Before and after

Portrait of the hero of the day Molchanov against the backdrop of Gordon with the "novice"

"Hello, Prince!" - said Vladimir Molchanov in the program “before and after midnight” 33 years ago, and the GOSTERDOLYADOM KANILO in oblivion. Nothing so convincingly testified to the change of milestones as the appearance in the dim latitudes of this unprecedented paradise bird with rounded gestures, manners, and speeches.

Soon, however, it turned out that Molchanov could not only captivate numerous offspring of imperial houses. With his “inner prince”, he easily sank into the mine and talked with the inhabitants of the Moscow Beer; The first to make a report during a search in the office of the chairman of the KGB Kryuchkova and invited Chiccholin to the porn star to his air; He exposed the Nazis and introduced his compatriots with Baryshnikov and Nuriev. Even “our everything” Maxim Galkin was the first to invite Molchanov to his program.

And now the time has come for response visits. Vladimir Kirillovich turned 70 years old, he is in the studio at Galkin. He depicts the guest for warm-up, but somehow without much brilliance. The best replica of the evening belongs to Yuri Growth: "Could you be spoiled with tied hands?" “No,” Galkin answers confusedly. Molchanov is good, as before (if not better), looks great, holds perfectly, but the eye does not burn. The evening is slipping, he lacks energy. The narrative is overturned into the past, merits and laurels annoying the hero who has something to say here and now. Only the format does not allow. The sensitive Galkin feels a fragile imbalance, which is why we say: we miss you very much, therefore we consider this program not anniversary, but starting. Molchanov in response only shrugs.

I am far from the idea that the golden age of Russian television journalism happened in the nineties. But then there was certainly a breakthrough to freedom, and now - only a deafening void of timelessness.

To introduce Molchanov in the etheric net somewhere between Rosa Sabitova and Andrei Norkin, neither imagination nor desire is not enough.

The least in this column I want to talk about the Azefesty former colleagues of Molchanov. But how not to talk about the essence of time. The leitmotif of the anniversary gear - the song "The Lilac fog is floating over us." This is another discovery of Molchanov. Galkin showed a fragment of the clip with the wonderful authentic chronicle of the fifties. I decided to find a video on the network. The song is popular, there are many videos. On one of them, Viktor Shenderovich sings about the lilac fog, and Svetlana Sorokina and Vladimir Soloviev are dancing nearby - flexible, plastic, embarrassed, as usual, by himself. In the forefront of the audience - Yura Shchekochikhin. Laughs loudly, excitedly, childishly, as only he knew how to laugh. When was it? Yesterday! Yesterday, TV served as a search area, and now it serves the zone of provocation.

The plot is stubborn by Alexander Gordon. He is a brilliant personification of the path traveled: he just made his debut as the main prosecutor of Navalny. He began casting, a professional provocateur from art, and then developed to his current forms. He left big politics to the sphere of private family squabbles of the Male/Female program, but suddenly returned. Yesterday he was thrown at Covid, and today - to the exposure of Alexei. The topic "The case of Navalny: from a gun by sparrow?" He devotes as many as two evenings. The business itself and the experts causes only “homeric laughter”, which fits into the canon. The program did not bring discoveries, the faces of the experts (the founder of the “novice” Rink; the formidable statesman of Lugovoi; the naphthale of the Skripals cleared of the lying naphthalene) is more expressive than any words. Unless the Omsk doctor Sabaev enriched science with a fright. To the question of Gordon, whether in Germany, traces of therapeutic procedures could take as a “newcomer”, the main toxicologist of the region, frozen for a moment from the genius of the hypothesis, resolutely replied: “Of course, they could.”

And again, as in the case of Kiselev in a terry dressing gown, the brain dries up the thought: is Gordon is really able to be so mediocre? Before, he could brightly play any proposed circumstances, and now he immediately drowned in a cave conspiracyology. The proud format of the "dock-current" is crumbling with autumn leaves. In the eyes of the host - longing and hopelessness.

The paradoxes of history are an inexhaustible topic. Molchanov managed not to become Gordon. Save yourself. At the end of the century, a refined Vladimir Kirillovich, a secular lion, a connoisseur of the Netherlands, the son of a famous composer seemed to many mannered, intentional. Today it is perceived as a standard of norm. He did not betray anyone, and first of all. He left at the top of glory, because it was no longer possible to remain for hygiene reasons. Wise, accurate in assessments, ironic, soft, does not envy anyone, does not condemn anyone. The bile Zinaida Hippius once noted: Chekhov is hopelessly normal, not like Gogol or Dostoevsky. Molchanov from the same cohort as Chekhov, who is almost a relative to him: Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova is the godmother of Vladimir Kirillovich. And in this hopeless normality its main current value.

Galkin asks Molchanov: deign to return to us. Both know: he will not return. Normal people do not return to the ashes.