They were the first

Russia without NTV 20 years later

On April 14, 2001, on the night of a passionate Saturday, NTV ordered a long time to live. More precisely, he was ordered not to live, but simply put, killed. They killed the NTV, which was the leader in the then television space and which since then we call the “old”, so that, God forbid, not to confuse with the new one, only these three letters inherited from the predecessor.

Although it, the NTV, which went down in the history of Russian media, was quite new at the time of untimely departure. The first letter in his abbreviation was deciphered, including this: “New TV”. And it lasted in the white world for only eight years, but the memory of him will forever remain in the hearts of grateful spectators.

They were the first. Independent. Built the TV channel from scratch. The slogan “News is our profession” invented and embodied and embodied in life. The channel decorated with a branded logo - a green ball (in those years there was even a ditty: “We faded the channel / with a pea symbol, / dedicated, thin life, / tie a good one”).

It seemed to be built for centuries. And everything broke into that passionate Saturday, when the new NTV leaders under the guise of riot police captured the 8th floor of the Ostankino television center, forcing the former owners to leave both the premises and the company, which they dedicated eight years of life.

The shots taken by Vladimir Kara-Murza-the eldest have been preserved. According to the corridors, whose walls are still hung with photo portraits of members of a unique (without quotation margin) of a journalistic team, Vladimir Kulistikov and one of the founding of the company, and then the head of the VGTRK Oleg Dobrodeev, just appointed by the editor-in-chief of the NTV, are walking in a businesslike way. Vladimir Kara-Murza on the camera requires to explain what is happening and what they are doing here at half past seven in the morning.

The “invaders” dodge the camera and try to admit the former colleague: they say, you have no idea what real freedom of speech is.

The fact that you and your friends have done recently have nothing to do with it. The corridors are gradually filled with the “old” Enteveshniki who arrived at alarm. In confusion, they roam among their own portraits, which very soon they themselves will be removed from the walls.

This is the denouement of the drama, which happened not overnight, but lasted about two years during which the company lived, according to the apt definition of Lisa’s leaf, “guts out”, trying to prevent a disaster, but in fact - only bringing it closer. NTV did not save publicity, just as the protection of the best and authoritative people of the country and thousands of spectators in support of their beloved company did not save the protection. “The dispute of business entities” (as the officially called what was happening with the NTV) became the indicative execution of those who dared to put the wrong horse during the Duma and presidential elections. Who imagined that they were power here. To the edification of others. So that they know who is now the owner in the house.

In the “anniversary” issue of the “Result” program, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the death of the best television channel of Russia, one of its founders and then head Evgeny Kiselev on his Utyube channel “Kiselny Beregs” states toughly and definitely: “NTV was killed. And one specific person killed him - Vladimir Putin. They did not kill him immediately - gradually, slowly, sophisticated. They gave me still to live. They say that you can burn the frog alive if you add fire very, very slowly. And the frog will not notice how the water temperature suddenly becomes incompatible with life. ”

The special issue of the “results”, which was held in the format of the Tok-show “Voice of the People” on April 3, 2001, gathered in a huge studio of friends and defenders of NTV: politicians, deputies, public figures, lawyers, chief editors and journalists of print publications, employees of the company. In the studio literally an apple has nowhere to fall. People sit even on the steps in the aisles between the stands.

"What will Russia be without NTV?" - announces the theme of the Kiselev program. After 20 years, when it is already known what she became, I just peer into the faces and celebrate to myself. Here is Anya Politkovskaya (she will be killed in 5 years). Here Boris Nemtsov (will be killed in 14 years). After 18 years, the founder of NTV Igor Malashenko, who has not found his use in the new Russia without NTV, will keep scores with life. After 7 years, Evgeny Kiselev himself has emigrated to Kyiv.

The old brilliant team of NTV on these frames so far is together: Sorokina and Mitkov, Parfenov and Dibrov, Maximov and Norkin, Shenderovich and Matskyavicius, Pivovar and Soloviev.

Vladimir Solovyov, still a burden - there is nowhere wider, with vulgar bells on the temples, broadcasts with conviction and weighty: “There will be nothing with the country without NTV - everyone will scratch his tongues and forget. And after 30 years, their children, when they read about this story from textbooks, will say:

"Well, what are you, dad, what are you, mom." And it will be insanely ashamed. But it will be too late ... The audience should have freedom of speech and freedom of speech, and not President Putin decide it ... "

Ekkhim carbonarium was, it turns out, the current idol of the masses and the main propagandist of “Russia without NTV”. Interestingly, he was already asked by the children: "Well, what are you, dad?" The question of shame disappears by itself for the absence of the human properties of this character in the arsenal.

Marianna Maksimovskaya dejectedly complains: "We have no journalistic community." Vladimir Pozner responds to her replica - the only one of the television colleagues who, on his own initiative, rushed to the studio to support the disgraced NTV: “I also do not see any community. We have no solidarity, as if all this is not happening to us all. ” It quotes the parable of the German pastor Martin Nimaller: “When the Nazis came for the Jews, I was silent because I am not a Jew. When they came for the Communists, I was silent because I was not a communist .... When they came for me, there was no one left who would stand up for me. ” In the final of the performance, exclaims with bitterness: "Remember this day!"

Remembered. “You can’t live with your head turned back,” recalls Evgeny Kiselev the words of Igor Malashenko. It is probably possible, yes where to go. After all, that which seemed the past, the most terrible way rhymes with the present. On the 20th anniversary of the NTV, they came for young journalists of the DOXA youth edition. The remnants, or rather the wreckage of the "journalistic community" are not silent, but who hears them.

NTV Acceleration became a reference point, after which everything is possible: the murders of politicians and journalists, the closure of other rebellious television companies and publications, persecution for journalistic activities, and real terms. So the Enteveshniki, one might say, was still lucky, because they did not break their searches, they were not put under house arrest, they were not thrown out by drugs and did not sew hastily faded criminal cases. All this became possible later - in Russia without NTV. They were the first.