Dmitry Borisov: "When the unrest - the catering wins"

I am an Orthodox person, was born and raised in a church family. My dad was a church historian of the XIV-XVI centuries-he was not allowed to defend the dissertation because of his dissident affairs. We went to church, then it was cool. I remember they went to Easter, I was 10-12 years old, and some Komsomol scum did not let the Komsomol into church with children. For a passionate week, specially - once a year - in the Kino theater "Novorossiysk" suddenly announced a retrospective of films, for example, with Belmondo. And so I rushed there, watched half a films and then rushed from Novorossiysk to Afanasyevsky, to the church where we were parishioners, I ran at a wild speed to catch the end of the shroud. You know, such a thing is a banal thing - I don’t remember who said this - but the Christian church of persecution to the face. The closer the church is as an institution to the state, to money, to force, the worse and more neopotal. So now there is no need to talk about the charm of the Russian Orthodox Church, unfortunately the huge. Because charm is important, this is an engine. In any business, even in mine.

I have never called myself an urban environment-these are young urbanists invented some nonsense. No, however, you can really imagine that the question "Who are you?" I answer: “A specialist in the urban environment” (laughs) ! Unless I’m dripping a stupid girl. We are just small city entrepreneurs who open some establishments and, by virtue of their social and personal preferences, collecting a certain company there. Now they opened “House 12” - I wanted to make a place where it would be interesting to me, my friends, their children. Here, in addition to the restaurant, which my friend and partner Lesha Zimin drives, a lot of things are happening: the lectures of Grigory Revzina, the exhibitions, which is injected by Lena Kamenskaya, literary readings. And there will be even more. For example, we made a children's cinema: we asked Naum Kleiman, Anton Valley, other film -specialists to collect the best children's cinema - because in Moscow there is simply nowhere to watch world youthful classics, which is called disgusting words “for family viewing”. And at home to watch movies to children is not so interesting: it is important for them to step into the dark room, it is important to have pizza and popcorn. And adults, by the way, is important. So this program in House 12 is terrible, and others too. Here lectures are given by those who are interesting to us, exhibitions are made by those curators whose opinion is important to us, through curators those artists that we respect, and we do not necessarily like them. A huge number of groups or artists showing something in our establishments are absolutely not close to me. But they arouse respect for what they are doing. And since in Moscow there are very few active people now, I want to concentrate them at some points.

“Active” for me does not mean “politically active”. Regarding political activity, I, unfortunately, have always been cynical. The best and very sad example of this is the “Orange Revolution” in Kyiv, Yushchenko, all this mess. My younger friends went there - to live, to participate, to say "what drive." I was there after, and indeed - there was a drive in the city. People on the streets kissed, the cafe "Babuin" and so on. But since childhood, with great skepticism, I was, for example, by the 68th year in Paris. I could not stand this Sartre participation of intellectuals in student performances. I will somehow formulate it somehow, well, so as not to lick by accident at these ... unpleasant. In general, such things never ended pretty. And in Ukraine, this was confirmed a year later. In France, those who rebelled in the 68th, then sat in the government, intellectuals from the Sorbonne became an elite, in places disgusting. I am not even talking about French socialism or capitalism, it doesn’t matter - it is important how such processes end. Beautiful and honest guys always lose - both in the social and in the political sense. They win in my eyes, in yours, but it does not help anything. So there is no fun in this. And there is no hope.

I am a social being, especially since I have such a job, but living only by this is strange.

I do not blame anyone ... Damn, it’s wildly difficult, even in a friendly situation I am afraid to formulate this. I am a pragmatist and understand that all this is pointless, unfortunately. That is, it is not pointless ... How to explain something? I was on Sakharov, and it was terribly high, but not clear. I am more clear, say, “Walking of writers” - as an attempt to outline the format of urban social statement, handsome to me. But under any promotions headed by people with political beliefs, it doesn’t matter if I went to these actions or did not go - I am not ready to subscribe, because I know the goal -setting of these guys. Himself - please, with them - no. I remember my first rallies well, this is the eighth or nine class. We arranged them on Red Square, on the frontal place - four, a five -two. Then Mendelevich, director of the 57th school, took me out of the cop. In the "Ogok", in the section "Photo -finish", our photograph was, "Pranks against the Society" Memory ": there are ten funny fools, children at all. And there are these ... assholes with banners.

So, these guys and I are just different people, understand? I remember everyone sat somewhere after the rally on Sakharov, and Navalny sat. I went in and said: “He has been here, not yet in Galife,” - the entire institution rusted, but he did not. Although now, perhaps, no one would laugh.

