Mikhail Borzykin: "I am not leaving for protest"

On April 13, in the B2 club, the TV group celebrates the 30th anniversary. “I will think with my own head,” young Mikhail Borzykin sang from the stage of the Leningrad rock club in the 1980s, knowing that special services were closely observed due to the columns of his performances. “TV” was one of the first in the rock club to perform songs written not in the Metaphors language, but in the language of newspaper pamphlets that broadcast ideas that went against the official policy of the state. Unlike many former Rock Club friends, Mikhail Borzykin now does not change his principles-the brandy in the songs of the “neohristocchists”, opposes autocratic power, the restoration of the empire and patriotic propaganda, although he is afraid to become a victim of hunting for “National Defenseists”.

-Before the "TV" you played art rings in the Lake group.

- Yes, I was invited there to the keyboard player. The result of this cooperation was the collapse of the Lake group. Two guitarists went with me to the new TV project. In February 1984, we began to rehearse the program for joining the rock club. And before that I played in three or four groups since the 8th grade.

- Now it seems that the “TV” group has a strict concept corresponding to the name: social and protest songs related to the agenda of the day. As you once said: "I give information." Was this concept from the very beginning?

- There was no concept. There was a desire to play music in Russian. We were fans of a new wave and wanted to make music in this style. They wanted to avoid bladnyak and scoop, that is, primitive harmony, rhythm and vocal melodics. We had a snobbery approach of college students. We did not cultivate any social orientation in ourselves - if we listen carefully to 11 albums of the “TV”, we can understand that we have many songs about the love and songs of the psychophylosophical orientation. The political group is called by journalists who did not listen to half of our records.

"TV" - "The TV speaks to you"

-When you were in a rock club, to whom did you feel the greatest intimacy? The groups were different-both stylistically and ideologically. In which TV was the company?

-In the 82–83th, we were engaged in masochistic listening to Grebenshchikov’s songs for a long time, trying to unravel the rebels in his texts. We liked the new figurative language created by Boris. We were fans of the fashionable group “Strange Games” - they played SKA and were inspired by Madness , which we also liked very much. We loved the electronic group "Manufactory" and many others. In 1984, “Kino”, “Auktsyon”, “TV” entered the rock club. We tried to communicate with everyone - we discussed each other's concerts, praised and laughed. It was one creative borsch in which everyone was cooked.

-How do you feel about the myth that the rock club was invented by the KGB officers and managed by Komsomol workers to give a way out to youth protest?

- Probably, it was so, but we did not know about it, and we did not care. We wanted to achieve the opportunity to perform our songs. The first album was a la “aquarium”-psychophylosophic, and then the time itself dictated new songs to us. Then we were faced with resistance inside the rock club-we were asked not to perform some songs. This was called the program - show them to the censor. We began to violate these prohibitions - punishments followed this. Like six months, the group is forbidden to play somewhere, and without a rock club stamp the group was not released for concerts. It was our personal struggle. Of course, we understood, moreover, even sang: “There behind the column uncle with a concrete gaze” - the KGB officers were meant. Yes, they were present there, they showed them - and, as it turned out later, among them were people who were sympathetic and could not hold or did not want to keep the situation under control. Just a year after the first punishments, a breakthrough occurred - they stopped punishing us for the texts.

"TV" - "fed up throat"

-There is a story that eyewitnesses recall in different ways-about how, after the abolition of the festival of the rock club of 1988, you provoked and headed the protest street procession to Smolny. I would like to hear your version.

-It was the annual festival of a rock club-there was a group 20 to act: “Aquarium”, “Alice”, Sasha Bashlachev, “Object of ridicule”. And suddenly in a day the Council of the rock club suddenly ran into the fact that the festival, which was supposed to be held at the Winter Stadium, is canceled due to non-compliance with fire safety. The situation was hopeless. Everyone understood that this was a censorship ban, and dropped their hands. Someone as a joke suggested that I gather people and go to Smolny. I thought I could try: I began to shout something to the people who came to buy tickets. When we gathered about 50 people, we moved to Smolny. People from the windows asked: "Why are you going?" We said: "The rock festival is prohibited." They descended from the apartments and joined us. They wrote posters on the go. The Tauride Garden already had a decent crowd - it seemed to me that more than 2000 people. There, we were blocked by the police cordons, we went into the neutral lane, and Kolya Mikhailov, the president of the rock club, negotiated. I took a megaphone and asked people not to disperse, sat on the asphalt and wait for the results of the negotiations. As a result, the festival was allowed to hold.

-It is funny that during the Rock Club, many leaders of our country, including Governor Matvienko and President Putin, were somewhere near him. Could they go to your concerts?

-Judging by the fact that Putin loves the Lube group, he was unlikely to feel interest in the rock club. But about Medvedev there is a bike that he even played somewhere on a bass guitar. This is most likely a duck. And Matvienko seemed to have come and arranged a Komsomol spacing to the leadership of a rock club: you have all the walls here, and what the Nazis are gathering for. At the same time, I myself was not present, but eyewitnesses say that she was furious. How could she relate to rock if she liked Valery Leontyev.

-In those days, the “TV” was the same important group of rock club as “Alice” or “Auktsyon”. Why did he fall from the official canon of rock and a rock club at some point? You tried to explain for yourself why your songs are not twisting on our Radio?

