"They believe that everything in the country is them"

Together with Vasya Oblomov, we try to figure out why he is not allowed to perform

We ran into Oblomov in St. Petersburg. We ran in hard, rudely. First, the Time N club was intimidated, where the concert was supposed to take place. They called the administration and said: “If Oblomov plays, you will have serious troubles. All checks will come, which is possible. ” And, as often happens, not a single document is in its pure form telephone law.

The concert was transferred to another place - to the site "Aurora Hall", they even managed to start playing. But on the third song, the police appeared in the club. The police approached the sound engineer and told him: "Cut off!" The concert ended on this. Formal reason: the event has not been agreed with the Culture Committee of St. Petersburg. And then you put on at least three masks, at least put the chairs in the hall per kilometer from each other, the main thing is that you were allowed or not. All this is not new, concerts now cancel almost every day, and especially willingly those who speak out on acute topics. For the support of Navalny, for harsh words to the authorities, for the indignation of the in agent, landings and prohibitions. But the focus is that he had not done any of this Oblomov. And even his new songs are completely lyrics. It seems that the authorities do not like not some of his specific actions, but himself. Well, the situation is suitable: if you can prohibit an unpleasant person to you and there will be nothing for it, then why not prohibit it.

- What do you think is behind this collision? It is clear that it is not concern for the health of the inhabitants of St. Petersburg. Something you annoyed to our authorities, but what?

- We are dealing with anonymous people who hide their true intentions. An attempt to solve what they want is doomed to failure. No one relies on the letter of the law, no one gives an explanation.

I asked: what is the name of a person who said that Oblomova should not be here? But the clubs do not ask the surname of the responsible person, they are afraid.

I am in sight, my songs are in sight, everyone knows who I am and what I do, and the people who forbid me to sing are anonymous. They anonymously decided that the inhabitants of St. Petersburg in the evening, October 16, should not be listened to Oblomov. I don’t even really know: it is in Smolny they are so gifted or somewhere higher.

- It is clear that Putin did not give an instruction to cancel the concert. It cannot be that they were engaged in such, in essence, trifles at the top.

- Why do you think so? This is Russia! For example, when I released a song about Medvedev in 2012, then, as far as I know, the presidential administration initiated a “answer” in the form of a wretched comic video about me, Sobchak and Parfenov. It was laid out on YouTube through anonymous accounts, but the video was blocked for violation of my copyright.

The corporate party was somehow canceled, referring to the fact that Medvedev’s wife would be among the guests, and I, so, sang a song about Dmitry Anatolyevich at one time, and he was offended by me. This is also petty, kindergarten. By the way, Medvedev banned me on Twitter a few years ago, I have an official blocking from the then prime minister of the country. Moreover, I did not write anything to him: neither messages nor comments. A similar case was in America when Trump banned some user, but through the court they explained to him: “You are a representative of the authorities, a servant of the people, you cannot block access to your page.” I can’t imagine that our court said something like that Medvedev or Putin.

“But formally, the authorities are right.” The St. Petersburg rule that concerts must be coordinated in the culture committee really exists. It is stupid and not very legal, but it is. And you violated him.

- As far as I know, no one violated anything. According to their rules, only large concerts need to be coordinated. And in our case, both sites were small, so the excuse from the series “There was no approval” does not work. And even if so:

There is no norm that says that an inconsistent event must be disrupted. Fines - yes, sanctions - yes, but all this after the concert.

Nowhere in their rules it is written that you can do like this.

- What surprised you most in history with cancellation?

“That they spend so much effort on nonsense.” Several buses arrived-not just the police, but all the inspection bodies, they listed them: Rospotrebnadzor, some other supervision. Black masks, body armor - a whole operation. The task of paramount importance: to cancel the concert of Vasya. Is it really nothing more important? It also surprised me when the propagandists spent the etheric time to tell about me nasty things on TV. And the bots from the "troll factory", which periodically come to us on a YouTube channel? The same. When the concert was canceled, a bunch of anonymous users came, they began to write that this is a punishment for the fact that we are against Russia, and in general - who needs this Oblomov?

- In fact, this is a routine. In the last years, three cancellations have been going on a series: Noise, “Porn films”, “Leg red!” ... The list is long. After all, this is not the first time with you.

- No, this is how tough and into the first time. There were cases when the organizers were called to the administration and asked: "Why are you carrying these artists?" Someone asked someone, called, endured, hinted. And so that the police arrive so that they would not be allowed to play - this has never happened, never at all.

There was a case (in Saratov, if I am not mistaken), when the police began to enter the hall, it became more and more. I saw from the stage how they lined up in a line behind the audience. Three songs remain until the end, two, one, and the police do nothing, looks. Then, when we were already sitting in the dressing room, the police came and asked: "Vasily, can you take a picture with you?" - "And all that?" - "Yes, all." And left. It was very funny.

There was a stupid situation two or three years ago, when they called me to play on Russia's Day, and they called me a long time, persuaded, coordinated the rider and the appearance of the stage, and then they canceled it. Apparently, it seemed to someone that Oblomov and the Day of Russia are not combined.

Already this year, three came in Moscow, in uniform, with folders, went and took pictures in the hall. It was in January, just when Navalny returned. Anxious situation, because it is not clear what they want. To my question to the owners of the club: "What was it?" - They said that the police came to check if the social distance was respected. But this should be done by Rospotrebnadzor, what does the police have to do with it?

