Igor Guberman interview with him. Igor Guberman (interview with Delfi portal)

Igor Guberman and r. Zvi Patlas are relatives and good friends, despite the cardinal difference in views and stages of biography. For one, the Gulag became the school of life, the second studied with leading Israeli rabbis. The first hides the non-kosher sausage in advance, the second brings sweets to the bar mitzvah. Why does an agnostic so often mention the name of G-d in his poems, how to erase the name of Haman using the Ukrainian language, and should Jews hold communal events in the Kremlin.

- You are married to sisters.

IG: Yes.

- Accordingly, you know each other for many, many years.

CPU A: Total about 42 years old.

IG: I got married in 1966.

CPU: And we met in 1975.

IG: Stop. I got married in sixty-five.

CPU: Ah, so we've known each other for forty-one years and a half.

IG: During this time, Grisha made a brilliant human career. From an actor-mime, from a half-clown profession ...

CPU: Became a real clown (laughs).

IG: Today he is a very famous rabbi. Not because Grisha himself told me this, but because I travel a lot in Russia. Representatives of the community come to me in different cities. When they find out that I am a relative of Rabbi Patlas, they immediately offer me to grab a jar of jam for him, a bunch of dried Altai onions, and so on. As for our worldview, I am an unfortunate agnostic, and Grisha is a zealous Jew.

CPU: Now I will tell you about Igor. When he received an order to write a book about Ogarev in a series about fiery revolutionaries, the leitmotif of the work was Ogarev's decision to go or not to go. In 1978, two of our families decided to move to Israel. But for some reason, Igor went to Siberia on a case fabricated by the KGB. His close friend Vitya Brailovsky told us: “You must go, because there you will be able to help him more.” Already in Israel, I visited the great righteous and sage Stipler (Rabbi Yaakov-Yisroel Kanevsky) and asked for blessings - so that Igor would be released and that he would come to Israel. This happened five years after the conviction, when Igor was supposed to be released from chemistry.

– How did it happen?

CPU: It was necessary to write a note in Hebrew, because the rabbi did not hear well. When I entered, he looked at me like that ... I just glued to the floor. He saw right through me. And then I answered him with a look that I was here to plead for a Jew who was in danger. After all, he could be returned for the entire period back to the camp. Stipler understood this, reached out and took the note. He read it aloud, gave his blessing, but I just can't move. Sticky. But then he pulled away and left.

IG: The KGB officers persuaded me to hand over Viktor Brailovsky, who was the editor of the underground magazine Jews in the USSR. And, in fact, they started the whole thing so that I would help plant him.

- Did you take part in the issue of the magazine?

IG: Yes, I participated, edited a lot. I posted my poems there. I refused to testify against Vitya. And then he refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement. And here the KGB officer uttered wonderful words: “Igor Mironovich, we will immediately imprison you now. Otherwise, you will find yourself a living witness that we can be sent to three letters and still remain free.

CPU: Before being convicted, Igor did so much good for people. Later I read about it only in Hasidic stories. One person left, and his wife remained in the Union. He said that he gave all the money for her to Igor: "Every month he will pay you." She came, got angry if Igor was late even for a day. This went on for about a year and a half. In fact, the man did not leave any money.

IG: He left completely penniless.

CPU: Isn't that a Hasidim?

Professor doing crossword puzzles

Let's get back to your acquaintance.

IG: I was a member of the Literary Fund. He wrote several popular science books, and earned his living as a literary negro. I wrote five other people's books, and everything was fine with me. And then some actor wooed my wife's younger sister, especially a half-clown. We were all concerned.

- Why?

IG: At that time in Moscow and St. Petersburg there was an insane number of people who got married because of a residence permit. It worried us, well, in general. Ninochka is a young woman, so trusting and everything else. It turned out that we were all wrong, and Grisha turned out to be an absolutely wonderful husband and person. We installed it pretty quickly.

CPU: Especially since I had a Moscow residence permit and even a separate apartment measuring 12.3 meters, including a bath, toilet and kitchen.

How were the screenings?

CPU: The table was laid, they drank, ate, talked a little.

IG: About this and that, about the Jews, about Soviet power. I think that Grisha and Ninochka were quickly released, because they made a bet on Grisha: they thought that he knew some kind of my foreign connections.

CPU: I then worked in the Jewish Ensemble at the Mosconcert. It was created by the honored artist Vladimir Shvartser. He received a well-deserved award for his performance of the role of Lenin in Yiddish. Actors of the Mikhoels theater who survived the pogrom gathered there. They restored his performances and toured throughout the Soviet Union. Many years later, the son of an actress from the theater calls me and says that he urgently needs to meet with me. At the meeting there was another man of oriental appearance, he said that he wanted to give me the archives of the Armenian KGB. “You will go to America and turn them over to the FBI. They will pay you a lot of money for it.” I answer him that we are going to Israel. “Ah, well, in that case, hand them over to the Shin Bet.” I didn't even understand what he said then. It was only in Israel that I learned what it means Security Service. Then I answered him that I have two small children, I'm not a hero, I'm afraid. And it surprises me that he is not afraid to talk about it with a stranger. And then I found out that it was the same investigator of the Jewish department of the KGB who was in charge of Igor's case.

- How do you rate the prison experience?

IG: I am very grateful to the Soviet authorities for putting me in prison, because it was a wonderful life school. She gave me a lot. For 38 years in a row, we have been gathering friends on August 13, the day I was arrested and released five years later.

CPU: When Igor was still under investigation and was in Dmitrov prison, he wrote a collection of poems "Prison Diaries". They were then released.

IG: The deputy head of the prison for the regime handed over my poems and took them to the family himself. He loved me very much.

CPU: Because Igor wrote his thesis “National Party Policy” for him.

IG: Moreover, two months later he called me and said: “Congratulations, our work won first place in the competition of student works.” And shook my hand while standing.

CPU: In the book "Walking around the barracks", which Igor wrote in the camp, he describes how he violated the laws of thieves. He could go against everyone in order to save some person from moral destruction.

IG: I had the nickname "Professor" because I guessed crosswords.

- Where does quality come from - to stand up against everything?

IG: Fool because.

CPU: By the way, Igor was secretly circumcised in 1937, in Kharkov.

IG: At thirty-six. My mother secretly took me to give birth in Kharkov to be circumcised.

CPU: Everything is in the roots. Already in Israel, Igor asked my teacher, Rabbi Yitzhak Zilber, to circumcise his son. I want to remind you that Mandelstam said that one who does not have the gift of secret hearing cannot be a poet. So all these agnostics... It's...

IG: Grisha just wants to defame me.

CPU: (laughs.) No, no, I won't. You stay where you are.

– Igor Mironovich, when did you come to Israel?

CPU: 9 years after our arrival. Another 4 years after his release, Igor wrote the book "Strokes to the portrait."

IG: Yes, I wrote this book. I came across a biography of an absolutely amazing person, Nikolai Bruni, he was a sculptor-artist-musician-poet. A man from the Russian Silver Age, now they have not been made like this for a long time. Also in this book I have collected many interviews with former prisoners, with those who went through all the circles of Soviet hell in the Gulag.

- Well, then what?

IG: In 1984, I returned to Moscow, and somehow, at breakfast, my beloved mother-in-law said very calmly: “Igor, if you are going to leave again, then I will take sleeping pills, I have already saved 40 of them.” I just as calmly continuing the conversation, said: "That's it, this topic is closed." And since then we have not stuttered about leaving.

