Anna from the Atlantean breed

It seemed that I knew two people.

One was Politkovskaya in 1996, in the General Newspaper, where I lasted 3 (three) months, and Anya led the emergency department for five years. She was in the editorial office (a close confrontation between Yegor Yakovlev, a light laugh), as it were, an individual person. In essence, I did not recognize her in these three months and I do not even remember her face. I remember always a preoccupied, heavy woman in some kind of jackets and skirts, a subordinate, as it seemed to me, service. She did not sit, like us, for hours in the buffet, did not smoke, hardly talked. Now I understand that it was not a service, but a service. And then they looked at each other and sighed behind her. Politkovskaya has already taken everyone out a little with her lists. From room to room she printed the vast registers of victims of the Stalinist repressions. Colleagues grinned: do your job, like you can’t transfer everyone. It is strange that Yegor did not touch her, did not intervene. Fucking, or what?

Now I understand that it was just her business. Think: not days, not months, but years to engage in all the names to be pulled into the light. Simply names and dates. Much later, I realized that only Anya Politkovskaya could do this. With her consistent passion, with her wild perseverance and confidence in her innocence. By the way, the owner name of the publisher did not say anything to anyone, but for us she was the "wife of Politkovsky." Sasha with the company "Glass" rattled throughout the country.

And Anya seems to have not strove for any popularity.

And again-“now I understand” (you see, more than once I will have to write these words), this was not her time. Enough vegetarian Yeltsin era, hungry, but relatively peaceful by August of the 96th, when we crossed into the "general". The first Chechen ended, the second did not begin. The thieves of her, like all of us, were "miles than the bloodsuckers." Although I heard that during the "operations" she asked for Chechnya, but she was not allowed. Family, children, that. The great Dmitry Muratov, who does not occupy the gender issue in journalism, then there was no still on our horizon. Actually, the "new" only two years as began to go out.

Politkovskaya knew that Rock would overtake her - sooner or later. It was a mission for which she was born.

For a long time I could not understand what I found in Politkovskaya Marina Goldovskaya - already then, when she taught her television journalism. “Now I understand” that the acute instinct of the teacher and the diamond eye of the documentary, Marina chuly the colossal strength, integrity and steel ridge of her student. She took her all 28 years that they were familiar. Then these shootings formed the basis of the full -length documentary about Ana “The bitter taste of freedom”. This is, in fact, life. An ancient tragedy of rock, towards which the heroine deliberately goes.

Consciously. This is the most important thing. Anya did not take risks. Risk is always unknown. The sapper and test pilot risks. Politkovskaya knew that Rock would overtake her - sooner or later. It was a mission for which she was born.

This mission began in 1999, when another Anna Politkovskaya appeared in my life and in the life of the whole country.

I did not immediately realize that it was she. Politkovskaya seemed to hatch from some cocoon. Beautifully (salt with pepper) graying to forty, losing weight, with an exacerbated, some kind of schismatic face, she flew around the corridor in a businesslike way. The editors were surprised: why did Mitya take her? Well, you guess-“now” ... not now, of course, but very soon.

Very soon, we all realized that Mitya Muratov did the main matter of his life - he gave the Politkovskaya tribune. The best of the editors, like the director Goldovskaya, he realized about Anya right away. In addition to one - her short relationship with rock. Maybe if I understood this and this, I would be able to protect ... although it is unlikely. That's why he is rock.

“Why did I dislike Putin? That's what I disliked this. For simplicity, which is worse than theft. For cynicism. For racism. For an endless war. For a lie. For gas in Nord-Ost. For the corpses of innocently killed, accompanying his entire first term. The corpses that could not be, ”she will then write in the book“ Putin's Russia ”.

The second Chechen. The Nord-Ost erupted. They exploded at home. Then Beslan. Anya came to the New Gazeta to finally make her journalism: journalism as an act.

It seemed to me that Anya was getting more beautiful every day. Actually, it was. Her actions appeared on her face - a portrait of Dorian Gray with a reverse sign.

