"Cosmos" defeats chaos

To the 40th anniversary of the Moscow Helsinki group. Short memory report

Andrey Makarevich congratulates the Moscow Helsinki group / Facebook

When you come into contact with those who did and do, even some scrap arises: is it really that? Is the 90-year-old Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alekseeva, sitting in a wheelchair, still finds the strength to be such an irreconcilable fighter “for your and our freedom”? Is Sergey Adamovich Kovalev, the closest ally of Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, is still tragically irreconcilable to any falsehood. Why tragic? When you choose the truth, the naked truth, on which, according to a bad Russian proverb “grass does not grow,” remain, as a rule, in complete solitude.

However, this loneliness was not here. After the sharp performance of Kovalev, several people approached him or even ran up to him.

Now we still have to explain where it is “here” and when.

Moscow. Hotel "Cosmos". Conference room. May 12-13. The conference dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), the oldest of the human rights organizations that are currently operating in Russia. (Created on May 12, 1976. The organizer and the first head of the ICG was the Soviet physicist, corresponding member of the Armenian SSR Yuri Orlov. Since May 1996, the chairman of the ICG-Lyudmila Alekseeva.)

All conferences are boring one way or another. And this one would not be an exception, if not for the confessional frankness of some speeches. One of them, for example, said that Yavlinsky, who expressed satisfaction, that they met again in “Cosmos” (space?), He did not notice that “us” became so less that a large hall (see, reserved for this matter) was replaced by a small one. In another and in the third, and in the fifth, it was said about the current regime so that it seemed that now people in caps with blue shakes and ...

Well, Sergey Adamovich Kovalev “ran” not only on the young people for him: 30-40-year-old pragmatists, not burdened with moral criteria, but also on the human rights movement itself, in which he himself participated for all these years. How wonderful it was. Not senile grumbling, but young unbending spirit!

This is the conference dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the MGX, differed from any congress of any even the most democratic and opposition party: sincerity. Lack of personal ambitions and experiencing for business. Which? So that finally human rights become really higher than the rights of a group of people who have privatized power. So that everything difficult to develop in our country does not determine at once in foreign agents. So that the fight against monopolism and corruption ceases to be the struggle of Nanai boys. To ...

It was sad that most of these non -conformists were killed by noble gray hair. And young? Almost only the victims and heroes of the marsh. Then they were awarded awards from MGX. These are honorary awards. Because they are from the hands of Lyudmila Alekseeva and other members of this worthy organization, which has already become legendary.

And her founding father Yuri Orlov spoke with everyone who was in the hall, with us, who hid breathing at that moment, on Skype, could not come due to age and physical condition, but even managed to utter a short lecture on his understanding of the current state of affairs in Russia. “I wonder how many people who are in chaos, and not now in the“ Cosmos ”, would he be understood correctly?” I thought.

The point is not only in the personal courage and sacrifice that the organizers of the MGX showed us, but also in honest self -awareness, which is now in a shortage. It is easier to live with illusions approved from above. What at least the thousand people who were present at the anniversary of the MGX do not allow themselves, and behind them, by the way, is more and more ...

By the way, at the conference itself there was neither Andrei Makarevich, nor Julia Kim, nor Vladimir Lukin. Well, understandable: busy, popular people, artists. Yes, I did not make a reservation about Lukin: he also sang at the MGX awards with Kim (duet!) (He did not fake, unlike the dear Julia Chesanovich). And Makarevich lit - through new songs drifting towards Galich (which the entire human rights community caused a complete delight).

And in the intervals between these numbers were awarded awards - both young and very pretty boys “with swamp” and honored human rights activists.

In general, fun. But the phrase of Sergei Adamovich settled in my head about the fact that “we can turn into the office, this is not so bad only if this office will serve the case of human rights movement.” Well, how unbending!

And there is only one lesson from this conference: water sharpens the stone. Although there is a second one: the spirit defeats the flesh.