– What was the reason?

IG: Mother-in-law did not want to be alone. She went through the departure of Nina and Grisha very hard. And in 1988, in January, or in December 1987, when perestroika began, they called us from the OVIR and said: “The Ministry of the Interior has made a decision about your departure.” And we happily left.

- And the mother-in-law?

IG: She reacted calmly. Because it was the Soviet government that drove us out of the country, and not ourselves. There was nothing to do. We did not know anything about Israel at all, except that Jews live there and it is very hot.

Did you have any ideas to go somewhere else?

IG: I had a feeling that a Jew can live with spiritual fullness, so to speak, only in Russia or in Israel.

CPU: In addition, Pinchas Rutenberg, who founded the Electricity Company of Israel, turned out to be distant relative Igor.

IG: Grandma said she was cousin Rutenberg.

“Grandma won’t say bad things.

IG: Grandma Lyuba - especially! In 1955, she told me this, shortly before her death. She was very afraid of Soviet power, very much. Was very smart person. She was like a songbird: they are allowed to live and sing - and it's wonderful. If a grandmother entered the house on a frosty day, she did not complain that it was cold, she said: “To be hot, it’s not.”

CPU: Pinkhas Rutenberg - after all, it seems that he executed Gapon.

IG: In 1905, during the same peaceful demonstration of the people, when the shooting began, Rutenberg threw Gapon to the ground and covered him with his body. And it all started with the fact that I read that Gapon was hanged by workers in a summer cottage on a hook. Grandmother heard this and says: “It was a coat hanger.” And then she told me everything. That in fact it was not the workers who killed him, but the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and that same Rutenberg led them. And he was sentenced for the fact that Gapon admitted that he served in the secret police, and incited Rutenberg to follow his example.

When did you first feel like a Jew? Outside the passport data, as they say.

IG: I graduated from the institute, worked as an engineer, adjusted the electrical part of the turbines at the Volgograd hydroelectric power station. And we were there about 15 service engineers, of which 14 were Jews. And they were so calmly making fun of their Jewishness, telling jokes, I heard it for the first time. I'm used to not talking about it. Closed topic - "ts-s-s". True, from my youth I fought when I heard the word "Jew". It didn't offend me, it was just my older brother who taught me. And then I wrote my first poem, feeling like a Jew.

CPU: Do you remember?

IG: It seems so:

Where did you take me, where, my Jewish ardor ...
Where before only a greedy gnat flew for mosquitoes,
Where the Kalmyk followed the Tungus with a poisoned arrow,
Now, tasting sleep and work, dispelling the fog of legends,
Fourteen Jews live on assignment.

And in 1960 I took the Russian classics and rewrote them in a Jewish way. It was called "Translations from Russian", or "Puffed Swans". Since then, I have felt like a Jew continuously.

– Reb Zvi, when did the Jewish topic come up in your mind?

CPU: In 1967, I entered the directing department in St. Petersburg and returned to Odessa in the fall. The first time I went to the synagogue, and it was set on fire. Burnt volumes of the Talmud and siddur were collected in a small room. The old man who was stacking these books whispered: “We were warned - we must say that there was a bad wiring.” I went up to the second floor, it was getting dark and it was raining. I saw the charred Aron HaKodesh, the overturned charred chairs - traces of the pogrom, and I thought: "I must remember this for the rest of my life." It was 1967 and the Six Day War had ended. This old man with burnt old books. It pierced.

– Are you from Odessa?

CPU: Yes. And Igor is from Kharkov. But Kharkiv and Odessa are two big differences.

IG: We are very different people. Grisha has a sense of humor, and I am a simple layman. ( Laugh.)

CPU: Regarding Igor's sense of humor, I want to tell you a little story. AT middle lane Russia, in one maternity hospital in the postoperative ward there was a collection of his poems, which one of the women in labor read aloud. An hour later, the surgeon was urgently called. All the women in the ward laughed so hard that many of them had their stitches open. The surgeon confiscated the book.

IG: When we learned Hebrew from Mika Chlenov in Moscow at my place, I came up with a Hebrew proverb: “Bli bakbuk, ein dikduk” (translated from Hebrew, “There is no grammar without a bottle”).

CPU: After the lesson, we drank in the kitchen for three, deepening our knowledge of the ancient language.

kasher the synagogue

- And now you, Igor Mironovich, have arrived in Israel, and your relative is no longer Grisha, but Rabbi Zvi Patlas.

CPU: No, I wasn't a magician then, I was just studying.

But he was already religious. How did you react to this transformation then?

IG: Very calm. I expected anything from Grisha. We immediately found a common language and continue to have this common language. We don't have any disagreements. We do not touch those topics in which we cannot find common language. For example, serving in the Israeli army. The fact that the ultra-Orthodox do not serve seems to me an extreme shame for them.

CPU: But you know that I served in the army, and there are many like me.

IG: Yes, you served. But most do not serve. And Grisha and I will never discuss this. As well as other things, kashrut, for example. When Grisha and his wife come to us, when they knock on the door, Tata hides the sausage with such speed that they don't even know that we sometimes eat it.

CPU: But for us, Tata buys products with the BADATS seal and disposable tableware. She is the chief kashrut specialist.

– Do you consult with Rabbi Patlas at religious moments?

IG: I don't have religious moments. I have an intimate relationship with God, and I don't need a synagogue.

CPU: But you will perform in two months in the St. Petersburg synagogue.

IG: My friend said that after that the synagogue would have to be kashered.

- Igor Mironovich, how did your professional activity in Israel?

CPU: With me. My teacher Rabbi Moshe Shapiro called me over: “Zvi, we need to translate a film into Russian.” About how American scientists refuted the theory of evolution. Igor was then a newcomer, and I took him as an announcer. He voiced this film very well.

IG: I don't remember, did you pay me for the job?

CPU: You offend!

- So you participated in religious propaganda.

IG: I was under a very serious attack, but I resisted. I live in a different world.

CPU: Each person follows his own personal path, along which the same Creator leads him.

IG: Yes. it a good idea. I have read a lot of religious literature. But that didn't grab me at all. It's one point of view, that's all.

CPU: When we were making a film about my teacher, Rabbi Yitzhak Zilber, I interviewed Igor.

IG: I respected him a lot. I think he is one of the 36 righteous. Undoubtedly. But this did not affect my religious life in any way. I often mention the name of God in verses. In Israel, it has become especially common. But this is a cultural, national feature.

CPU: Once, we, students of the Gaon collel Rav Moshe Shapiro, asked his permission to go before Rosh Hashanah to the graves of the righteous. To which he replied: “You don’t have to go! Everyone himself is the grave of the righteous.” I recounted his answer to Igor, and he wrote a wonderful poem:

Sparks of light fought in us for a long time, but it went out,
The grave of the righteous is any of us.

Both of you often perform in front of a wide audience. In different roles, of course. How did it all start?

CPU: Before Igor's landing, two books of his poems were published in Israel. During interrogations, he was asked who the author was, to which he answered - the people.

IG: Yes, yes, I only record for the people. After coming to Israel, I started performing very quickly, and due to laziness, I didn't even learn Hebrew. Since then, I travel around the world and howl my poems about life.

CPU: He is one of the few professional poets who lives on earnings from literary work.

IG: Rather, artistic.

CPU: The artist is me. At the Palace of Culture of the publishing house of the Pravda newspaper, I taught pantomime. I provided them with a certificate from the Mosconcert: "Given to an artist of the conversational genre for teaching pantomime."