-They periodically put some of our songs, but in order to get into a heavy rotation, managerial efforts and certain material are needed. I'm afraid that most of our songs simply do not fit. We are well familiar with Kozyrev - with him, the situation on our Radio was no better for the “TV”.

This is not creative spitting in the sky, this is life, it is more interesting.

In the early 1990s, we weakened attempts to stay at the stadium level. Other interests arose - we made our sound recording studio, traveled around Europe, looked at how the musicians live there. We had a non -profit attitude to music - we began to experiment. They wanted to bring themselves to an international state. To write hits like “fed up throat” was no longer interested in us. We expected that urgent Europeanization of Russia will occur - all colors will be a place for growth and people will need different music, including not too simple. And at this moment it was necessary to increase managerial potential, look for good producers, we had to go to contracts, it was necessary to play joint parties with all sorts of Muromov and gray - which many of our colleagues did. The “TV” had similar offers - conversations were held with Shulgin and Stas Namin, but we chose a different path. Therefore, they did not get to this train.

"TV" - concert in "Program A" (1993)

- When you finish the new album - did you promise it in winter?

- I honestly gathered (laughs) . But then the Maidan happened - I watched this event on Ukrainian television channels live and was so excited by this situation! A popular revolution occurred on the Maidan. Ukrainians are well done. They drove off the presumptuous boor-president. I applauded those who went to the Maidan and stood there for three consecutive months. I tracked all this live. It seemed to me that this is more important than the recording of the songs that we already play at concerts.

“You didn't want to go to the Maidan?”

- There was a desire - I constantly called up with friends from Kyiv. They even wanted to call us to perform on the Maidan, but it did not work out. But my friends, Kyiv musicians, performed there and told in detail what was happening. I am following this very carefully now, because this event is important not only for Ukraine, but also for Russia. This is not creative spitting in the sky, this is life, it is more interesting.

- You have not changed your attitude to events on the Maidan over time. Do you think it was worth it?

- I am a romantic. Unfortunately, revolutions often do not do without bloody tragedies. But without events on Grushevsky Street, there would be no current situation - now the paternalistic model of society has become less real for Ukraine. And this allows us all to believe and hope that people are not slaves, that they do not need a boss, they do not need a God's elected president, as many people think from us. The Maidan still controls the power and affects its decisions. I hope the Ukrainians will succeed. Our situation is much more neglected. Our fear of the revolutions, which is cultivated by the Kremlin, drives us into a state of great -Persian chauvinism: as the emperor will say, we will live. This proof is the events in the Crimea, which was unscrupulous as a result of a special operation. Many in Russia close their eyes to this - this is how the imperial button works on which these Kiselevs, Solovyovs and other propagandists pressed. We have it, unfortunately, - we have been the slaves of the system for too long. And it turned out that we were divided, but it would not last long.

- Why not long?

-I took such periods of patriotism on my own skin in the 1980s. When we were taught to hate America first on school lines, then China, then America again. They said that they would come and seize all our resources and that there is generally not life there, but hell. This quickly ceased to act precisely because there was too much. The brain gets tired of continuous propaganda and begins to block this information. I hope that the accumulation of this fatigue will not take 70 years.

"TV" - "patch up the basement"

-Are you not afraid to be recorded in the "National District"?

- The point is not iron, as they say. Therefore, there are concerns. Moreover, groups of groups have already begun to cancel. And we had problems.

- Which?

- So far, small. The scandal on the TV channel 100, where we were not allowed to perform. They do not put us on the radio station. They say: “You understand that we cannot put songs from the album“ deja vu ”. We will have problems. " The festival “Songs of Protest” in the Rox club was supposed to be held: riot police with dogs were sent there - they were looking for a bomb. As a result, the festival canceled. Somehow they tried to arrest after the concert-they managed to hide me from riot police. Nothing serious so far. But the sensation, of course, is anxious - the air stolen. The authorities have chosen a regime of twisting of nuts and the search for enemies. I remember all this in the Soviet Union. The only thing that calms me is that this will not last long. Because fatigue is already felt at the top and below. This can all fall in the most sudden way. The Soviet Union was also considered the same indestructible at one time.

- Are you hoping to survive this mode?

- Yes, I hope. Now another time is faster due to information transparency. It is impossible to write off everything on an American conspiracy when your friends are sitting on oil and gas. People see everything.

- You used to regularly go to the “marshmalls of the disagreements” in St. Petersburg, and now they stopped. Why?

- “Marshy” no longer. In St. Petersburg, the processions are not allowed. I was recently at an anti -war rally against the annexation of Crimea - there was 500 people on the Marse Field. I have reduced activity recently, because the protest movement skillfully pulled out in the camps. I saw a protest collapsed from the inside: it was very unpleasant. I was always for the unification - it seems to me that we can’t do anything alone. This proves the experience of Ukraine and protest marches of two years ago. And the idea of ​​“Strategy 31” seems to me exhausted, especially since Limonov was in the same boat with Putin. I am not leaving for protest, just some promotions began to look comical. In order not to be upset, it’s better not to go to them.

-At the St. Petersburg concert dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the “TV”, you performed in a striped jacket-this is the same, from the 1980s, or her replica?

- Yes, the same. This jacket was made by the group designer - but in fact it is just our friend who sewed us new -wave clothes. She miraculously survived, it seems, since 1986 - it got her. But I do not use her all the time. I put on only unique events.

April 13 "TV" performs at the B2 club