Portraits of Russia: Kolya Vasin, Bitloman

Kolya Vasin has been listening to the Liverpool four every day for 50 years. At the same time, he has an office-which is located in St. Petersburg in the art center on Pushkinskaya, 10-where on Fridays Kolya receives guests and tells them about Beatles. He has no work, no family, no children, but there is an autograph and Mike John Lennon, a huge collection of records with rare records and kilogram home -made albums with clippings from articles about his favorite group. Kolya believes that John Lennon is alive and continues to write music in a monastery in northern Italy ...

About music and The Beatles

These 50 years I have continuously listened and listen to music. I know everything from Russian rock to Chesnokov and Tchaikovsky, from classical jazz to Russian church music. Tens of thousands of songs passed through my soul, but The Beatles is the best that I have ever heard and felt in my whole life. No one knows and does not love them like me. This is music from God. This is the highest form of high! We bought apartments, married, died, and the Beatles changed the whole world. The Beatles is a miracle! When they appeared, madness began - I began to collect every letter about them, made albums over the years. I rushed around the world with scissors - I bought, exchanged, asked. Here is an album dedicated to John Lennon (shows a thick dusty book, filled with clippings from newspapers from crusts to crust). I made it in the 70s. Collected 10 years. It weighs 13 kg. This album has about a thousand notes about John from the press of the whole world and the same number of photos. This is Superlb! He claims to be the Nobel Prize of Love. But they do not understand anything there in love ... Give them about the war and give them about science.

About the soviet childhood

We lived in a communal apartment on Rzhevka, near the forest itself. All my childhood passed in the planting of potatoes, walking for mushrooms and riding a bicycle. And in the 57th year, rock and roll entered my life. The first record that I heard was Tutti Frutti Little Richard. I heard her in the black market, became interested. And then the boys began to tell me different news-someone bought something there somewhere, exchanged, heard on the radio-BBC, “Voice of America”, some articles went: “But in this newspaper we printed a line about Elvis Presley”-and now we are already running to the kiosk after this newspaper. "Chuck Berry wrote such a thing"-we all learned this news first. And then the Beatles struck. It was already a completely different level. It’s like you are a boy, and then once - and you are already an uncle. Here we have heard them and grew up unexpectedly. By the end of the 64th year, I was already cut into everything and realized that I had gone along another road.

We called them "Beatles", "Beatry", "Brothers Beatles." Each output of the new record was a holiday - everyone gathered, drank wine. And then the concept of freedom came later, thanks to the Beatles I believed in God, it was a whole epic.

Parents first shouted: “Make it quieter!”, But then they began to protect me. I defeated them, and they stood on my side. For me, they were all crazy scoops. We sat in front of Telik, watched parades and films about the war-all the 50s, 60s and 70s showed a movie about the war every day. And when I heard rock, I got out of this wheel. But from the 65th, they began to give the telik ten seconds of the Beatles on this case-and this was the tremendous moments of the rise of the spirit for me! I jumped like a goat, I yelled, I poked my fingers into the telly. Hear the Beatles in this Theater of shadows! And the next day, we discussed all this with the boys.

About modern and Russian rock

During perestroika, we had a rock club. He lived in a small room, three by three meters, led a miserable existence on the street. Rubinstein. Then, by the 85th, he spun thanks to excellent musicians-Kostya Kinchev, Bore Grebenshchikov, Mike Naumenko-these were cool groups. But they quickly wilted. In the 90s, I stopped going to their concerts.

And since then, nothing good has appeared. Everything was just stalled. The people still have not stood up with their knees. Another 500 years, and maybe 1000 in Russia there will be nothing good. Masterpieces such as Yesterday or All You Need Is Love, which beetles gave the world for a long time. Now the grayness flourishes. There are no heroes, there is no music, not a single good line is written, I did not hear a single good solo on the guitar. There are no hits. There is nothing. Empty. And restructuring is not finished yet. People were not completely freed - they are post -boss. They are afraid of the words Love, Peace, Freedom, they do not understand these words. They understand “dollars”, “good car”, “wedding”, “work”, “salary” are popular words. But this does not go further.

