"Less of current toilets"

Sergey Markelov - About the work of a journalist in the Russian State Goskanal

I came to the GTRK "Karelia" when I studied at the university. A few years before my unexpected roll, a couple of gopniks shook me in the journalist in the entrance-I ended up in a hospital with a triple fracture of the lower jaw because of a persistent unwillingness to give them my things. They said in court like that: “He resisted, so we were tapping his head while he was lying on the steps - either with his feet, or a backbone, we don’t remember.”

After this incident, I seemed to be wiser, went to study at the Philfak. When Crimea happened, I was still a stupid correspondent of the state television channel, made stories about sowing in Karelian villages, about holes in the bridge, about literary festivals, about the cities freezing in winter, because again wagons with fuel oil were stuck somewhere. Why in a country with a developed railway system, wagons with fuel oil are lost, why in a country where winter is almost ten months a year, every January explodes and fly to the hell, it was not very clear, but I wore jackets, then even costumes, jumped into the car and flew with a film crew, as I thought then, a presumptuous mayor from the hinter And my camera from a high bell tower.

I was sure that, freezing from the cold in an autumn coat and boots with thin soles, holding a microphone with trembling hands, I am doing some important matter.

I remember that almost immediately after the annexation of Crimea, a order from Moscow came to us: “fewer current toilets”-social plots really became smaller, but they began to throw me into some kind of shit. The turning point was the task to remove the plot about the rally against political arrests. Then, in the center of Petrozavodsk, count your back to the back, two rallies passed-patriotic, with songs, dancing, “the apple where you are rolling”, kokoshniki and all this in honor of either joining something there, or in honor of some victories there, and there, on a student boulevard, an apple-supported rally in support of the then arrested members of the opposition Teams: two women who have children closed in a pre -trial detention center with the presentation of the then governor of Karelia, Alexander Khudilinen, whose corruption ears sticking out in every investigation that I did. Whether it is a story about an unheated city or about a collapsing St. Being, everywhere was Khudilainen or its Gatchina friends, systematically twitching Karelian enterprises, at the government level, Khudilainen spoke about the truly Babylonian plans for the development of the region.

Brief biography of the heads of Karelia

In 2013, when the former head of Karelia Andrei Nelidov did not lead the Kizhi Museum for long, I was sent to take off the plot about how Nelids surrounded by future State Duma deputies rammed about the development of Kizhi Island. The concept on scale promised in the future no less than the “Jurassic Park” on the island.

Nelidov, together with the partner Vanya, was very soon imprisoned for bribes, Ivan also got into a muddy pedophilian history. The concept of the development of the Kizhi Museum, as well as the concept of tourism development in the region, as well as the draft boat parking lots in Kemi and the airport in Segezh, as well as the concept of development of dairy enterprises in the region, as well as the full program for the development of Karelia in honor of the centenary of the republic, remained on paper - the latter was already under the current chapter Arthur Parfenchikov, in its framework, in its framework, the center was licked, the center was lifted, the center Petrozavodsk, they built something there, but all billions were never mastered.

During the period of the so -called “Crimean spring”, Khudilainen, apparently, receiving an order to clean the region from the opposition, tried to first agree with this very opposition in the person who miraculously swayed Galina Shirshina and a couple of influential businessmen, but Shirshina with the filing of the Karelian businessman Vasily Popov, who financed the apple pre -election campaign, sent him to him Karelian Santa Claus Pakkayne, and soon Khudilane took off Shirshin, sent Vasily Popov to long emigration, and the second influential businessman and deputy Devletkhan Alikhanov, who at the next meeting was either Karelian parliament, or the government presented Khudilainen for the Siversal Forest (this Khudilainen moved to a witness), he sent to a pre -trial detention center, and then to the colony under an economic article. I remember how in the court of Dagestan Alikhanov led the corridor, and he cheerfully shouted to us:

- Karela lead!

He stubbornly held in court, went to the colony, from which he was released early, he immediately ran to tell us, journalists, that all his offenders would regret the deed, so after a couple of weeks he again went to the colony to sit down his two -month period, and leaning back, no longer appeared with loud statements in the news feed. But it was already 2019.

During those events, I still worked for the Karelia State Treteraul, and almost immediately after the opposition mayor came to power, Galina Shirshina was banned to show her on the air and generally mention her. It was not so easy to deceive this conveyor, but it is possible. Once, on the eve of the New Year holidays, when the wonderful time of the plots about the first painted pair, about the first children born, about the New Year's everyday life of firefighters and cops, I shot at the registry office, where I escorted the first post -year -old couple of Galina Shirshina into a happy future. The then director of the GTRK swintil on vacation for hillocks, the chief editors and editors came in New Year's binges, and on the ancient linear mounting table we conducted subversive activities-we put an excellent width on the air. Strange, but after that no one spilled me, only six months later the chief editor remembered this plot, whispering on my sidelines that the director, thank God, did not notice him. However, it was such a drop in the sea.