I generally think that I went to the rally, I didn’t go - this is an absolutely personal choice. I just cynically understand that it will end badly. Much of what is being done, unfortunately, is done mediocre. Well, yes, the same “Writers' Walk” was not mediocre. But I absolutely ... Damn, the situation is vile now, such ... camp, yes. I can’t say unpleasant things about the people who are sitting or there under the press. They are unsympathetic to me, but now it is impossible to condemn them - this is camp ethics, which is essentially quite human: people in trouble cannot be kicking. I just do not like those who urge to go somewhere. The writers suggested walking with them, and these are called for themselves - do you understand the difference? I do not like these specific people, but everyone who has ever done so. Here is a great protest against the entry of troops into Czechoslovakia - eight people went to the square. I was lucky, thank God, to know several of them personally. Did they call someone? No, they just went out of the clock. And this is one of the most famous protests in the history of mankind. Mass shares are mediocre. I do not think that if 20 million go to the streets, then someone will be scared and life will change. Nothing will change. Only the fact that the war will begin will change - and the Maidan showed it.

I completely disagree with those who say that our establishments are not about food.

Well, yes, it is clear that when unrest, demonstrations - catering wins. This is not I invented - these are statistics in any country. Any public agitation leads to the fact that people want to discuss this agitation. Obama brought some elections to New York catering an additional billion dollars. I don’t know the exact figure, I say abstractly. The victory of Zenit in St. Petersburg brings an increase in income to any catering, from our "Jean-Jacobs" to terrible places where real fans are gathering. But my establishments are not called to be the centers of any public movements, they are designed to buy a piece of meat for 100 rubles, fry and sell for 150. And if we talk about “house 12”, then its space is designed to activate private life when the public worsens. Private - not in the sense of personal, but in the sense of emotional.

The first phrase of Brodsky in the Nobel lecture is devoted to private life, the fact that it is more important than any social role of man. My daughter grabbed bad marks - for me it is great importance, now I am sitting with her and correcting this garbage. Once again: I do not urge you to spit on a public, but I try the main emotions, good and bad, to experience about my private and personal life, and not what the "echo of Moscow" and Life are imposed on me News . Why are they - and through them this world - they raped me every day? This is a pig. I do not want to, did not subscribe to it. I stopped starting the morning with the news. It is more pleasant for me to call and the Fincher New to discuss or Anke Narinskaya - the last time we talked about Prilepin’s “abode” for an hour and a half. I want to call friends in order to hang the paintings on these walls, discuss what where. And the phone calls "Full nightmare, what to do, what to do?" - No, unproductive. This is not a way to avoid reality: you understand, I am a social being, all the more I have such a job, but it is strange to live only.

Of course, my establishments are part of the cultural landscape. But not only mine. Here is the 1985 stork cafe with its shootings, here is the Chinese Friendship on Novoslobodskaya, where the whole of Moscow goes, yes, this is part of the cultural landscape, of course. Well, how? The insurance business - the company "Lloyd" - was born in the port tavern. Most of the intellectual and poetic directions of the late XIX-early XX centuries were born in a catering so-called. Political parties and poetic associations that Russians, that European, that American, appeared in cafes and bars. How can you separate any legendary Venetian or Parisian places from culture? You can't. But these are spontaneous phenomena. And “House 12” is not only a restaurant, but also a club, there we deliberately make some kind of program, provide a platform for those whom we consider part of the modern cultural and intellectual process. I do not claim to be a spiritual cross - I am an administrator of the premises. Well, maybe a little involved in this cultural program, in which, once again, we are interested in people of completely different views and directions. Different to a certain limit, of course. I am a pluralist, yes, but we have closed doors for people with an aggressive point of view, with aggressive intentions. And so - if a person sits, eats, drinks and does not interfere with a neighbor, then he is a wonderful client. Of course, there are several specific public figures whom I would not want to see. But if they come to an open, not club, institution - what can I do? They go-to Jean-Jacques, for example. I am unpleasant, but this is not a Private club.

I don’t want to win anything, it helps me myself.

I never said that I am going to improve the world by food. That is, I said something like that, but not about food, but about Table Talk is that we are not very correctly translating as a “table conversation”. In fact, Table Talk is a table story, a joke, a bike. And we translated as it is convenient for us, and our company and Dima Yampolsky were called T ABLE Talk , "Tagging". Well, a table conversation implies food, drink and a calm conversation. At all times, in crisis moments - not necessarily financially crisis, but in general, when a bad mood - people wanted more communication, in particular, a mackerel. For me personally, this is psychotherapy, when I sit at the table with loved ones and beautiful girls, drink, bite and discuss something. This is always not enough during periods of take -off and hopes, because everyone is fussing. And when in society everything is not very and the mood is not very good, it helps. I am trying to involve wider masses of people in such psychotherapy, and it works.

