"Dialog" is over

After the search conducted by the FSB officers, the most popular socio-cultural project created in St. Petersburg in recent years was closed in the premises of the Central City Public Library of named after Mayakovsky

One of the "dialogues" in which Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Alexander Sokurov participated. In the center - Nikolai Solodovnikov

“These are our last“ dialogs ”in the Mayakovsky library,” began the next meeting with the Petersburgers who gathered on Sunday June 26 in the Great Hall of the Library on the Fontanka Embankment, its ideologist Nikolai Solodnikov. “This is due to the fact that for almost a year and a half different structures have been trying to explain the library administrations that our meetings here are extremely undesirable for both the library and the city.”

In the summer of 2012, an “Open Library” began to operate in St. Petersburg-a socio-cultural project that very quickly gained popularity with the public. “O”, according to the initial plan, planned to help city libraries expand the format of their work, for which he organized book festivals, arranged meetings of readers with writers and public figures, and held “round tables”. The most popular format of work over the years was “Dialogues” - a series of Sunday meetings of Petersburgers with writers, social figures, scientists, directors, popular media characters. Over the years, Ekaterina Genieva, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Svetlana Aleksievich, Alexander Sokurov, Nikolai Svanidze, Kirill Serebryannikov, Irina Prokhorova, Alexey Venediktov and many others entered into a dialogue with the townspeople over the years. To the “dialogs” invited not only those whom, with a great desire, the power could be considered to be the “fifth column”, deacon Andrei Kuraev, political analyst Maxim Shevchenko, the odious St. Petersburg deputy Vitaly Milonov, Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky came here. Everyone was given a platform to express their ideas, everyone was given a word and listened to everyone. The leading “Dialogs” were Nikolai Solodnikov, a journalist, a former TV presenter, and his wife Katerina Gordeeva, a famous Russian journalist and director.

On Sunday, June 26, “Dialogues” were opened by Alexander Etkind and Ekaterina Shulman, the topic of their performance was called “Memory, forward!”. The meeting took place, but turned out to be the last. According to Nikolai Solodnikov, on the eve of June 23, the FSB officers came to the Mayakovsky library and presented the order for the search. As NT Nikolai Solodnikov told NT, over the past year and a half, the visits of the FSB officers to the “dialogs” have been regular, especially they frequented for these meetings after the famous Ukrainian politician of Mustafa Nayim, who was expected in May last year. That meeting broke, and the FSB officers became constant listeners of the “dialogs”. The last aggravation of attention from the organs happened in February this year, when the “dialogs” of Boris Nemtsov’s memory with Alexei Venediktov and Lev Lurie were held in Mayakovka: on that day, the Ephesians were present in the library from morning to evening. In addition, “Watchtower” was instituted on Nikolai Solodnikov: his passport was scanned at each border crossing, starting from January of this year (Nikolai and Katerina Gordeeva now live in Latvia, maintaining Russian citizenship).

After a search on Thursday, Nikolai wrote a statement of care of his own free will (he officially worked in the library of the Mayakovsky deputy director for public relations). The search was carried out by employees of the EE unit, the order was signed by Alexander Rodionov, the head of the FSB in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. In it, as Solodnikov said, it was said that the library administration allegedly signed a fictitious labor contract with him, that, according to the FSB, Nicholas did not engage in any PR, but spent his salary on organizing these “extremist” “dialogues”. The FSB calls his salary "embezzlement of state funds."

“Katerina and I really spent this money on the organization of“ dialogs ”, but where is extremism, because this is my salary? - believes Nikolai Solodnikov. - Now we are offered some political parties, but the library institution is fundamentally important for me, because any person can come there, regardless of social status or political views. After all, our story about a large and very different Russian people, which in the library can gather and talk to each other. ”

The other day, as the NT correspondent told Solodnikov, he plans to contact several St. Petersburg libraries to find a new site for “dialogues”.

Photo from the archive "OB"