Translated material
I liked the "BG", and not vice versa
I was never printed in BG, was not his passionate fan, did not collect numbers, did not stole them on the mezzanine. I was a passive reader of “BG” - and in this sense, probably, his reader is typical.
“The candidate of sciences shook the coat of the second poet after white” - so, according to legend, told Mandelstam in the transit camp to one of the sidelts who helped him. So I now feel like such a candidate of sciences, shaking a Mandelstamov coat.
I have one strange feeling with BG. There is such a Russian word “conscientious”: so, it was always ashamed to me that I did not read it regularly. Now, like any psycho, I think that he closed precisely because I and people like me did not read it constantly. It was necessary to take it, leafing through, watch, read, and then he would not have closed - says the familiar voice of obsessive psychosis; But this is also a prophetic truth. If we all watched, read, discussed, voted and went out - it would not have happened bad, but only good would happen.
The intelligentsia in Russia deserves the definition of seasonal, shabby: it flashes from time to time, it has some correct reflexes-conscience, honor, nobility, but most of the time it is simply absent. It does not have a tradition and habit to constant intellectual and spiritual effort, for example, to hygiene - to regular reading of newspapers and magazines. That is why most smart media in Russia do not survive. But “BG” cannot even be called an “intellectual magazine” - it was just for educated citizens. From which we can conclude that we also do not have educated citizens and that the concept of “citizen” is also seasonal here (for Moscow it sounds even natural - yes, what is there to do in the summer?). And from here it is already not far from the conclusion that in Moscow, perhaps, there is no city, and, perhaps, I will write so.
There is such a thing. You come to New York and become a New York. Or - to Paris and become a Parisian. To fix this Change after a couple or three years-for this you need to purchase new habits, and not just a new address: some new elusive quality or property. This set of elusive includes the habit of reading a regular newspaper/magazine regularly.
It was necessary to take it, leafing through, watch, read, and then he would not have closed - says the familiar voice of obsessive psychosis.
The difference between Moscow is that there is no “spirit of the city” (in contrast to St. Petersburg, I dare to say, and the city magazine “Dog” is still coming out there). And things such as “BG” played in Moscow the role of a deputy or simulator of the city spirit-it was “at least something”. It was the presence of such a magazine in a cafe that made a cafe in Moscow-because everything else was not a no manner and soullessly universal. Three types of coffee - usually badly prepared, for wild money; the presence of the same waiters who always climb with the question if I have “raspberries” “Raspberries” ”; This forever rattling music above the ear. It is impossible to read in our cafe - you may not know this. It is necessary to take headphones, bears, a ton of cotton wool in the ears-and still this “UMC -um” will penetrate your brain. The most cozy sofa stands in the most cozy corner - but it is above it that the column hangs, from which it thunders the most strongly. This is the law of any Moscow cafe. The Moscow spirit is continuously rattling music in a cafe: it doesn’t matter whether it is Leps or Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Even at the symbolic level, “BG” was the only opposition to this Moscow senseless goula. And the same presence of “BG” in the corner, at the rack, at the entrance, at least indirectly reminded that here they are actually “also read”. Correctly on the Moscow anti -humanity of the city space, BG played the role of a sign, which the hero of the novel “1984” - remember - went to read and re -read.
The focus is that such a magazine was supposed to exist, even if no one had read it at all. The presence or absence of such a magazine in the city speaks of the level of urban culture: whether it took place, has become fermented, developed - or not. It's like Garkusha in Auktsyon: it does not sound without him, although he does not play anything. Such a magazine should lie “somewhere nearby”-this knowledge has already made it the most valuable thing. Those who can pass by - but certainly know that he is there.
This optionality was the magic of “BG” - as well as the deferred possibility of reading it. This created a feeling of completeness, the depths of city life-what is there or there is still "something."
Here, many talked about the rituality of the magazine. And this is all true. But I understand this a little differently. The ritual is when a wealthy city appears a little thing that does not bring him profit, benefits in the literal sense, but which crings his success, demonstrates him; Such a city sweat.