- How are your holidays? Not family, but Jewish.

CPU: Every Purim we gather for a meal and shout together: “Gandba, Amanu!”. Gandba is Ukrainian for “shame”.

IG: I celebrate all Jewish holidays with great pleasure and joy, and Grisha still comes to us in New Year- Rosh Hashanah - Blow the shofar.

CPU: And in Sukkot with four kinds of plants. Somehow we even met on the same stage ... That was amazing.

IG: Eagle, right?

CPU: The Orel community celebrated Hanukkah: the first part - Igor Guberman, and the second part - r. Zvi Patlas. Something is happening in our world. So we can even be on the same stage.

– Can I have a couple more stories?

CPU: I will tell you how Igor wonderfully formulated all the laws on the prohibition of slander from the books of Chafetz Chaim: “Tikkun on your tongue!” Tikun in Hebrew means "correction".

– Well, what else?

CPU: How do we argue and discuss with him?

- Yes.

CPU: Never.

IG: Never.

CPU: Friendship won.

IG: Even love, I would say.

CPU: And you can also remember how I supported Igor when he was a sandak with his grandson David.

IG: I ordered that if I fainted, they would immediately douse me with a bucket of water.

CPU: In general, I stood next to him as a safety net. Do you remember who brought sweets to throw during the bar mitzvah of grandson Yaron. Because no one knew to throw candy.

IG: Or we didn't have money for candy. (Laugh.)

IG: I will now read to you a deeply religious rhyme that I composed yesterday:

I'm not too drawn to heaven either.
It's funny to me where the noise and rot.
In the gardens of heaven it will become boring,
And I will return to purgatory.

– Newly Federation Jewish communities Russia has invited you to the Man of the Year award ceremony.

IG: They wanted to give me the nomination "Man-Legend".

And you finally gave up.

IG: Not in the end, but immediately.

- Why?

IG: I believe that the Jews should not be in the Kremlin, in the Russian shrine, to arrange their meetings. Anywhere but not there. This is fanning wild anti-Semitism, and I have often encountered this.

- But you go to Russia at the same time.

IG: Once every six months, in many cities. I speak there, with pleasure I communicate with people. The people are wonderful. Halls for 700-800 people, and for 1000 there are. I remember that the audience was standing in the lobby, I was signing books. Some peasant passes by and says: “Wow, one Jew made such a queue of Russian people!”

– Do you think that Russian Jews should live in Israel?

IG: I'm generally against the word "should". If a person does not live where he wants, he is harmful to the environment.

CPU: Each fruit ripens when it ripens. I had already received my first call in 1972, but left in 1979 with two small children. Freedom of choice is one of the keys given by the Creator for a person to choose. And no one can limit this choice to him.

IG: Or impose.

CPU: Or impose. In fact, he either chooses or he doesn't.

IG: Freedom of choice - yes, of course, there is. Especially in Russia.

(Both laugh.)

Poet Igor Guberman, who gained fame thanks to satirical short poems"Garikam", said in an interview with the BBC about the "other world" in which Israeli emigrants from the former USSR live.

In an interview with the special correspondent of the BBC Russian Service Evgeny Kanevsky Igor Huberman spoke about his attitude towards Israel and Russia, about his political views and about the work of recent years.

BBC: you were leaving Soviet Union in relatively free time. Why?

Igor Guberman: The Lord God offered to live a second life, a completely different one - and we were flattered by it. I am not a Zionist. I wanted to live in another world, that's why we left.

BBC: But signs of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union was one of the reasons you left?

I.G.: You know, I'm specifically with this in last years I did not meet in the Soviet Union, but I heard about the mass of such cases. And then in the 90s already, at the very beginning, or at the end of the 80s, there were even very strong fascist actions - in St. Petersburg, for example. A lot of literature was written, out of habit these papers were circulated in samizdat, there was a semi-fascist newspaper "Puls Tushina", in a word, the spirit of anti-Semitism was certainly in the air.

BBC: And for many, he became the reason?

I.G.: Maybe for many he has become. But so many [immigrants] began to cite anti-Semitism as the reason for their departure that it is not clear what is true and what is not. But the spirit of anti-Semitism was, of course.

BBC: Tell me, do you feel like a part of Israeli society after these years that you have lived here?

I.G.: You know, I will use the words with which I answer such a question at concerts. I still love Russia as before, although this love, so to speak, blurs and withers, or something ...

My soul, without breaking, is tied to both countries. But for Israel, I feel fear and pride, and for Russia, pain and shame. This is where the big difference lies. Yes, I am definitely an Israeli. And, as it turns out after my subsequent answers, he is also a right-wing Israeli patriot.

BBC: And those people who came here - were they able to integrate into Israeli society or remain "a thing in itself?"

I'm more interested in writing about Jews as such Igor Guberman

I.G.: I am very little familiar with this, because I am not part of society, I am sitting at home. I am a lone handicraft without a motor. And I think there are very few people who have merged with this life.

Moreover, I read quite a lot about the collapse of the melting pot idea: human psychology does not melt, but such masses are formed according to interests, and most importantly, according to background, past life, skills. I do not like the word "mentality", but in fact - according to the mentality.

BBC: There is an opinion that the majority of Russian-speaking Israelis support more radical measures in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Why do you think this is happening?

I.G.: I find it difficult to answer this question. But, generally speaking, we, people with a Soviet background, are in favor of a drastic resolution of all issues. I think that these are the remnants of Soviet education, Soviet upbringing, the Soviet spiritual climate.

We, look, turned out to be monstrous nationalists in America in relation to blacks, even racists, we turned out to be supporters of other radical solutions.

I am not a supporter of any radical solutions, but I am an extremely stubborn right-wing person today. Therefore, in anticipation of one of your subsequent questions, I will say that I will vote only for Lieberman.

BBC: Describe then why your views were formed in this way? After all, it would seem that people who advocated democracy in the Soviet Union could be inclined towards a more liberal approach?

I.G.: Probably because I have already experienced leftist hobbies. At one time he even participated in the election campaign of Rabin, then Barak. Silly, dark. Now I simply would not participate in any election campaign, [because] gradually I saw that all these liberal tendencies lead to nothing.

BBC: You mentioned democratic values, and in connection with this, the question is: how do you feel about the fact that there are things in Israel that would look rather strange to many in the West. Well, let's say people who consider themselves Jews suddenly have to prove that they really are Jews if they want to get married or get married. Are you not worried about this concern for the purity of the blood? What do you think about it?

I.G.: I believe that every country, every religion has its own idiocy, which, despite the general wisdom of the people ... By the way, the wiser the people, the more fools and idiots there are, because the Gaussian curve exists, and it is fair.

With us Jews, everything is exactly the same: I have already seen a lot of idiots among us. These idiocy - not even medieval, but ancient - they irritate me very much. And they make me very uncomfortable. But, on the other hand, it is, just like reinforced "shmons" at customs, [is] a kind of security, the preservation of the Jewish state. This slightly weakens my dislike for these idiocy.

BBC: In terms of your work, what are you most interested in right now? Are you interested in life in Israel? Or do you write about more global things?

I.G.: I write about life, about death, about love, about friendship, about men, women, Russia, Jews, and about Israel as such - quite a bit, because I perceive Israel as a huge crowd of Jews. I'm more interested in writing about the Jews as such.

The topic has changed a little - very clearly for me. I write a lot about old age, this season interests me for obvious reasons. And to notice some details - funny or tragic - this season seems to me very interesting. Here is my main theme.

