"Nothing, we will still have time"

25 years ago there was a plane crash, in which the founder of the "Top Secret" holding, journalist Artem Borovik, died

25 years ago, Artem flew away. When a disaster occurred that morning on March 9, and all the countries of the countries reported that the plane, flying to Kyiv from Vnukovo, crashed and on board Artem Borovik, we, the journalists “Top Secret”, did not believe. The plane could fall, Artem - no.

There were many stamps in the media, the main of which is “died on take -off”. One of the most famous journalists of the country, the star of the View program, the student of Julian Semenov, the founder of the media holding “Social”, whose back there were reports from Afghanistan and service in the US Army, were only 40. His phone was always torn: Yuri Luzhkov called to consult, Alexander Korzhakov-Evgeny Primakov asked just like that, and Rupert Murdoko, and Rupert Murdoko, and Rupert Murdok. About negotiations - he wanted to buy a holding, but he was not sold. To the editorial office, from which the Kremlin was visible from the windows in a large clearing, someone always came: Afghan veterans, American journalists, former USSR ambassadors around the world, generals. He was interested in everyone, he spoke to them, asked, lived with their cares and memories. And therefore, all the time was late for the next meeting. Why was he not late for that plane in the morning in March 2000?

He died on take -off - this is not about Artem, no. He, in principle, lived as if flying. He could fly without an airplane. Take off is about the whole country. Artem was a symbol of some new Russia-

He spoke three languages ​​perfectly, his books were published abroad, he headed the newspaper of journalistic investigations, part of which went to the Congress library, he was going to go into politics, his whole life was ahead. We walked nearby, and it seemed to us too - everything ahead. And then - a flight to Kyiv.

Artem read a lot, he was omnivorous - from Marquez and (of course) Hemingway to the political memoirs of the Ambassador of Dobrynin in the United States and the diplomat of Troyanovsky. The Caribbean crisis was generally his beloved topic, and he often joked: if the “owl” had an informant of the level of the deputy director of the FBI, we would have received more than one Pulitzer, like WP, but hundreds: we have a “WETEGRET” - every week. Why was he so passionate about history? Because she usually has to repeat herself, said Artem. He was rather a character in the film JFK or the entire presidential army, and not just a Russian journalist of turning point. But the film ended, in the credits for the song Sinaters “My Way” - its unique biography and just this stamp “died on take -off”. But behind this phrase - hopes, excitement and dreams of an entire generation and an entire country. It seemed to us we took off. We lived with a smile. But then there was a disaster. And in the new country, in which everything old was repeated, there is no place for media, nor Sinatra, nor politics, nor Pulitzer, nor even the TEFI figurine, which we received in 1999 without him, who flew on a business trip, and he said nothing, I will still have time. We did not have time. And they stayed somewhere on the outskirts of Vnukovo. And to where Artem flew to negotiations, rockets flew.

Farewell to Artem took place in the Central House of Artists. He was indeed a great writer, not a reporter. “Top Secret” in the form and in the form as he imagined a real media holding-this is a deep, long novel about his beloved country with a special tragic drama, where there is no happy ending. There is only hope that is given in the final to those who read to the end. There were so many people in the CDL that morning that I had to leave the farewell room to meet the new friend of the newspaper-Dmitry Muratov*-and somehow along the walls and corridors we went together. That was the feeling of that time - it seemed to us that all the media was together. We were sure of that. That is why, after the death of Dima Kholodov in 1994, we removed the planned issue from the air and made a program about corruption in the ZGV-the last topic of Dima. “This is only the beginning,” Yura Shchekochikhin later told me, and I did not dare to clarify what. But Yura did not have time to say, although all the next 10 years we constantly talked. Until the tragedy happened to him either.

A farewell video with an artem for the broadcast that day we made under the song “My Way” not even because Artem loved Frank Sinatra, and not because this song is farewell. Probably, somewhere deep down, we understood that the selected path is the most important thing in life. Sometimes we stop, sometimes we leave him to return, stumble, fall, but the path - one. Few were able to go to the end, few people are walking along it now. But there are examples, we know them.

I sometimes ask myself, what would they do now-Artem and Vlad Listyev, who were friends with the “look” and whom I did not have time to ask about what we did not know about the 2020s then. I have no exact answer. But I do not see them on the screens of federal channels, of course. Artem died in the country that is no longer. As there is no flight to Kyiv from Vnukovo. But maybe there is a chance to change something? Nothing, we still have time. He would say that right now.

Andrey Kalitin , journalist "Top Secret", especially for Novaya Gazeta with gratitude for everything that was long ago

* Entered by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in the register of "foreign Agents".