"Saxon porcelain cups"

Psoy Korolenko sings a song by Katya Yarovaya. Premiere

Six months ago, we presented to the readers of Novaya Gazeta a song by the bard Katya Yarovaya (1957-1992) “Kings change, Russia remains” performed by Yulia Teunikova. It suddenly turned out that the long-dead Yarovaya is popular and loved in Russia - the track had more than a hundred thousand views. And in November, a tribute album with her songs is released. Fedor Chistyakov, Olga Chikina and other artists took part in it.

Psoy Korolenko tells about one of the songs.

Psoy Korolenko

musician

- This is a song about internal emigration: a communal apartment, unpleasant neighbors, difficult Soviet life - and elegant china cups, symbolizing the escape from all this, an alternative to such a reality.

We are sitting in a communal apartment,
Dusty stained ceilings
But from our life, gray and real,
We are so far away...

There really were cups, I drank from them in a house friendly to Katya, and in the same house for the first time I heard a song about them, about a warm cozy little world that protects from the outside world. And in the yard was the end of the eighties, a time of great change.

There is almost nothing of the late Soviet dissent here. Easy internal emigration in the spirit of the bard and banter over Sovietness, also easy. A humorously decadent intonation typical of the times of the decline of the USSR. These are my eighties as I remember them and fell in love with them. If I thought in those terms, I could say that it was a good time. But time is a thing that, by definition, is no good, it brings us closer to death. "Death and time reign on Earth," as the poet said.

She is called a social author, but first of all, Katya Yarovaya is a poignant author. And this is timeless poignancy. This is what really matters. But perestroika and dissent are temporary things. “We decide how we got here, right into this room and century ... - Katya sings, - Let the cups of Saxon porcelain hover at least in weightlessness.”

For a long time, neither the CPSU, nor the Soviet newspapers, nor the neighbors about whom the song is sung have been in the world, but the song continues to live, it is beautiful. Probably, the point here is not so much in internal emigration, but in internal immigration, a person's journey deep into himself. The walls that separate us from this gigantic communal apartment that is the world are ultimately the walls of our body and our consciousness, the walls of our self.

Today, when I sing this song, I put it into it: not leaving the uncomfortable neighbor that is the neighbor, but coming to myself, returning to myself and to myself. To yourself, and not from others, because what matters is not who they are, but who you are. And in this sense, Saxon porcelain cups have something from the tea ceremony, it helps to focus on what is inside.