There are amazing coincidences in life. If you read this in a book, you will think that the author is too obviously composing. But life sometimes presents stories that, as it were, serve as information for reflection on the topic "obvious - incredible." When I speak with Igor Guberman, I imagine very vividly and brightly sunny weather in Jerusalem, the Neve Yakov district, which is located very close to the city center, a picturesque route in the green quarter, the buildings of two synagogues standing side by side, and the house opposite - with far from the most ideal entrance in the world, with an elevator, which I tried to use less, based on my sports fantasies ... My sister and niece live in this house. When I visited them for the first time, I saw an inscription on the door of one of the apartments during my mini-hikes up the stairs. How, I wondered, did he live here? It's him, the sister confirmed. Indeed, isn't it an amazing coincidence? I have been calling Israel for many years on two phones - often to my sister and occasionally to Igor Guberman, and it turns out that they live not only in the same area, on the same street, but also in the same entrance. And it is precisely behind this door that the unforgettable Guberman Gariks are born, the famous quatrains known to everyone, everyone, everyone who loves and knows today's Russian poetry.

Igor, please report back for today. Did you write something today?

Remember Eve and Adam forever

The Creator obliged us very strictly.

Forgive us sincerely for this,

That we are descended from monkeys.

Probably, apart from your loved ones, I am the first listener of your next Garik.

No, you are completely first. I do not read my creations at home, I take care of their health.

And mine, then, do not save. Thank you. Anyway, I'm grateful that I became your first listener. Igor, please explain to me why after every meeting with you - rarely in life and more often on the air - I always have this good mood and such optimism awakens? Although in your poems, alas, there is enough philosophical sadness and worldly bitterness, sometimes they are simply piercingly sad. And I have a bright feeling. Explain this phenomenon to me.

I often receive notes with approximately the same words as you just told me. I think that I'm just a life-loving nature, and it somehow comes through in the rhymes. Then, I'm secured, that's for sure. And in our time, everyone is somehow tense, running for something, fussing, afraid, lusting, so against this background, my poems, perhaps, somehow ozonize the spiritual weather.

And what is the source, the golden key of your optimism? After all, you had a oh-oh-oh, what a difficult life ...

This is precisely the source of optimism. I did survive. There was life, nothing terrible, everything was wonderful. And optimism, I think, is hormonal, physiological, biochemical. Well, the Lord gave me such a fold, and I am very grateful to him for this.

Someone said that there are actually more good people, of course, but for some reason he comes across bad ones more often. Have you met the good ones more often, or the bad ones?

There are far more good people than bad ones. Very often people who are considered bad and who do bad things are very unhappy people. And this is not dostoyevsky. I saw a lot of unfortunate people in the camp, in the settlements, in prison. Their life broke, upset, offended. But still, many had such reserves of kindness, spiritual curiosity, readiness to become different. No, there are far more good people than bad people, I assure you.

Since you remembered your difficult years, I also remember that the thieves, seeing you off from exile, said - Mironych, you just whistle, if you need anything, we will come and do everything. And they added - for a box of port wine. I know about this whole story. But explain to those who do not know how the thieves treated you? After all, you were an alien element to them. After all, you are an intellectual - do not be offended by me for this either a good or not a very good word, it all depends on the context. And did you write your poems there?

I felt great. I was treated well, very well. Thanks to this attitude, I was able to write the book "Walks around the barracks." In the evenings, they provided me with a quiet solitary sitting in the medical unit. You know about it. But I have already written so much about this that I will not talk more on this topic. Let me tell you a story from my just completed trip. I won't name the city. I had a press conference there. And suddenly I see that the five or six journalists who are sitting there have clearly not read my books. They just came because they were sent. And they asked me why I was imprisoned, it interested them very much. This is my favorite topic. I worked out this myth a long time ago, so I started like a warhorse at the sound of the trumpet and told them this story. They put me in jail because I bought myself a diploma from a medical college through an acquaintance and opened an underground atelier for intimate design. I was a gynecologist-make-up artist. I achieved great success in this matter, all of Moscow was secretly talking about me. And for this I was imprisoned by envious people. This is the story I told them. And I saw in their eyes that they believe me. I am now looking forward to it, they promised to send me newspapers from this city, I wonder what these journalists wrote about my statements ...

Well, can't they really believe it?

Don't know. But I talked about it very incendiary.

Should return to your cellmates. Did you have meetings with them after all-Russian fame came to you?

You know not. Three came to me somehow to concerts in different cities in Siberia, but they were not thieves. One of them found me, phoned me, a wonderful man, when I am in Moscow, I will definitely look for him. I think that they do not associate that fraer with city posters and I, who chifir with them there.

- I came to a sad opinion

From observations over the years:

All the bastard is inclined to unity,

And all are not decent.

With all your comprehensive optimism, these lines seemed to me very pessimistic.

This is just an observation, it is not pessimistic. I think that such an observation did a lot different people. You know, decent ones - they argue, bazaar. Look how it is now in Russia with the protest movement. After all, they all argue with each other, swear, and those in power seem to stick together and have one opinion.

- I am the son of that mysterious tribe

Who did not know love and pity for himself,

That burned in every flame

And reborn from the ashes again.

This is probably one of the main themes of your Gariks.

I think not, because I wrote a lot of different things. I probably have as many poems about Russia as about the Jews. Now there are no less poems about old age than about Russia and the Jews. And once there were a lot of poems about love. So I don't know the proportion. But there is really a lot about the Jews. Agree that this is an amazing topic, we are an amazing people.

- Old age has simple signs:

give advice to the elderly.

And, sitting on the bullfight, we advice

give to the bullfighters and bulls.

One more thing.

On this long road of life

Already near the last station,

Again the soul becomes innocent

Because the memory has completely failed.

Why do you write so much about old age? After all, according to my calculations, you are a young man. You are only - so I calculated, only 36 years old. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but it doesn't matter.

Misha, you're overreacting. Exactly forty years.

Excuse me, why are you revealing such secrets? I have known you for many years and perceive you as a purely young person.

And what to hide. 76 years is a wonderful age, I would even say that it is better than 67. You already see everything, you understand, you are completely calm. Old age is actually such a good thing, if you don't flicker.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy said - I never thought that old age is so beautiful. Do you agree with the classic?

Did he really say that? He said and ran away from home after that, didn't he? You know I don't like him very much. An amazing writer, but what a terrible publicist. What he writes about art is monstrous.

I cannot possibly agree with your criticism of Tolstoy. But you have every right to your opinion about the classics. Let's assume that Igor Huberman also has the right to some sins.

When my sins will be taken into account

Archangel in charge of this

He no doubt thinks

That I lived in the world for a reason.

You read my poems so well and tasty and pick them up so well that I thank you. I recently received a note from some spectator, an old man, who later came up to me and said that he knew more than 800 of my poems by heart. And he added - so if something happens to you, then call.

800 I do not know, but I remember something. By the way, have you ever tried to at least approximately count the number of poems you have written?

The Eksmo publishing house published a two-volume collection of my poems a few years ago. And they are counted by one very good artist. There are about 9 thousand of them.

If you follow the old rule - not a day without a line, then you can count. Nine thousand is about 25 years. And if you count your prose, then it is said about you that you are an eternal worker.

Unfortunately, this is not about me, because I am a monstrous lazy person. I am much more of a reader than a writer, I read a lot.