And so on. It was different. But such as now, never.

- All this is strange. You are not a “foreign agent”, not an extremist, in your songs there is no mat, drug propaganda, there are not even any particularly vicious attacks against the authorities. You also write posts in social networks extremely restrained. It is not possible to find logic.

- There is no logic. A trigger could serve as a song that came out five years ago, and heard it only now. Could pay attention to our video with Dudem “Bring the Hernya”, shot in 2017, and say: “How dared to joke about our television!” Could read the interview that I gave you. Anything. I do not like the current government and never hid it, so they reciprocate. They believe that everything that is in the country is their: information space, concert venues, all business, all money. And if you do something without their participation, without asking them nothing and do not depend on them, they do not like it. Why right now they have been excited about me, I don’t know, but this quite fits in what is happening for the last year. If they had enough brains to ask questions to Lie Medzhidovna Akhejakova and deal with the contemporary theater, then what can I say about me? They just do not want anything and anyone.

- That is, the stripping is stupid?

- And you yourself do not see? It has long been declared that there is only one opinion, and the other is wrong. And now it is put up in practice.

- I remember how a year ago you convinced me that all prohibition measures relate mainly to Navalny and Navalnists. And the rest do not particularly bother them.

- The authorities take only those who encroach on it, those from whom, in their opinion, danger comes.

“And this is definitely not you.”

-Therefore, a light version occurs with me. As in an old joke: "It would be for what, they would have been killed in general." Bastrykin once spoke about a completely innocent person at the rally: they say, he would have given him a year conditionally and that’s all. The innocent is conditionally a year! Again. Perhaps in my case, these are only zealous people from the Department of Culture of St. Petersburg, and my problem concerns only the northern capital. I don't know. We have no prohibitive papers.

- Could not try so. The pandemic has already practically destroyed the entertainment industry in the country. The clubs are closed, there are little concerts. And they are also ripped off.

- The troubles of the industry do not care at all. It saves only what is related to. There are artists who graze near the state, artists who supported amendments, sang for Crimea. They are all right, they drove this fall through the days of the city, earned money. No one will forget about them. An independent industry suffers, the one that has never eaten from the state of the state, has not received anything for these two pandemic years and, I think, will not receive. I read all these appeals to the government of independent promoters with a cry “Help!”. Well, of course, no answer, no one began to help them. There will be a concert for the Police Day - Alexander Marshal, Oleg Gazmanov, Stas Mikhailov, Timati will take up, everything will be tightened, everything will be fine. And save the business ... Why? The state is not interested in it. Putin said that businessmen are crooks, he pronounced it aloud. The state refers to him: he will die - and God with him, no one will cry.

For the industry, the worst thing is that we do not know that tomorrow it will hit their heads. To perform, you need to plan your life for at least two to three months. Stability is needed, which is not. For two years we have been thinking of holding a large anniversary concert, but it is possible or it is impossible, we do not know neither we, nor promoters, nor organizers, nor platforms. I understand everything: a virus, a dangerous situation.

But we remember how the virus magically retreated before voting on amendments, in front of the “scarlet sails” or here before the new elections.

- When there is such a powerful series of prohibitions - not only sanitary, political in the first place - it is logical to expect the appearance of the underground. So it was already in the eighties: underground concerts, underground recording. Is it really now?

- Don't think. There is no demand, people do not care all this. There should be a craving for an independent statement, people should feel that this train is on fire, and we have nothing more to squeeze to listen to musicians in apartments and basements. And their train is not on fire. If you go to the Russian YouTube and see what in trends, what is most interested in our users, you will see that there is a pure entertain - not only politicians, but nothing serious at all. New music will appear in any case, in any circumstances, this is the law of nature. But whether it will have a social orientation is not a fact. As for me, even if concerts are banned for me, I won’t go underground, it seems humiliating to me. I'm not going to hide from anyone.

- Here on the agenda, the crisis of the genre, which you have been doing all your life. You began to engage in musical satire in zero, in a relatively calm, well -fed and even funny time. And now another background: people die in packs from the virus, people are trying in prisons, people get huge terms for what is not clear for what. Plus poverty, which is becoming more and more around. Somehow not much fun.

- That is why my last plate is not funny at all, and in the end the lyrical hero died and was buried. Indeed, it is no longer laughing. I can joke much better than any Tigran Keosayan, but it seems to me that the situation is not funny at all. There is a feeling that the masks are torn. All whom the state considers to be its enemy, it withdraws from the legal field. They can do anything with him: prohibit the concert, poison, plant, declare a foreign agent, pour greenfish in the eyes, send some freaks to break their hands. There was a feeling that there is a line that the state would not allow itself to cross, but now, it seems that this face is not.

- And what to do?

- Don't know. There are no recipes. I cannot influence the processes that occur, I can only describe them. I never thought that a song can be changed. I do not write hymns to revolutionaries or instructions on how to overthrow power (this part of the interview is required to read for people from Smolny). I describe life and time, no more. I didn’t come up with problems and phenomena that I sing about, I just describe them. And I do not understand why the state to fight me. To fight with songs, with books - idiocy and darkness. This is, in the end, art, and not a nuclear bomb, it works differently.

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