In search of joy

Last material from Sochi: Caution, the heading closes

Once in a wonderful and not rich in the Russian city of Kargopol, famous not only for its stunning wooden and stone churches, but also a naive clay toy, among which the main character was, well, say, a centaur, and a place of label (half a thing) was lived by an outstanding craftswoman of this genre. Grandmother Ulyana Babkin was very old, but in the art of toys equal masters were not observed. Having captured the heaps brought from the capital, so that she could gnaw the sweetness of the gums, I went on a visit to her relative’s house, where she had become acquired due to illness.

A neat clean old woman sat in the lower shirt on the bed, hanging her legs in the boots, and, without looking up, watched the TV, on the screen of which in the absence of sound, in complete silence, our hockey players with clubs rode.

- Sit down, guy! She said and patted the bed next to her.

About fifteen minutes we sat in silence, then she turned to me and enthusiastically said:

- glide! ..

Ah, grandmother Ulyana, as I remembered you, looking at the competitions in high -speed skating. How the Holter leaders glided ten kilometers! Easy, smoothly, without visible efforts and without competition from other athletes, and especially ours, because the hope of Russia Skobrev withdrew from the competition. By the will of our electronic predominantly press, he was the “champion” of the Olympics. (For reference: the Olympiad is the time between the two games.) He was assigned to the propaganda role, which he could not play objectively.

And these - in orange costumes - quietly and smoothly rolling, flew, no, flew, to the joy of the very movement and the audience, who immediately fell in love with them. They were waiting for the final race, where the record holder and world champion Sven Kramer rolled. But at this point, the red, thin Yirit Bergsma, setting the Olympic record, showed the best time to himself and cramer. And again, at the rink, the whole pedestal of the color of the orange. The stands are not empty this time, and I like that our viewers also have a taste for a truly beautiful spectacle.

However, in the women's biathlon, in a very uncomfortable atmosphere of heavy snow swollen, there was also beauty. The beauty of a healthy and impeccable victory, won by excitement, labor and beauty (they say, Domrachev is also good - all the more pleasantly pleasant). Now we are a world fan - we have three times the heroine of the Olympic Games. In the biathlon, it seems that it did not happen.

That is, everything is like people: a heroine; Domestic craftsmen to skate; Figure skating scandal, good if the last; The starts of the male biathlon, which were transferred due to the bad weather, which also almost ended in a sensation. (The Norwegian Svenderus threw his hands triumphantly, and at that time the Frenchman Fourcade, already the Sochi champion, pushed his leg from behind the leader and showed the first time, but the centimeter still lost.) Gemini on the pedestal, and finally, the snow went at the Winter Olympic Games. True, wet, with fog, modest, but ours! Our! Go! Home! Yes, I went!

And he goes. On the high -speed descent highway - snow with flakes, below - the sun, and on the finish - rain. Rains and below, in the seaside zone. It was sadly frozen, and it immediately became somehow everyday and clear that there is life at the games, but secretive, mysterious, not individual and not team, but group, like the first competitions in figure skating, where we are champions.

There is no common space for communication, yes, it seems, and cannot be. International Olympic VIP company, in one place, National-a friend, friends of Bosco -in the third ... Olympic village-generally a closed zone. Television journals are their entrance. Writers and shooting - their own. Photo brothers, martyrs of the frame. They drag logs of heavy lenses on themselves, climb in cats on slippery snow slopes, stand on their feet for hours to create their own image of games.

Look at the card. Wonderful sports photographers are my good comrade Seryozha Kivrin, which is higher, and Andrei Golovanov is going to modestly shoot hockey Russia - Finland. These are all their devices and lenses. Girls carry the same amount, and no one helps them ... Be kind to photographers.

I have my own Olympic family here, as in games in Barcelona. She is not big, but beloved for many decades without any games. Anna Dmitrieva - the daughter of the great chief artist of the pre -war Moscow Art Theater - a well -known tennis commentator and in the past an outstanding tennis player; Her brother, Volodya Molchanov, the son of the famous composer, the director of the big - the tennis player worse, and the TV presenter - which is now not and is not necessary; Mitya Chukovsky, the great -grandson of Korney Chukovsky, is the producer NTV Plus Sport; And Kirill Nabutov, the presenter, an essayist, journalist and generally son Viktor Sergeyevich Nabutov, my senior comrade and favorite football television department.

In Barcelona, ​​Anya and her team sheltered me, and I slept perfectly on the floor, and, having no accreditation, I got to the competitions with the team of television and even managed to do something. Rejoice - that’s what I managed for sure. I am now happy and grateful to the guys for their help. They know about games more. Because they have professional journalists everywhere. The picture reigns. There is no dispute. But she is not animated if there is no competent commentary. I am not talking about newspaper texts, because I remember the words of Mark Twain that the radio (then there was only the radio) will never compete with the newspaper, because it cannot be adapted for flying flies. The TV is all the more.

Nowadays, visual information is extremely important. The video sequence at the Games is international, I talked about it, but there is a national splash. This is when the fans joyfully shout or show Russian winners. But our sound is completely ... only “NTV plus sport”-you can watch and listen to understand something. From the rest of our commentators, especially analytical programs, the impression remains that their life is so poor and not interesting that a sense of unprecedented happiness, superior love and the opportunity to drink with friends, they only experience to dissolve in the propaganda abrasion with delight. Which has nothing to do with sports, or with the ideas of the Olympic movement, or with the norms of a decent person.

Listen, I do not want to seem legally illiterate, but I do not seem: are there any legal restrictions for obtaining an orgasm (18+), albeit a patriotic one, in front of a video camera during working hours, in full view of millions of people? No? Yeah.

And if he (the commentator) experiences this very (18+) before my eyes, without my desire, am I a victim of sexual encroachments (violence) of a public exhibitionist (25+)? No? OK.

Yes, and yet - if the commentator is a man (in the sense that it is not a woman, like approximately Dmitry Kiselev, that is, a conditional, but a man) and I, say, also a man (there is evidence), are his actions from the screen addressed to me and bringing his satisfaction in one -way, the realization of propaganda of one -sex love? Not again?

Well, okay. Moreover, this does not bother me, because (I report just in case) I have not collected all the flowers on the traditional field ...

In the meantime, in search of joy, I went to the Russian hockey match - Finland to look at our dear and very expensive masters. Well ... if you look at the black and white screen on the black and white screen, then perhaps it is better to Ulyana Babkina’s grandmother from Kargopol and you won’t say:

- glide! ..

PS

Dear friends! This is my last material from Sochi. I am sorry, but I can’t participate in the Olympic holiday at a time when people were born on the streets of Kyiv, where I was born and raised, people are dying. This is my decision. I do not urge to support me. I just ask the reader of Novaya Gazeta to understand me.

Sincerely, Yuri Growth.