She was poisoned, threatened, pressed the trunk to her forehead. But they never shot - before that evening of 2006.

In the editorial office, we sat with her in the neighboring rooms, we were shared by a cardboard wall, not reaching the ceiling. Through this gap, the rustle of voices oozed all the time. There were no words to make out, unless Anya did not speak in Russian and English, sometimes she had to scream, the audibility in Chechnya was bad. The walkers went to her with a continuous stream. Once, going out into the corridor, I ran into her, who escorted a drained tearful woman in black. The Chechen came to Politkovskaya, because the priest could not listen to her confession, she was so terrible. I just could not stand it.

Anya withstood everything. Scandals with the authorities (a mutual mat from the office of the editor -in -chief spread along the corridors, like a construction site), heavy business trips, their dank, dirty nights, broken roads, captivity. She was poisoned, threatened, pressed the trunk to her forehead. But they never shot - before that evening of 2006. Everyone respected her - militants in Chechnya, old people, widows, mothers of dead soldiers, soldiers, politicians, colleagues around the world. I think the authorities too. If this power is able to respect someone at least, and not just be afraid. And these bitch were afraid of the reckless political with her atrophy and simple caution - until a bear disease.

Anya knew that she was hunting for her. For some time now I stopped eating and drinking in public places. In early September 2004, she flew to Beslan, where she was going to mediate in negotiations with terrorists. I ate my homemade sandwich. And I still drank a sort of sabotage. The plane with a half -dead passenger was put in Rostov. After this poisoning, all somatics flew in her, Anya became almost disabled.

But a month later, leaving the “Corcourt” in Beslan (the same was called a one -room apartment without furniture, where the correspondents of the “new” replaced each other), I handed over the watch of Politkovskaya. She especially thanked for contact with a taxi driver ...

On August 30, Ana would have turned 56. She died young and very, very beautiful.

I will never forget, like all of us late at night, after television, we grabbed a taxi and rushed to the editor, where they sat and drank until the morning, drunk. They drank, spoke and cried, feeling like a family who lost his beloved, the most beautiful sister ...

No, I better remember something else. One fleet and, in general, a cheerful conversation. For some reason, she suddenly told me (we were not close friends) about her boyfriend. Norwegian publisher.

“He is so Kla-Assy,” she wandered very much, even girlishly, even in a girl.

- Is he calling to get married? I asked in a businesslike way.

- Yeah ... But how will I live there ...

- Why don't you live? Sit, write books, admire the fjords.

- So he says so, but I can't ...

- What can you not? - I was even a little angry. “You, An, you can’t, without war, that's what I tell you.” You are bitten by the war.

She so fiercely argued that it was obvious - I am right. But not only the war was “bitten”. She had a conscience, a soul, a completely physiological, like an ulcer, a sense of justice. Of course, it was impossible to endure such a soloist on stage.

And she continued her stubborn path towards Rock.

Today, Ani is not enough somehow especially acute, strongly. The time that we had to live to live to live is her very time again. She is more than anyone. Politkovskaya was a nee Mazepa. Ukraine, free Ukraine is not an empty phrase for her family. All the time I seem to be looking for and waiting for her evidence next to the reports of Babchenko, Loiko, Stenin, Ivleva. Politkovskaya would be believed. She could convince those who are not able to convince us ...

I wrote on Facebook that she did not go even to the middle of the earthly path. Then she decided to fix it, because a silent shot at the entrance of her house was heard in 2006, Ana was 48 years old. And then I decided to leave it. Because it belonged to a breed of Atlanteans who live for a long, long time ... They say, up to two hundred years. Unless, of course, they are removed, flying like a wild bird.

Let's go, guys, for Anka. Because she is alive. Larger than many.

After Anina, I worked in the newspaper for another four years. And then she left. And from the "new" and from journalism. At all. Having thought out, she concluded for herself: in this profession one must be political. You can’t - well, then go to another.