I do not think that this is purely Russian - to drink when it is bad. That is, not only to drink, but to chat. Normal people do not communicate without food and drink. That is, maybe someone communicates, but it is somehow strange (laughs) , I don’t know such. Once again - I’m not talking about an individually poor condition, a personal crisis there is middle -aged or depression. I am talking about the air-I hate the expression "agenda", but something else is now in my head. So, when the air like today, when the war, when news, analytics or just conversations on the phone are mostly full of bad information - we need a way of survival. I have always had it like that and many of my friends. This is a way to get away from the turmoil, from the rhythm of Facebook. Despite the fact that I myself - a person is quite active and shabby, this rhythm was not very close to me - when conversations are calculated for minutes, the correspondence is limited by five phrases and so on. And just sit, talk like, I don’t know ... like people - this began to be missing. I recall how a couple of weeks ago Sasha Turkot and I discussed Simonov’s poetry for three hours, it was a wild buzz. This happens very rarely, and I like it-to catch on something, to slow down a little. From here, in fact, the concept of “house 12” was born. It became interesting to look around, to do something ... to conduct an inventory: what is now there is generally intellectual in the air, in Moscow. And all our lectures, readings, conversations with children about good cinema are an attempt to provoke people to turn off the agenda imposed by reality and turn on their own. On my agenda, for example, Aizenberg’s brilliant poem: “Where is this from? From there, the same. / This is in the photo hello from someone. / This is from there, from the city of Rome, / patterns of a miracle ... ” - well, and so on, I can still quote. And no matter how the surrounding agenda reacts to me. I don’t care, I don’t want to win anything, it helps me myself.

Gastronomy in Moscow - if it is not Caucasian - cannot be cheap, it is objective.

If we return to our history, to Jean-Jacques, then I must say that we actually changed the social picture of Moscow. There was a huge city in which there was no French bistro - the only city in the world, I think, is a big city. And we made a French bistro, real, honest - and did quite cool. I completely disagree with those who say that our establishments are not about food. In your opinion, on Gatchinskaya Street and on Staronevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, people score "Jean-Jacques" to make sure? In general, what is the concept of French bistro? This is not about gastronomy. Bistro is not Brasseri, not a gastronomic place. In Moscow, this problem has always been: under the guise of Bistro, an expensive French restaurant was opened. And still the Russians have the attitude to French food as deception, they are used to the fact that the French restaurant is always wiring. And we honestly announced: "Bistro." French bistro is 150-200 standard, several hundred years of proven dishes. We collect 20-30 very simple from them and make the menu. Plus, there is a standard for bistro average ratio of food and drink: approximately 55% food, 45% wine. Jean-Jacques and I lost almost all contracts with strong alcohol, the most profitable. In our establishments, for a strong drink, we always went to other places - to the Mayak, to Gogol. And in the "Jean-Jacques" they do not drink vodka at all-well, they drink some meager interest, at the level of error. Yes, they do not go there for gastronomic impressions, but for this they should not go to the bistro.

When they say “Jean-Jacques”, they mean the notorious “Jean-Jacques” in Nikitsky, who really, by virtue of its location, became a Moscow attraction. Not only Moscow, but generally fell into history, as they say. Well, yes, there is some special energy, it is impossible to explain-somehow everything coincided: time, sensation, specific people who began to go there. It's just that this is the best area of ​​Moscow, one of the few where you can walk: Patriarchal ponds, two boulevards and Big Nikitskaya to the Kremlin. So there was a party, which lives around this place and spends time in Jean-Jacques. We invented him together - Dima Yampolsky, Muriel Russo ... There was a special company. There were a lot of Frenchmen, they go there now. The main idea was that Jean-Jacques is not something specially done. Previously, we opened some sly invented places: with fashionable gray interiors, special tables, with contemporary art. And in the "Jean-Jacques" they banned any stylization, even the Eiffel tower was not allowed to draw. There should have been something classic, like a scenery for cinema-so that any person understands that in front of him is a French bistro. This is an absolutely painted story - even you and I can make a brandbook of a French bistro, but any educated person will do in 15 minutes ... I wanted to create such a zero, a clean scene, and then the performance began on it, which has been going on for ten years.

Leva Rubinstein says “Soviet power returns” - but I do not agree.

