from childhood?

A.N.: Well, of course. I remember how successful Aleinikov was. Not everyone had this either. But I was not just interested in memories of Aleynikov, I was interested in why he disappeared in the first place. Because he was drinking? It’s unlikely that everyone drank. This guy just wasn't needed anymore.

L.B.: And what type left society?

A.N.: From the cinema, not from society. Movies will always need Ivanushka the Fools. Stalin, who supervised the cinema and sensitively understood what was needed at the moment, saw Aleinikov for the first time before the war. And then, in the post-war version, he realized that such a person cannot build socialism. He didn’t mean Aleinikov - he meant Vanya Kursky, Aleinikov’s character, and Aleinikov himself is not to blame for anything here. The author is to blame for not finding another modification for it. From the very beginning, I don’t understand where my father got such a person from? Where does a person come from who does not build socialism in its pure form? The public liked him as a somewhat oppositional, frontier figure. And as a continuation it was not needed. But in other roles he was not very clear. For example, he played Talalikhin in the film “Moscow Sky”. It wasn't a big success, which means there was something missing.

They wanted a book about Efremov. But they wanted a very canonized Efremov. And I realized that my personal Efremov may not be needed. I didn't want to write about him taking into account other people's considerations.

L.B.: What do you mean when you say “other people’s considerations”?

A.N.: All the books that are written in ZhZL are to a large extent compilation books. They gather everything together: here are reviews, here are memories, and so on. But this is a job for an art critic, and I’m not an art critic. Roughly speaking, I was interested in the hooligan in the role of Stanislavsky, this is exactly what I wanted to show. But then I realized that for ZhZL this is an “informat”. Streltsov was also unformatted. ZhZL stopped being interested in me because there was no such success. Well, how could it not be? “The whole book was sold out, but they didn’t print a second edition.” Then this series became very popular, but it is assembled from fashionable blocks.

L.B.: What does this mean? “Fashion block” about Efremov – what is it?

A.N.: As a theater figure, Efremov is an extremely tragic figure. He couldn't do everything he wanted.

L.B.: But the theater was created.

A.N.: The theater was created, but he wanted to create another theater. He realized that this theater had reached a dead end. In general, there are things that no one wants to think about. Society needs figures to pray to - this is really some kind of psychosis.

L.B.: Did you and Efremov have many interactions after the Studio School?

A.N.: No. I really avoided meeting him because I didn't turn out to be what he expected. And then, I understood: Efremov treated me very well, because he was my teacher. And in the theater he was often cruel and unfair - I didn’t want to face this side of him, and therefore there was a great distance between us. But then I realized that it was in vain, because there was one such case.

I was then the chief editor of the Observer magazine, which was published by the wealthy company Mikrodin. In times of famine, in Ilyinsky, they held banquets with huge amounts of food. All the famous people of our country were there, but they did not really understand where they had come. There was so much food there that they could not even imagine. And here we are somehow standing there with the former Minister of Culture Sidorov, talking about football, and suddenly from afar I see a fairly drunk Efremov. But we are having a buffet, how will it stand, I think. What to do?

“Zhenya, I’ll tell you later about this football player,” I said and went to Efremov.

After all, I was a representative of the management, so I asked him and me to put two chairs there. I realized that in this state he would no longer eat anything, but he needed to continue drinking. As a drinker, I understand this. And he was terribly happy:

- Oh, my baby, here you are.

He thought that I was also a guest.

Well, that means we sat there. His condition is almost feverish, but we still talk to him. Although, as a drinker, I know that if you are less drunk than your interlocutor, it is very difficult for you to guess where the conversation will go. I was worried how he would get home, and suddenly I saw that he was accompanied by a girl, the leader of the troupe. Well, I think everything is fine. She came up, he introduced me:

- Shura is my student.

She didn’t understand what subject, she knows all the artists. And she asked very carefully:

- Is he an artist?

Efremov:

- Yes, he is an artist. He is also a very, very deep philologist.

I somehow didn’t expect this turn. So I thought, maybe it was in vain that I always kept such a distance.

L.B.: That’s why you wanted to write for ZhZL not memories of a loved one, you wanted to paint his portrait, as you see him

A.N.: I think I understand what he wanted and what didn’t happen. Not everyone was told about this. He was our teacher - we met every morning and rehearsed. I had a rough idea of ​​what he really wanted. But if you write in the first person, it should not be ZhZL, but something of your own. You cannot present your point of view as objective truth. So Streltsov was more personal than necessary, so ZhZL did not publish it anymore.

L.B.: Is it harder for you to write from a distance?

A.N.: Not harder. I just don't want that. That's not mine.

L.B.: How did the story with Ordynka end?

A.N.: The story with Ordynka ended with the death of Bori Ardov. Everything became different there, a different people appeared. You see, everyone grows out of Ordynka...

L.B.: ... and leave.

A.N.: Ordynka is, rather, an image of a certain life, an image of that time.

L.B.: Thank you very much, Alexander Pavlovich.