With all due respect to you, I will try to object to you. You are one of the biggest workers that our current rather idle and fat world can only imagine. I cannot possibly agree with you when you say that you do not consider yourself a poet. I have talked with you many times, and you have never said that you write poetry. You say - I write poems, as if we are talking about something very small. There is such a term - citation coefficient. So, according to this coefficient, in today's Russian language, not one of the living writers and poets, not one, as far as I can tell, is quoted as often and almost for all occasions in our life as you are. From Moscow to Israel, New York, Vladivostok and all the way to the outskirts.

There are no such sociological studies, but I am convinced of this. For by the nature of my work I read a lot and often come across your name, especially in the comments of readers of various sites.

Thanks for the nice words. They tell me that too sometimes. I can tell you, without false modesty, that I am very sorry to be quoted so often. Instead of me, they could more often recall the amazing Russian poets that exist now. Fortunately, there are quite a few of them.

You write a lot, publish a lot, travel a lot throughout today's Russian-speaking world with concerts. Our compatriots can be seen in many countries and everywhere, as far as I know, you are warmly and even enthusiastically received. Is the audience changing? I understand that it is difficult for you to draw a typical image of your reader and listener, but try to draw the image of those who love you as much as I do.

I don't know if I'm loved the way you are, judging by all the superfluous things you said about me, but I roughly know the average appearance of my average listener. This is what we used to call NTI, that is, the scientific and technical intelligentsia. These are people ranging from forty years old and older to the most indefinite age, say, up to 80 years old, or even more. They read my poems in samizdat. But there are quite a few young people too. However, I have such misgivings that they are going to listen to informal vocabulary from the stage, this strange fool who so adores Israel, and not poetry as such.

Explain what informal vocabulary is? In some mouths, even good words sound very, very lousy, and sometimes a strong word spoken in the hearts is perceived by normal people as completely normal.

All this is correct. And in general, a word from informal vocabulary said at the right time is perceived remarkably. But, nevertheless, I do not use in radio and television conversations, in newspaper interviews, some lines with such words. From elementary philanthropy. No matter what the authorities tell you - but yesterday Mr. Fuchsman called, it will be in America, or Reb Schneerson, it will be in Israel, or some retired veteran called and was indignant that he heard informal vocabulary. I note that the same informal word has completely different shades in the mouth of the wonderful poet Irtenyev or in the mouth of some little boy who smokes a plane tree and boasts to the girl Lida that he is an adult. In addition, today there are a lot of authors, I don’t want to call them either prose writers or poets, who use informal vocabulary only because it is in demand. She's terribly tasteless.

About the new poetry and informal vocabulary. What does Omar Khayyam tell you about this when you dream about him at night?

I love Khayyam very much, especially in the translations by German Plisetsky, these are brilliant translations.

If you have a nook for housing

In our vile time and a piece of bread,

If you are not a servant to anyone, not a master -

It means that you are truly wise and high in spirit.

What a wonderful translation.

And what would you find in common with Omar if suddenly a time machine took you to him or him to you. What would you talk about?

Nothing like that is possible. But if it happened, I would read his poems in Russian in Plisetsky's translation. For example, I would read to him:

I have made knowledge my trade,

I am familiar with the highest truth

and with base evil,

I untangled all the tight knots in the world -

Apart from death

tied with a dead knot.

Brilliant Russian poetry. He would not have understood it, even if it had been translated to him, he would not have associated it with that verse of his, because he has an awful lot of Eastern allusions, allusions, untranslatable allegories. Therefore, in the Russian language a huge number of poets cannot be translated. Above all, he was an astronomer and mathematician. I think that he would have refused to talk to me in advance, and I would have refused, because I would have become shy.

You write a lot, like Omar Khayyam, about women. I know that you have a wonderful wife, wonderful children and grandchildren. How does your wife feel about some of your poems about women.

I have eight grandchildren - six girls and two boys. And my wife is a philologist and understands perfectly well that the lyrical hero has nothing to do with the author. And she treats my work with a smile. She is a very smart person.

As a connoisseur of the female soul, are you still able to at least sometimes be surprised, or do you think that you have already known everything?

I didn't know anything. I still get wonderful notes, some of which I show to my wife. Here, for example, is a note that I received in Novosibirsk. “Igor Mironovich, are you married? Sixteenth row, eighth place. Olya. I said that I am married and happy. I get a lot of questions from women. A huge number of questions in Russia - Igor Mironovich, help me marry a Jew. There are few Jews, and I wrote with regret: It is not easy for a Russian girl to find Gurevich now ...

You talked about transfers. I think you are an absolutely untranslatable poet. For example, I read your poems in English. With all due respect to the translator, something most important is still incomprehensible and missed. Heaven and earth.

I also think it's impossible. They tried to translate into eight languages. But now there is one man here. He translated about 350 of my poems, and soon a book of translations will be published in parallel in Russian and Hebrew. He claims that he read to Hebrew-speaking people, and they laughed. I don't believe.

Lots of antigards. Your poem and reminiscences on this topic.

I know several such authors. They write consonant poems, citing mine next to them. I have not met a single non-graphomaniac among them. I do not want to offend them, but, unfortunately, these people are completely untalented. It seems to everyone that writing four lines is very easy. It's kind of an epidemic. But what can you do. I have not yet met anti-garics that I would read with pleasure, although I would be very glad to read this.

Igor, a completely different topic.

In vain we knock our foreheads against the wall

Trying to light up my darkness.

There is a system in the madness of regimes

that only posterity will see.

Now Egypt new president. What do you think about this whole story with the Arab spring and its consequences?

He will certainly ruin relations with Israel. All these revolutions ended in the fall of Islam. Everywhere different Islamic brothers come to power. It would seem that this is terribly bad for Israel, and it is really objectively bad. But fortunately, they are so brutally and rabidly fighting each other for primacy in the region and for other things, for the trust of the people, for the opportunity to crush competitors and applicants, so far, perhaps, this does not threaten Israel. In this regard, I have a very narrow and nationalistic view of things. I look at everything from the point of view of benefit for Israel. It is a terrible harm that different brothers come to power and more will come. But as long as they squabble with each other, we can live relatively calmly. Israel is a unique country. It is happiness that had to endure, and that it exists.

Last question. Answer frankly. Is life a good thing?

Amazing. She often makes me happy. Sometimes unexpectedly. Once I was sent a clipping from an American newspaper in Russian. There was an article "Woody Allen plays the clarinet" with my photo.

Everything today outward behavior Russia depends on the ambitions and vzbryki of one person, the poet says with regret Igor Guberman, the author of the famous Gariki, which, even after 30 years of living in Israel, he continues to write in Russian, considering knowledge of the language of his second homeland "a completely secondary matter." On the eve of the tour in Riga and Rezekne, Huberman gave an interview to the Delfi portal.

“Garenka, your every word is superfluous,” the beloved grandmother of the future poet used to say. She, at one time, revealed to Igor Mironovich a terrible family secret- her cousin was a bright historical figure - engineer and revolutionary figure Pinchas Rutenberg, who surrendered the priest Gapon and asked Kerensky for a mandate to hang Lenin and Trotsky, but did not receive it. He later fled to Palestine and electrified Israel.

No less ambitious personality was brother Igor Huberman - geologist David Huberman. In the 1960s, using Soviet equipment, he drilled the deepest well in the world, 15 kilometers deep, on the Kola Peninsula. Before last days of his life (2011), he headed the SPC "Kola Superdeep". Now the well is abandoned.