I am talking about Jean-Jacques on Nikitsky, yes, but there are Jean-Jacques playing in other scenarios. In general, this is such a “zero base”. In fashion, the base is the white T -shirt and blue jeans, for example, which are now easy to buy, and five years ago everyone was looking for and injected, because it was very difficult to find this very base. When exclusive restaurants, copyright cuisines, interiors from this, like his ... Philip Stark, when each you*were as best you could, opened one after another, we decided to open a clean base-Jean-Jacques. As a matter of fact, in any metropolis, not even European, but even in Saigon, there are such “Jean-Jacques” in almost every house. The French bistro as a genre generally has one function: to give a person the opportunity not to be lonely. I went in, drank, ate, you feel comfortable. Notice, I'm not saying that you will definitely meet friends, no - after that you go to the club.

The club was a "lighthouse". Remember, a couple of years ago I said that I would make you stop going there, but you did not believe. Но надо было «Маяк» от нас понемногу освобождать, чтобы дать дорогу более молодым. То, что мы там устраивали, противоречило бизнесу (смеется) . Я шучу сейчас, но просто «Маяк» как клуб умер бы так и так. Просто умер бы по-другому. Мы бы перестали туда ходить, вы бы перестали. А сейчас мы его увели в сторону домашнего ресторанчика. Я вчера там, кстати, с девятилетней дочкой прекрасно провел время. Зашли съесть котлеты из индейки, в 7 вечера — ни одного свободного места… нас еле посадили. Понимаешь, десять лет — максимальный срок для клубного проекта, потом надо что-то обновлять, переделывать. Стало понятно, что, не знаю, из-за возраста или потому, что сил уже меньше (смеется) , нам нужно что-то более степенное, но при этом тоже драйвовое. Так появился «Бонтемпи». Когда та самая гастрономическая составляющая стала актуальной, когда люди захотели — мы сделали. «Бонтемпи», который сегодня «Черветти», — это не просто бар: был же еще ресторан, живший только на дорогой гастрономии, был Валентино Бонтемпи — гениальный повар. Там тоже сразу стали собираться люди из нашей тусовки — конечно, те, кто был готов платить такую сумму. Гастрономия в Москве — если она не кавказская — не может стоить дешево, это объективно.

Я вдруг понял, что этот великий тосканский помидор имеет гораздо большее, чем я, право жить здесь, в Тоскане, свою недолгую, но полезную жизнь.

Одно заведение, другое, сейчас их больше двадцати — конечно, у меня есть профессиональные страхи. Страшно, что бизнес умрет, разорится, перестанет иметь хоть какой-то смысл. Он и так один из самых рискованных в мире — общепит, я уж не говорю про клубную деятельность. Конечно, боюсь. И у меня нет никакого прогноза на будущее. Я с Левой Рубинштейном, кстати, это обсуждал. Он говорит «возвращается советская власть» — а я не согласен. Что-то рифмуется, естественно, всегда что-то с чем-то рифмуется. Но в целом реальность другая абсолютно. Нет возвращения советской власти, есть новая ситуация, вернее, не новая — продолжается распад Советского Союза, огромной, самой большой империи в истории человечества. И мы в этом принимаем участие так или иначе.

Я не готов уехать из России, то есть я бы очень не хотел. Навсегда, безвозвратно — нет. Я это понял, много времени проводя в Европе. Здесь я — в своем праве, а там — нет. Никто ведь не хотел бы всю жизнь прожить в гостях. Своим я там стать не смогу в силу того, что плохо знаю языки. Полноценной частью городского социума тоже не смогу стать, а мне это важно — не как статус, а как внутреннее ощущение. Вот я провел сейчас в Тоскане два месяца. Утром повез дочку смотреть на рассвет, по дороге мы ехали через помидорные грядки. И я вдруг понял, что этот великий тосканский помидор имеет гораздо большее, чем я, право жить здесь, в Тоскане, свою недолгую, но полезную жизнь. Он умеет, ему все понятно, он тут родился. А я даже на правах помидора там не проживу. На самом деле многие из тех, кто сидит сейчас в Лондоне, страшно переживают, что уехали. Еще раз — я могу уехать, просто адски не хочу, адски. Я привык к этой картинке из окна — тут вот якобы Пушкин венчался, хотя на самом деле не тут, там Суворов жил... Мне здесь уютно, хотя я терпеть не могу больше двух месяцев проводить в Москве. Конечно, если будет война или, не знаю, фашисты какие-то к власти придут и настанет полный п**дец — я возьму дочку и убегу. Но это так и называется — «беженство». Нигде я не видел счастливых, веселых беженцев и сам в такой роли быть не хочу. Хочу невынужденно жить там, где мне нравится. Верю, что смогу. Еще — верю в тебя, дорогую подругу мою (хохочет) . И поэтому, знаю, со мной ничего не случится.