Natalia Gevorkyan: Outside the system

I never thought that if Boris Nemtsov went to the presidential election in 1996. Now I’m watching a film about him, shot by Vera Krichevskaya and Mikhail Fishman, and stop the video that the guys gave me the opportunity to watch before the official premiere, it was at this place that Gaidar comes to Nemtsov with such a proposal.

Imagine: Ben (Boris Efimovich Nemtsov) would have changed BNA (Boris Nikolaevich), it sounds ridiculous. This would be possible only in one case: if BN had removed his candidacy and personally invited Ben to run. That is impossible. Nemtsov then, unlike many of us, did not hysterical about Zyuganov’s more than possible victory. Perhaps the fate of the country would have changed the winning of Zyuganov with the subsequent, as expected, losing in the 2000th, which Mikhail Friedman was talking about in the film and which Nemtsov openly spoke about. And then, why not, after Zyuganov the time of Nemtsov, not Putin, would come. But we will never know this. In reality, in the zero Nemtsov, although not immediately, was in a tough opposition to power.

The film "too free man" is the political biography of Boris Nemtsov, from the beginning of his career until his murder on the Big Moskvoretsky Bridge on February 27, 2015. Of the 56 years lived, Boris was 26 in politics, almost half of his life. The film follows this biography - the words of those who knew, worked, was friends and did not be friends with Nemtsov. It begins with the words of the opposition policy Alexei Navalny and ends with the words of the opposition politician Mikhail Khodorkovsky. And in the fact that the first and last word is opposition politicians, also the imprint of the biography of Nemtsov, who lived in the opposition to the current Russian government for almost half the political term, the last 12 years of his life.

The marvelous effect of documentary cinema is that in this format the beginning and end of the career are separated not by years or even months, but for minutes. The same people who persuade the Governor of Nemtsov on the screen to quit and enter the Black Minomerdin government, move to Moscow, because “Yeltsin needs your help,” after 10 minutes they say that in essence they would not do this, because the story of the “Svyazinvest” has changed the history of the country.

Valentin Yumashev, who worked at the time of the Svyazinvest competition in the summer of 1997, the head of the Yeltsin administration, says in the film the same as the oligarchs - the late Boris Berezovsky (the authors of the film use one of his old interviews) and Mikhail Friedman. He says that “yes, there were certain rules of the game before the arrival of the guys (Chubais and the team), these rules of the game were observed, the business participated in them, you come and say: all the rules are ending, new ones begin, we are doing an honest competition. What did I say to Boris and Tole? After Gusinsky will lose ... We will no longer have the government of young reformers.” Let me remind you that between Nemtsov’s arrival in the government in March 1997 and before the Svyazinvest privatization contest, four months have passed. He had four months of calm work, after which the offended oligarchs began the attack, including the media, and at least they understood the closest encirclement of Yeltsin.

Like Yumashev, I admit that "do not be stories with" Svyazinvest ", the country would be different today." Maybe. But even in that, another country, the successor would be searched for the same, including Tatyana Dyachenko and Valentina Yumasheva, along with the oligarchs, under the onslaught of which Boris Nemtsov was under the onslaught. And despite the words of the cartridge and father, Kamikadze Nemtsov’s candidates in the list of candidates for successors by 2000 was no longer. Its electoral resource was canceled, as Zhenya Albats correctly remarks in the film - at the moment when he succumbed to the persuasion of Yeltsin's daughter and came to work in Moscow.

Nemtsov, with his character and unwillingness to evade answers from answers to direct questions, was doomed to be outside the system

Between the words of Yeltsin that Boris “can already mark the presidents” and Berezovsky’s words (“as for Boris Nemtsov, I do not think that he has at least the slightest chance of becoming the president of Russia”) 45 minutes of screen time and in essence of a moment in history - three years of Nemtsov’s life and the life of the country. Between the words of Zhenya Kiselev about how he was gambling publicly every day the falling rating of Nemtsov, and his words that Boris treated many journalists well, including himself, urging Nettsov on NTV, 20 minutes of screen time and another moment of history of three years. And the sign of the new era - an influential media, capable of changing the government yesterday, is on the verge of defeat, and in the end defeated, and in the studio with the journalists of this media there is Boris Nemtsov beaten by them.

There are also a bunch of details that are worth paying attention to when you watch this film. For example, behind Valentin Yumashev in most frames a bookcase, in which either a book or a portrait of Ani Politkovskaya, killed on Putin’s birthday. In one frame behind her back and from the side of Tatyana Yumasheva with the inscription "People - invincible."

Between Nemtsov’s elections in the State Duma of the Third convocation, when he supported Putin, and the beginning of his departure to the opposition - two years of his life, five minutes of screen time, and in fact one tragedy is a terrorist attack on Dubrovka. Putin asked Nemtsov and Khakamad, as well as Luzhkov not to go to Dubrovka. Nemtsov: "I asked Voloshin, who was the head of the administration: why did Putin ask us not to deal with this question? The answer killed me. The answer was this: because he was afraid that you would have a rating." This answer by Voloshin is very similar to the truth.

Prior to this, there was a strange absence of Putin during the Kursk tragedy, after which there was the arrest of Khodorkovsky. Irritate inside the “right-hand business” was programmed, their Duma campaign in 2003 was doomed, and Nemtsov’s rupture with the regime was inevitable. He, with his character and unwillingness to evade answers to direct questions, was doomed to be outside the system. That is, on the street. Directly from the snow -white well -being of Superjet, which has become unsuccessful symbols of the last election campaign of the "right -handed".

So they will remember him: with an open gate or with an orange scarf on the Maidan, on the rostrum, near the microphone. Or in a crowd of people. Or tied with riot police. Or a report “Putin. Corruption” distributing on the street and in the subway. In jeans and a sweater, under which the body was terribly exposed in that last shoot after life.

Who remained near the previous colleagues, friends, acquaintances? Who divided this protest with Nemtsov against the current system of power, to the creation of which he also put his hand? Who was capable of, having a choice, to choose that political track from which there is no way out? Very, very few. How did he internally overcome the abyss, meanwhile, promising, promising “it's time to mark the presidency” and kutuzka? Of course, he lived loneliness with all his sociability, vitality, and activity. The last part of the film is about this. Nemtsov does not accept the new opposition, because for her he personifies the 90s with all their problems. Friends from the 90s do not extend his hand to help when he is left without work, because his political activity of the Nemts "becomes toxic for their business." And one closest friend and ally is completely absent in the film, and this is impossible not to notice.

Boris Nemtsov lived the political life that he lived - completely unique in sincerity (even in mistakes), openness, decency. All these characteristics are believed to be contraindicated in politics. And the strongest and most terrible impression that I personally have left after watching the film is the understanding that Nemtsov’s death was inevitable. Renewed from the "high" policy in the street, which was between two times, rejected by one and devoted by others, who was walking ahead, who loved life, spitting on other people's rules of the game, faithful to human, rather than political principles, he remained a free and strange way defenseless.

The former governor, a former minister, the former first deputy chairman of the government, the former deputy chairman of the State Duma, the very first candidate of Yeltsin’s successors, walking at night with a girl on the bridge, was so uncontrollably different, such a clear and bright target, according to which this vile time with his vile heroes could not miss.

Natalia Gevorkyan - journalist

Opinions expressed under the heading "Law" may not reflect the point of view of the editorial office