Igor Mironovich himself began to write poetry in the 10th grade. In his first attempts at writing, he was engaged only in reproaching women for their unresponsiveness. When responsiveness happened, he drowned these records in a garbage can. He came to his famous form of quatrains-gariks, having discovered that no one listens to his long compositions at friendly parties. He dedicated the first Gariki to his wife, the daughter of the writers Yuri and Lydia Libedinsky, nee Tolstoy.

"My wife is not a wisp of smoke,
Not a soup set of bones.
My wife is loved by me
But in the spring it still pulls on b ... "

It so happened that there were always many dissidents and Zionists among Huberman's friends. In this connection, his father told him: "Garik, they will put you in jail before you want it." And so it happened: in 1979, Huberman was arrested on charges of buying stolen icons and sent to Siberia for five years. In the camps, he kept diaries, which later took shape in the book "Walks around the barracks."

In 1987, the Huberman family emigrated to Israel and settled in Jerusalem. He reflected this moment of his biography in Garik:

"We go! And a broken heart
pounding in the chest, dying.
Forgive us, unwashed Russia,
and hello, unshaven Israel!”

In his new homeland, Huberman continues to compose ironic quatrains in Russian, with which he often performs on the territory of the post-Soviet space. In addition, Huberman wrote many books on serious topics - biological cybernetics, brain research and the psychology of fascism.

This summer Igor Mironovich will turn 80 years old. On this occasion, the poet travels with anniversary concerts all around Russia. Just on the eve of the Latvian tour, he performs in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

- In Riga you performed more than once. What else connects you with Latvia?

— Already almost 60 years ago at the Riga Carriage Works (Guberman graduated from the Moscow Institute of Railway Engineers — ed.) I wrote my graduation project. Since then, I have been to Riga many times and I love your city very much - for the architecture, parks and the general atmosphere of life. This is not to mention the fact that the Riga audience of my readers and listeners is incredibly responsive, and performing in Riga is a real pleasure. In addition, I have friends in the city, and this is an additional joy from visits.

“One can safely believe in Russia, but it is dangerous to trust her…” you once wrote. If polls are to be believed, many residents of Latvia today look at Russia with great apprehension. Have you retained a wary attitude towards your former homeland?

- Today, all the external behavior of Russia depends on the ambitions and vzbryki of just one person. It is a pity that as a result of this Russia is feared everywhere, but this is quite fair. I still love Russia (after all, I lived there for half a century), and I am very ashamed and hurt for its current state.

- In an interview with Radio Liberty, you called the state system of Russia a paganat. As a person who went through the camps, explain what are the features of this device? What do they lead to?

— Pahanat is such a criminal structure of human society, when the owners of life are a small team (a gang, if you like) of the so-called woolen, undercoat and sixes rallied around the godfather. There can be no question of any legality here, everything is done according to purely camp (thieves') concepts. I'm just too lazy and have no time to go into the details and details of this inhuman device, a little like medieval feudalism. I am sure that it is high time for sociologists to take up this kind of human relations, which is by no means outlandish for many of today's states.

- Your wife, what does she think about Russia now? What does he see in the end - war or peace?

- My wife and I have been together for more than fifty years, we have a single (as it seems to me) worldview and assessment of everything that happens in the world. And by the way, it smells strongly of war.

- You do not hide the fact that for almost 30 years of living in Jerusalem you did not really learn Hebrew and speak Russian. A similar situation is with many Russian-speaking residents of Latvia. Our officials say that a true patriot must know Latvian, otherwise he does not like Latvia. How comfortable do you feel in Israel with your knowledge of Hebrew, can you call yourself a patriot?

— Despite my extremely poor knowledge of Hebrew, I feel very comfortable living in Israel. I don't like the word "patriotism", it is very much filthy with hypocrites, demagogues and opportunists of all stripes, including many scoundrels. But I really love the country where I have been living for many years, I am very proud of it and would not exchange it for any other. And knowledge of the language, in my opinion, is quite secondary.

- You have a wonderful Garik:

« I love my disgust
leading me for a long time:
even to spit at the enemy,
I don't put shit in my mouth."

Today such people are rare. How do you communicate with enemies if you have them?

“I don’t even know if I have enemies. And if there is, then I feel sorry for them. There are certainly detractors, but I only communicate with friends. Fortunately, there are many of them.

You have written many books about human brain. AT recent times (especially how you read facebook) the feeling is that for many people the gray matter began to fail. What is the reason for the rabid and rejection? Will it ever end? How not to succumb to general hysteria?

- You are right: some general anger is palpably in the air. In Russia, this is the result of massive, global and even talented propaganda flowing from the pages and television screens. I would like to think that this is a temporary madness.

— You were born in Kharkov. How do you assess the situation in your small homeland? As a person who has studied the psychology of fascism, what do you think about the “Bandero-fascist movement that has raised its head”?

“I admire the leap that Ukraine has made towards freedom. But it is very difficult there now, the radiation from the Soviet camp is still very strong. In addition, people who come to power after any revolutionary changes are heavily burdened by yesterday's legacy, and this is very noticeable. I think (or rather, I hope) that in two or three generations Ukraine will begin to live with dignity and prosperity. As for the "Bandera-fascist movement", then all this garbage is a pure product of the propaganda that we just talked about.

Igor GUBERMAN: "I DON'T WANT TO PROPHECT TROUBLE..."

Performance of the legendary poet and prose writer Igor Guberman in the Sochi Winter Theater with the program "Gariki of all times. T he best"produced an expectedly joyful effect on Sochi residents and guests of the resort as an inoculation of happiness. Although, for the sake of justice, it should be noted that the microphone and sound level could be adjusted to the sound engineer so that not a single word of the speaker would fly past hundreds of reverently listening ears.

It was a bright, cheerful and at the same time touchingly tender meeting with the departing nature and the great past: Igor Mironovich's level of intellect, his wit and richest life experience are today perceived as Polermontov:

Yes, there were people in our time,

Not like the current tribe:

Bogatyrs - not you!

For people like Huberman, any adversity in life is another reason to cheer yourself up and those around you. Even the loss of a suitcase with things and books at the Sochi airport due to the fault of air carriers was presented by the poet during his speech as a funny episode - a rare opportunity to go on stage in the trousers of a producer, who, by the way, was Borislav Yagudin. According to Borislav Iosifovich, he was informed about the found suitcase at 4 am the next day after the concert.

In addition to the Winter Palace, the Israeli "Abram Khayyam" visited the literary and memorial museum of Nikolai Ostrovsky, the museum "Dacha V.V. Barsova", on the territory of the reconstructed sanatorium named after Ordzhonikidze - in thought he stood near the famous fountain, where the film "Old Man Hottabych" was filmed ...

The architecture of Sochi captivated Igor Mironovich with the Stalinist Empire style. Instead of visiting the Olympic Park, Huberman plunged into the richest literary and historical past of the capital of the White Olympiad. I met with interest documentary Sochi writers Igor Kozlov and Olga Sahakyan "The Enchanted Shore", expressing a desire to dedicate one of their new prose works to the Sochi roots of the ancient Greek myth of the Golden Fleece.

Our conversation took place on the eve of the performance in the room of the Zhemchuzhina hotel complex on the 8th floor, from the windows of which there was a delightful view of the gray-green sea and the city golden in the rays of the setting sun.

