The end of the Kapkovsky anomaly

What is worth the dismissal of the head of the Moscow Department of Culture

A week before the resignation: Sergey Kapkov (on the right) and Kirill Serebrennikov presented the new Gogol Center director Anastasia Golub, Moscow, on March 2, 2014, not one of the Moscow ministers of culture has attracted such attention to Russian society as Sergey Kapkov. He was so knocked out of the clip of faceless Russian officials that rumors about his resignation began to run almost immediately after appointing to this position in September 2011. On March 10 of this year, Kapkov finally left a record on his Facebook page, which began with the words: "I'm not tired, but I'm leaving." Journalists and users of social networks have already managed to put forward an incredible number of versions that explained the reasons for this resignation. Although it was necessary to be surprised, rather, not Kapkov’s departure, but the fact that he was suffered for so long.

What was remembered by the television journalist Roman Super recalls how once Sergey Kapkov inspected the toilet in the Gogol Theater even before Kirill Serebrennikov was appointed by Kirill Serebrennikov. The handrail, for which a person was supposed to seize on a wheelchair, was installed near the toilet so that it became strongly impossible to use it. Kapkov stood near this toilet and repeated with hatred: “Scum. Just scum. "

Perhaps this episode contains the radical difference between Kapkov and the “normal” Russian bureaucrat - he will be excited about how he will look in the eyes of his bosses, and not in the eyes of a disabled person who has nowhere to celebrate the need. They ordered the theater to adapt toilets for the disabled - he adapted. Everything is fine with the papers.

Kapkov, who came from business and thinking exclusively in business cathegors, tried not to please the authorities who had lowered the circular, but to the final consumer. Result? Over the past two years, according to the Moscow Institute of Social and Cultural Programs, the popularity of theaters and concert halls among the townspeople has increased by 4 more times (from 4 to 17 %), 13 % of respondents (3 % in 2012) are interested in museums and exhibitions, and 53 % of Muscovites are ready to go out for a free day, although 56 % would have remained with great pleasure in weekend houses.

The achievements of Kapkov in the post of Moscow Minister of Culture cannot be denied, but this does not mean that he did not have punctures and strange decisions. He was scolded for the absurd “optimization” of small Moscow theaters, which were supposed to be merged into a single structure. For a scandal with the Mayakovsky Museum, where several directors were replaced by Kapkov. The Taganka Theater’s theater has not solved, where, after the departure of Yuri Lyubimov, scatter and staggering still continue. For the fact that the urban space created with it is devoid of historical memory - nothing in Moscow parks reminds of the tragic history of Russia of the 20th century.

Why did Vladimir Medinsky constantly have left the allocation of state funds to the cultural figures dependent on their ministry to the tsar and the Fatherland, Kapkov made it possible to take place of a whole generation of Russian directors oriented towards European values.

“Kapkov is a European -type pragmatist,” said Boris Yukhananov, artist of the Stanislavsky electricheatter. - I would not be able to take this position if Kapkov had not initiated an open competition for the replacement of the post at the Stanislavsky Theater. In the process of my work, I never felt any administrative and artistic pressure on myself. ”

At the same time, Sergei Kapkov is hard to call the liberal. According to those who worked with him, he repeatedly emphasized that he is an absolutely systemic person. Member of the Supreme Council of the United Russia party, in 2007 he ended up in the State Duma after Vladimir Putin handed over his mandate. As a manager, Putin's Russia, and he was always an adherent of the current government.