In Moscow, perhaps there is no city, and, perhaps, I will write it.
“Magazine with Propiz ** Yu” - something like this would designate the “BG” format - unlike all other magazines that come out here and which are from the very foundation “magazines with immutations”. This contrast is not accidental. “BG” was a magazine for young people - not by age, but in spirit. The reader of the BG had to have a certain share of courtesy and be a little “cruiser” - the presence of a certain number of such people in the city indicates its viability. There are no young people in Moscow today - not in physical, but in an intellectual sense; This is a city of reasonable, boring and elderly people who know the “price of life”; But when they find out the price, they no longer live in life, that’s what a paradox. It was a test for the ability of the city to be higher than itself, younger and better - this test failed.
Here they will tell me that these are the laws of the economy, my friend, and I agree. Yes. The fact that the big city may contain a free magazine called "Big City" is the economy. And the fact that such a magazine cannot survive in a rich city speaks precisely about the absence of an economy.
Maybe someone heard Valery Panushkin uttering the word “lakesher”: this has a mixture of contempt and realism, an understanding of the prose of life. After all, charity also exists due to surpluses: due to the fact that very rich people are able to drop one pearl from their long thread - and for this pearl you can buy a medicine for children. Intelligence also exists, in fact, on these dropped pearls (I do not believe in the profitability of the intellectual product)-and at the expense of these crumbs, something worthy, smart and beautiful is born from the table of the bourgeoisie. This surplus serves as the only moral justification for super -rich and superfect. If there is some benefit from excess super-consuming, it means that the world is nevertheless arranged correctly, reasonably and wisely.
A normal capitalist inevitably arises longing for something superfluous and non-economic-which will serve as an excuse and the victory of the human spirit over the nature of money. And these extra money in one form or another was to go to the city magazine. Closing "BG" is a sign that the economy does not work here. The city lives according to other laws.
Closing a paper “BG” is a sentence to a city that is more capable of maintaining anything intangible, nothing for beauty and style, nothing for the sake of a dandy pose and such a “here”. This city is not able to create anything more than itself.
“BG” was part of a common big illusion that in this city you can equip the correct and meaningful life.
The expression “fucking chain” went precisely from the “BG” (from his editor -in -chief Philip Dzyadko, if I don’t confuse anything) - it is symbolic that the chain was over on the magazine. The chain is what in any case consists of many pieces, details. What remains of the liberal (free, independent) media can no longer be called a chain: there were two or three separate pieces. No one will say now that the BG was closed for political reasons; Everyone understands that, on the contrary, he was closed to save the few remaining. Everyone understands that Vinokurov, the chief investor of “Rain”, “Elephant.ru” and “BG”, are now big problems. The fact that Vinokurov closed “BG” under the noise around the “rain” - choosing the most successful moment to get rid of the meaningless, as always, costs of paper, will not be reproached him. Imagine how much the noise would rise in a similar case, if there were no stories with the rain, but now who will throw a stone into it? In his justification, we can say that this is not so much his personal defeat as an investor, but a defeat of a large city named Moscow, which from some point has become small.
Actually, the “BG” even left somehow symbolic: he is connected with the Moscow umbilical cord, what is it to her. “BG” was part of a common big illusion that in this city you can equip the correct and meaningful life; Inside these correct cafes (just cut down your damn music), theaters, studios, squares and squares - it was possible to close it as it were to be closed so that the quality would turn into quantity and the environment appeared.
The peak of these hopes was “BG” 2011-2012; Actually, then it became clear why the magazine was born in general; Then he still lived by inertia for some time, trying to come up with meanings to himself-and then he was introduced into an artificial one. Because his life has lost all meaning.
The song is very suitable for epitaph to the magazine, its paper version. You can even take a definition from it for “BG” - “Once in a hellfire jelly stuck.” As soon as the city wakes up, the magazine wakes up, and again straighten his shoulders, and will be full. As soon as this meaning appears in this.