The double rally happened in 2013. They gave me the task: to interview people so that they say that they do not know anything about the opposition rally and they are not interested in it in general - here, on the other hand, are scrapps, this is yes. I somehow recorded a couple of these interviews. He returned to the editor. He put the cassette on the table and said that I would not do this plot. Here everyone, of course, got angry and indignant, and I was leaning home. Why did I even go to this plot? I don’t know, probably, to understand - I had to try, see how it and what it means in practice. Be that as it may, from that moment my outcome began.

The trousers on me by that time were already rubbed, I moved back to jeans and leather jacket.

One of the two surviving costumes began to wear only on the funeral of hooligan friends or drug addicts from a past life and once put on someone’s wedding.

The "apple" rallies in Petrozavodsk continued. A colleague from the St. Petersburg newspaper arrived, and I told her what was happening on our TV, while we walked around Petrozavodsk.

The next day, on a glider, after analyzing the plots, the new chairman of the State Treecks put on a carpet of journalists and presented: someone leaked the information about what was happening on the TV channel. The glider is over. I still did not know that my colleague went with my info to the Higher Karelian spheres and redirected this issue to someone there in the government. And then everything fell into place. In the corridor, the director of the GTRK caught me and said half -noise:

“Getting played, Markelov.”

“I didn’t merge anything to anyone,” I answered honestly, “to tell-told, in a friendly manner, but did not merge.”

- No, you will play out, Markelov. You understand what it is, this liberal party. You will have no money, nor a career, they will merge you, ”she said, a former opposition journalist, and now a member of United Russia, a deputy of the Karelian parliament and the director of the Karelian Rupe of propaganda, who then had only gained strength and momentum.

- Yes, I will vote for Khodorkovsky! - I blurted out in a flash.

Soon I was sent to some stupid shooting of our modern fighters, which God already knows how many years, I have not completed this plot and went away from the GRK to nowhere.

“If you come back, Markelov,” the then director told me, “in any case, that you couldn’t be a journalist, maybe you will become a good PR man or you will go to the economy.”

After television, I worked for three weeks in the newspaper of private ads with a news column on the main page. About this newspaper, its leader said that it was the "oldest economic newspaper in the region."

Before that, I came across this newspaper only once, even before television. Then my friend was about to marry in the bathhouse, where I worked as a stoker, arranged a boyfriend. We sat at a table, tired of vodka, beer and pickles, his friends came and left, as always, after drinking we were left alone, and my friend wanted carnal love. We went to the nearest kiosk and bought this very newspaper of private ads under the name "All." On the last pages, they published phones of sex workers.

My friend called one of them, covered the table with the same newspaper, I went to the steam room. He left the steam room five minutes later. They have already finished. My friend smoked, leaning back on the bench. She sat with naked breasts.

“Come on now,” my friend told me.

“No, thank you,” I answered.

The girl turned her back and began to dress. On her back, the page of the newspaper "All" with the squares of ads was printed.

After the newspaper "All" I was called to the tabloid, where I worked for a year with a newsletter. Russia has changed rapidly. Potted by St. George ribbons and caps on the heads of children, red balls and cloves, inscriptions “on Berlin”. The country's leadership introduced laws on insulting the feelings of believers, on the prohibition of Nazi symbols, and blocked the media.

I went to freelance. In regional media, reports could be removed by call. The news actual for the news took place after the angry calls of the News Heroes themselves. And when I ran up to the editor with burning eyes and, like a fool, frantically swallowing air, said:

“Let's make cool investigations,” he looked at me with sad extinct eyes, shrugged his shoulders.

- Do you want - do it.

I always said that for us, for journalists, Putin, this power is as a level of difficulty in a computer game. The task of journalism is not to overthrow or change is our task to open and show. And now I think that all the time, while we went to rallies and observed distant, while we put on yellow vests so that God forbid us, we would not dare with the protesters, we simply took a convenient position so as not to get into ourselves. With our "objectivity" we brought the current dark times.

... Yes, I almost forgot. One of those who tapped my head in the porch, after which I set off into the journalistic “field”, wrote me eight letters later. He asked for forgiveness, offered money as compensation for moral damage. I walked for a long time with his letter in my pocket, then I came to a friend. He told me something like that, simple and wise, and I wrote: I forgive, and generally thank you for correcting my brains, albeit with a backbone, but I don’t need money. And he answered me: "I did not expect, you are the only one who wrote to me."