- Igor Mironovich, in January 2013 in an interview "BBC"You said that you feel "for Israel - fear and pride, for Russia - pain and shame." And in October of the same year in " Novaya Gazeta gave three definitions modern Russia: "lawlessness, apathy, malice". At the same time, they admitted that you are jarred by the words "patriotism" and "sobornost". You were born in Kharkov, weren't you? Did the recent events that caused Russia's international disgrace aggravate your assessment or change it radically?

I would not like to answer political questions, although they are often asked to me during speeches. I usually evade the answer. I am a foreigner, and restraint is proper for me - I will not be able to speak sincerely and honestly.

During the current tour of Russia, in almost all 13 cities, smart, friendly and with great self-esteem people shared that they were delighted with the annexation of Crimea. I refrained from commenting. I don't want to be Cassandra and prophesy troubles...

- A poet in Russia, according to Yevtushenko, is more than just a poet.

Poets are Pushkin, Derzhavin, Blok, Brodsky...

Yevgeny Alexandrovich gave you the following definition: "You are underestimated by yourself." So, when the Israeli poet Huberman sits down at his desk, what worries him?

You, my friend, want to get into my soul! It's very difficult when you first meet. There are many things in the world that cause me anxiety. For example, my old age and the weakness and illness associated with it. I am concerned about the health of loved ones, as well as the constant and continuous care of friends and peers. And this worries me much more than political events in the world.

Thinking about autumn in a person's life, you once said that there is a big plus in old age: "You can do a lot, but you want almost nothing." You call a person's belief in life after death an illusion. They also collected epitaphs on the graves. Say, laconic inscriptions convince you that we are all characters of jokes for someone watching from the side ...

-... Yes, we are very funny creatures, although our life is a tragedy, since everyone knows the ending of this play. But far from everyone can appreciate the comedy of what is happening. I feel both genres. And I have no natural science evidence that there is life after life. Most likely, a person came up with this in order not to be tormented by the fears that accompany us from birth.

Your friend, who worked in the laboratory with antidotes, once showed you how he feeds live mice to snakes: he hits the mouse on the stone floor and only then throws it to the snakes. According to your friend, this is an act of mercy - salvation from torment. From what you saw, you then concluded that the Creator quite often does the same with us ...

Exactly, but we don't understand it!

- So, if God exists, he is still merciful?

I never tried to understand his plans and intentions. Much of what happens to us depends on internal causes: on character, preservation of curiosity and freshness of feelings, on environment, from nutrition - forgive me for pragmatics. The difference in nutrition between Western and Soviet old people is unthinkable and monstrous! All over the world I meet cheerful and contact 80-year-old pensioners. Compare them with Russian ones... And the quality of the state is not industry, not military merit, not international prestige, but a prosperous old age, the quality of life of retired elderly people - veterans of labor and war, the disabled.

- It so happened that the population of Sochi is predominantly middle-aged people ...

- ... And there have always been a lot of swindlers of all stripes here - shop workers and skaters!

They also retire from time to time. How well do old people in Sochi eat, if we take as a subjective "unit of measurement" a restaurant not the latest in an international resort of a hotel where you dine? Can we talk about world standards?

Of course not. I tried the local cuisine. I don't see the point in blaming her. But what is served here and what is served there are two very different things. I don't want to offend Sochi, but there are a lot of amazing hotels in Russian cities today! In terms of food quality, they have nothing to do with Sochi eateries. Maybe I'll still try the local menu, but my belated compliments will no longer be made public ...

You recently gave a concert in the Komi Republic - in Syktyvkar and Ukhta. Moreover, in Ukhta at the time they saved the monument to Pushkin by Nikolai Bruni?

This was after the publication of my book about Bruni, who was serving time in "Ukhtizhemlag" in the village of Chibyu. In 1937, on the centenary of the death of Alexander Sergeevich, Nikolai Alexandrovich built a monument to the poet in Ukhta from a mixture of clay, gypsum, cement and solid additives. In the same year, the sculptor was given a five-year sentence, and in 1938 he was shot without trial.

Upon arrival in Ukhta, I immediately asked to be taken to this monument. And I see: fenced with dirty plywood, and nearby - sculptures of little Ulyanov and Pavlik Morozov. Pushkin was being prepared for demolition, because some art history commission decided that it no longer represents either historical or architectural value. I then said on local television that there would never be happiness, freedom, freedom and joy in Ukhta as long as these two stood intact, and the amazing monument to the poet, made by the amazing sculptor who was killed near Ukhta, would be demolished. After that, some Ukhta banker gave money for restoration. And when they started it, they cleaned the lower part of the monument from old cement and concrete, and a wonderful molding of a shoe opened up to the eye ... Now the monument is already in bronze, as befits a historical relic.

By the way, I also met your work in the Komi Republic. In Syktyvkar, about twenty years ago, the leading commentator of the Komi radio, Tamara Gorelik, gave me two common notebooks with handwritten gariks to read ...

I run into this a lot. This is such happiness and, probably, a lifetime reward! I often get rewritten poems to sign. And on a recent tour in Rostov, I received a wonderful note from the audience: "Dear Igor Mironovich, several years ago I spent an unforgettable night with you! Your book was given to me only until morning."

In another city, a certain spectator wrote: "I can at least have a drink with you, otherwise I'm married." By the way, you once admitted that you drank vodka with Gagarin, and he still stands before your eyes "an unfortunate, quickly drunk, doomed like guinea pigs, but a man who survived in space and completely broken from fame" ...

With Yuri Alekseevich, I really spent five minutes in this life, or maybe three. And that's exactly the impression I got. I feel sorry for him.

- Didn't fame break you?

What glory is there, Lord? Glories are different. A man risked his life - he flew, God knows where, and then you write some x..nu ...

- Tests and your lot fell with interest! Take, for example, the holiday you celebrate every year,- August 13th? A friendly drink in memory of the fact that in 1979 you were subpoenaed as a witness in a trumped-up case about the purchase of a stolen icon, and you returned home five years later. It turns out that the past does not let go. And, maybe, in dreams, pictures of the Zagorsk prison, located in the building of the former convent and striking with the mighty masonry of the walls, vaulted ceilings and a terrible regime? ..

I spent more time in Volokolamsk. You know, I am very grateful to the Soviet government for these years. It was insanely interesting! God knows, I do not prevaricate and do not flirt. I sat in fun, funny and easy times. And if I hear someone say that the zone is wild suffering, I start to think badly about him. There was everything: a camp, a prison, transfers along the stage, but there was no hunger, murderous work, a conscious pestilence of people.

And you know what's interesting. I have a friend, because of whom, in fact, I sat down, because I was offered to put him in jail. He is a mathematician and a professor, we are still friends with him and we drink not once a year, but once every two months or more often. And every time we talk, we return to my camp theme and to the theme of his exile - to our entire prison epic. For him and for me it was a real life adventure, for which others climb Kilimanjaro or go hunting lions in Cameroon!

I remember that after the transit prison in Chelyabinsk, I found myself with an experienced convict who warned me: "If you don't stop saying "thank you" and "please," you won't get to the camp." I laughed, and then I clearly understood - a completely new life began.

- Prison broke Oscar Wilde, and, as is commonly believed, it forged a writer from Dostoevsky ...

Stop it, Dostoevsky was before prison great writer. I love him very much (unlike Leo Tolstoy). And I cannot call the life that Fyodor Mikhailovich led a martyr. Of course, there were episodes that burned into his memory and, most likely, endlessly scrolled before his eyes. For example, when he stood among the Petrashevites on the Semyonovsky parade ground awaiting a death sentence... But the "House of the Dead", in which he sat, little resembled a torture chamber. And Dostoevsky sat quite at ease: once a week the commandant of the fortress called him to his tea party ... No, no, it was not prison that made him a great writer.

