“Morning Reception” with Andrey Bilzho

“You’ll get ears from a dead donkey, you defective one!” Thus, with a quote from the book by Ilf and Petrov, Dmitry Rogozin commented on the plans of the Baltic countries to demand compensation from Russia for the “Soviet occupation.” The Deputy Prime Minister traditionally made a striking statement on his Twitter. Earlier, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia gathered to present monetary claims to Moscow. The payment will be both compensation for material damage and an apology, the authors of the initiative emphasized. In 2005, Vladimir Putin also responded to Latvia’s claims to part of the Pskov region with the wish to receive “not the Pytalovsky district, but the ears of a dead donkey.” Kommersant FM presenter Oksana Barykina discussed the topic with Andrey Bilzho, an artist, writer and restaurateur, and a psychiatrist by training.

Photo: Alexander Miridonov, Kommersant / buy photo

Andrei Bilzho: “Even the Estonian Prime Minister criticized this whole story. It is empty, because some people probably still have the feeling that it was a Soviet occupation, but in general, according to my recollections, and there are many of them, in fact, in different cities - Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn, the town of Vyzu, I’ll tell you that this, of course, was an absolute foreign country for Russia. No wonder a huge number of films were shot there, and, in my opinion, the film “17 Moments of Spring” was filmed. It was an absolute foreign country with these stylish, very stylish cafes, with these small glasses on small tables in which there was one flower, it was an absolute foreign country, and in fact, the attitude was towards people who came from the Soviet Union, from Moscow, very correct. For example, in my dozens of trips to these three countries, I have never once experienced any kind of contempt or dissatisfaction. I spoke, naturally, in Russian, and they answered me in Russian, and all this talk about how Russians were not accepted and were somehow treated with some irritation, I didn’t see this, honestly. And in the small town of Võsu it was generally wonderful, people from St. Petersburg and Moscow vacationed there, and the attitude was wonderful. We lived in a private house, and we had a wonderful hostess Maya, who—the 1991 coup had just happened, and we were leaving, we were just getting on the train—said: “Where are you going, stay.” She cried, cried, cried and felt so sorry for us. In general, these are some empty things.”

“There is something of Ostap Bender in Mr. Rogozin”