About the temple of John Lennon

I always advocated freedom, love and rock and roll in Russia. For 20 years I have been trying to build a temple of love and peace John Lennon on the shores of the Gulf of Finland - a temple of Beatles. It will be a stone structure with two areas of crystalline glass - they will rotate and flicker - it will be a sight of the century. Children will skip lessons, come to the temple and crazy with happiness. Every day there will be a holiday, every day the news will fly over St. Petersburg: "Today in the temple of John Lennon such a concert, such an event, such insanity, such and such guests." It will be an anthill, soup that will cook all the time. And all you will fly over everything. The idea of ​​the temple is to collect all four Beatles there again. They will return and arrange a new revolution - sound, spirit and music.

But our people are post -esovkovs, they do not believe in this fantastic, super -like, super -free project. God sent me this idea in the 90th year. During this time, I met so many people, primarily with youth, artists, musicians - and almost everyone supported the idea of ​​the temple, but in reality no one does nothing. I chose a place for the temple, but the authorities do not want to give it to. I called the Culture Committee: “We will not deal with this project with you,” here is the whole answer.

In the 91st, I suggested making John Lennon Street. What could be more innocent? In Warsaw there is John Lennon Street, in Liverpool by itself, in Brazil. The whole world understood this. And these do not want, they were silent even then. The whole buzz from Beatles has turned to me into a spiritual struggle with fools. There are problems everywhere. Whatever I do in these 50 years, I always felt underground.

About John Lennon

John Lennon sent me a record with an autograph. Although he never sent anything to anyone. Yes, no one asked. Usually people do not believe that you can get some gift from John Lennon, Mika Jagger or Elvis Presley. And I wrote and asked.

John is the number one hippie in the world. This is the only person who did only what he wanted. He is a brave. And I myself have never been bold - that is why I love John so much ...

And now John lives in northern Italy. He was found there in the 93rd year-there was an article in the Daily Mirror on November 3: one English journalist tracked down John, calculated him, searched for and found him for ten years. No one printed this article for a long time. All these little people clap their ears and do not cut into anything. They do not believe this. And I saw this article. John retired-he sat on the ship and sailed, first in Ireland in the 80th, then lived for some time incognito in Liverpool, and then moved to Northern Italy. He lives in a monastery, is engaged in music there. Every year, John’s new things come out, and he replays old songs. Pirate records appear incomprehensible from where.

About a meeting with Paul McCartney

Friends led me to the floor during his visit to St. Petersburg. I managed to approach him close. He saw me, smiled at once and said: "All You Need Is Love!" We hugged him, he even kissed me. It was a fantastic moment in my life. I immediately realized that he was his man. I was in a temple T -shirt with our coat of arms, handed the letter - he was shocked by the idea of ​​the temple! I felt how colossal it is. Paul is an angel. All the Beatles are angels. And last year he made me a countermark for a concert in Moscow and paid for the train by train. Thanks to the floor, I saved 15 thousand. If not for his beautiful gesture, I would not go.

About the West

It is necessary to make sure that our entire planet is one continuous America. They have a constitution of freedom, therefore, rock and roll could appear there.

America is a superran. I was twice in New York, I was in Memphis in Elvis’s homeland, I was in Cleinda, where the Rock and Roll Museum. These are fantastic places, excellent people, a proud nation, the best people of the earth!

I often travel. Nine times was already in Liverpool ... But to move somewhere, you need money. I can't be a homeless there. I can't live with friends either. To leave, you need one hundred thousand dollars. And then for the first time. And now I have a hundred dollars in my pocket. I have more dollars and never happens. So.

About family, old age and death

All my girls, as having conspired, made abortion. I say alone: ​​"Yes, leave you your shirt." All this somehow passed by me ... But I do not regret anything. It was not my style. I turned out to be another a little - I was always a thoughtful and lonely boy. John also sings about loneliness.

The only problem is that I am aging, I begin to worry if I will have time to build a temple. I have health problems. Previously, when he was young, and did not think about it. And now some nonsense has appeared, I unplanned.

The other day I had a friend here, we talked. And I told him: "If I had a gun, I would have been shot in this country for a long time." But, unfortunately, God did not give me a pistol. At one time I tried to buy, but not to get here anywhere. And so, he pressed the gashter - and solved all the problems.