- What then?

Crazy talent and crazy unhappiness.

- And you?

Wake up, daddy! I really don't like colleagues who talk about "the origins of creativity" and about springs that "nourish the poet's living soul." It was fashionable at the beginning of the 20th century. Now is another time - more realistic. I won’t talk about myself (the feeling that I’m not writing, but “they are writing me”) does not leave me. I'd rather talk about those whom I admire.

Dina Rubina would probably laugh if I raised the topic of the secrets of inspiration. However, I enjoy reading her prose, as well as the prose of Lucy Ulitskaya. Of the living prose writers, I put Victor Pelevin above all others, a real great writer who writes better and better over the years. I enjoy the poetry of Timur Kibirov, Dmitry Bykov, Igor Irteniev. The latter has these lines: "Both the poor and the rich / we are equally needed, / said the pathologist / and wiped the scalpel on his pants." Even a little jealous!

And this is what the author of over nine thousand Gariks says?! However, you have already announced your position: "The fire has begun to grow dark inside me; / having torn off the hateful bridle, / now I am just an old horse, / sending a furrow to x..r." And yet, more than one generation of "petrels" of the Soviet style draws inspiration from your immortal lines: "Neither looking up, nor forward, / I'm sitting with my slob friends, / and we don't give a damn who takes / in the fight between bastards and scoundrels." Or: "I do not like any power, / we are not in harmony with each, / but I, as long as I have something to put, / I put on each." And also: "I believe in the conscience, mind and honor of the rulers of the earth; I believe that there are mermaids, and I believe in brownies."

One of my readers, about my age, came up after the concert and said that he knew about 800 of my poems by heart. "If anything happens to you, call," he suggested.

You know, the time has come when the success of colleagues gives special joy. In the first book of the Odessa poet Mikhail Veksler, I was subdued by how masterfully he turned one line of Nekrasov into two: "Will Rakhil Isaakovna Ginzburg enter the burning hut?"

Both funny and censored. How can I not recall here that on the eve of your Sochi concert, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted, and the Federation Council approved a law prohibiting the use of profanity on television and radio, in film distribution and in the public performance of works of art. Now it is forbidden to swear on television and radio, in theatrical performances, concerts and movies in theaters. Books and CDs containing obscene language must be sold in sealed packaging labeled "contains obscene language". From the moment the law comes into force - from July 1, 2014 - significant penalties are introduced.

The great writer Yuri Olesha said: "There is nothing funnier than the word" zh..pa "written in block letters!" When applied to a legislative act, this phrase looks even more comical.

On the way to meet you, I stood at the bus stop and watched a young man of 20-23 years old talking loudly to someone on a mobile phone and at the same time not limiting himself in expressions. However, out of ten people who were waiting for the minibus with us, no one was offended by the flowery speech. Probably because there were no children around?

Different people use mate for different reasons. For example, for a certain boy Fedya, this is a way to show the girl Lucy that he has already grown up. Karl Marx wrote in his Criticism of the Hegelian Philosophy of Law: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature." I would say that the sigh of the oppressed creature is a mate, or, more precisely, obscene vocabulary.

As for children, they know exactly as much as we do.

Therefore, during the adolescence of your children, Tanya and Emil, did you set limits for them in the choice of literature?

From childhood they were free in their preferences.

- Have the problems of "fathers and children" bypassed your family? Are you friends with your children?

I, like all parents, naturally, can be mistaken about our relationship. But the thread of love between us, I'm sure, has been preserved. So my wife got sick. And eldest daughter does not get out of the hospital, although she has her own three children. Does she consider me her friend, is she proud of me? Hard to say. I don't know her criteria. Now Tanya is 48, and when she was 6 or 7 years old, she came and said: “Daddy, it’s a pity that you are not a waiter, like Ira’s father. Because he brought her such small red grains for her birthday, which are called“ caviar "…"

And I remembered a touching story about how your seven-year-old Milka, who came with his mother to Siberia, where you were exiled, snuggled up to you at the station, as if you had just parted yesterday, and said: “It’s a pity, dad, that they put you in prison, because There was a great detective on TV recently."

He meant Stanislav Govorukhin's painting "The meeting place cannot be changed"... I was very lucky with my children! But it could have been even better. The son could become a candidate of sciences, which is a reason for the pride of any elderly Jew. daughter could get higher education, and this, in the understanding of every Jewish parent, is a necessity. I was lucky with them in the communicative sense, as they say now. But my parents were terribly unlucky with me ...

Your dad, an electrical engineer, was scared of 1937 for the rest of his life, he was afraid of your humanitarian ways. And your mother, who graduated from the conservatory and the faculty of law, devoted herself entirely to the family and lived "not her own destiny." And if you had the opportunity to call into the past, as stated in one of the interviews, you would call them to apologize for all the trouble caused. Were you that restless child?

I confess. They've been through a lot because of me. My parents were orthodox people, and when relatives gathered with us on Saturdays, they did without political conversations - everyone scolded me for bad behavior and ate stuffed fish, which I have not liked since then.

In the fifth grade, when Newton's laws were being taught in physics, I argued with a friend that inertia is a hoot, and jumped off the tram. True, he was already slowing down, approaching the stop. But I crashed into some passenger. There was a lot of noise. In the yard, if I am not mistaken, it is 1948: cosmopolitans and Jews are branded everywhere, and my father is called to the police because of me. How scared he was then! Then he whipped me with a belt ... However, I would like to ask his forgiveness for that case, and for many others.

As Igor Huberman says, evil leaves the memory like slag. I like your passport story. This is when, three days before the wedding, during a business trip to Kyiv, a "duplicate of a priceless cargo" was stolen from you. And the head of the police department advised me to give the passport officer a box of chocolates. Like, he'll do whatever it takes. But the box turned out to be much smaller than the lady expected...

- ... I was very poor then.

And she expressed her dissatisfaction with the fact that she wrote your name, surname and patronymic in small letters, but the word "Jew" in the column "nationality" - in large ones.

I was proud of this passport for many years, but then, unfortunately, I lost it (lights up - ed.).

Igor Mironovich, your wife thinks that smoking interferes with your life, and you are convinced that it helps. Be that as it may, do you feel comfortable in Sochi, where the "City Without Tobacco" charter was adopted some time ago and an active anti-tobacco campaign is being conducted?

In my opinion, this is another stupidity. Saltykov-Shchedrin called this phenomenon "administrative delight." Look, sexual minorities have already taken to the streets to defend their rights. And we, smokers, are suffering in silence. But prohibitions do not make us better - they only spur desire.

At one of the meetings, you received a note: "Thank you, every time the whole family leaves your concert with great joy!"

I usually start every concert with this phrase.

- What do you think those who come to your performance are looking for?

Understanding. In the distant Soviet years, people poured on Yevtushenko, Voznesensky, Akhmadulina - they were thirsty for living words, which were then few. Why do people come or don't come to poets today? The devil knows. The ability to listen to poetry and see images seems to me an individual ability of the mind, the soul. After all, there is an audience that visits exhibition or concert halls, although they do not understand anything in painting and music, but they gravitate towards something, they experience something ... My grandmother used to say: "Don't generalize, Garinka, and you won't be generalized!"

Victor TERENTIEV