However, many of those who are in power today, Kapkov frankly did not like. One of the former members of the Kapkovsky team, who, on the condition of anonymity, gave an interview with NT , believes that “officials of the federal level should begin panic, because now it is not clear who, for example, Vladimir Medinsky should fight, who used to have an enemy in the person of Kapkov with all his contemporary art. But Kapkov’s departure was a foregone conclusion for a long time. Recently, his personal agenda has recently not coincided with what is happening around: it is difficult to build exquisite ice sculptures on the slope of the hill from which the avalanche leaves. ”

Did the federal center have influenced the dismissal of Sergei Kapkov somehow? To this question, the former chief editor of the Afisha Yuri Saprykin, who until recently developed by order of the city the new concept of VDNH, answers as follows: “I do not know anything about the presence of the political forces of the federal level that would achieve his departure, rather, there were some conflicts within the city hall. Say, before his arrival, the parks were engaged exclusively by the Department of Housing and Communal Services, and then all this farm began to go through the culture department-well, who would like it? But most importantly, the policy of changing and ennoble the urban environment that the Department of Culture has been involved in recent years has obviously not the main priority for the city hall. Times are gloomy, there is less money, international tension is growing. And in these conditions, of course, the reconstruction of parks, embankments and houses of culture, where peaceful funny people would come - well, or where they would become peaceful and funny - probably not the most important thing. ”

Partly, this opinion was confirmed by Kapkov himself, who spoke after his resignation on the air of “Echo of Moscow”. On the replica of Alexei Venediktov: “For any politician, letting go of a popular person from his team is the risk of losing part of the electorate” - he answered this: “So, he (Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin. - NT ) This part of the electorate is no longer needed. For him, this is a more conscious solution than for me. ” We are, of course, about those whom sociology calls “educated townspeople”, and the media often “hipsters”, that is, about those who were most of the protest of 2011-2012. The authorities made a bet on the Anti -Maidan, with the townspeople transferred to the language of repression. In this situation, Kapkov, despite his loyalty, obviously is no longer needed.

Who replaced Sergei Kapkov was the former head of the Moscow Emergencies, Alexander Kibovsky, reviews about which are contradictory. The representative of the Archnadzor public movement Rustam Rakhmatullin says about him: “Kibovsky does not apply, in my opinion, to the number of open leaders. I mean his readiness to interact with the urban protection community - of course, he would like him to be not guided by the public. The Shakhovsky’s estate on Bolshaya Nikitskaya was half demolished for the construction of Helikon-Opera, and Kibovsky was one of those who covered the demolition with legal hooks. For example, it was said that the fraction in the address of the monument indicates the corner building, and not the entire ensemble, as a result, most of the estate ceased to be a monument. This manipulation was performed by Rooshran cultures with his circular letter at the time when Kibovsky headed it. Soon after, he turned into Moskomnutor. ”

The architect Eugene Ass, well familiar with Kibovsky, is also not very rosy: “Kibovsky is a figure more opportunistic and less independent than Kapkov, as for the formation of a cultural agenda. I hope that this purpose will not lead to a turn from the system of bourgeois liberal values ​​that Kapkov professed, to the national-patriotic values ​​that the Federal Ministry of Culture professes. Although it is also impossible to exclude such an opportunity. ”

But Yuri Saprykin believes that everything is not so gloomy: “Gloomy jokes are walking along Facebook, that soon a rusty spell wheel, cracked asphalt, beer and barbecue will again appear in Gorky Park. But I think this is impossible. The power of inertia for those processes that have been launched in recent years is too great. This is due to the fact that in the department and cultural institutions there are people who brought Kapkov there. The main thing is that in reality there is no public request for a rusty wheel of a review, no one wants everyone to return back in the parks, libraries and theaters, Muscovites voted for these changes, not some kind of narrow sect of fashionistas, but hundreds of thousands of people. Therefore, there will definitely not be a turn back, and the projects launched by Kapkov will stretch for at least a few more years - at least due to inertia. ”

Kirill Serebrennikov, Kirill Serebrennikov, adheres to approximately the same views: “Do not arrange the“ Crying Yaroslavna ”about the departure of Sergey Kapkov, or even it really looks like an obituary. And it is worth saying many thanks to him for everything that he did for all of us. Undoubtedly, now some new plot in the development of Moscow culture is beginning. A fairly young man, intellectual came in his place. It seems to me that Kibovsky has his own vision of how the culture of the city should develop, and soon we will find out what exactly he wants. It seems to me that Kapkov has done quite a lot so that after its departure the restoration of the Dokapkovsky era is impossible. So, everything will somehow move on. ”

Photo: Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS