Alexei Kurilko: “It hurts me to remember many things, but I do not regret”

Anatoly Golubovsky


Alexey Kurilko is a writer, actor, director, laureate ... not, to list all the long and not the most important thing. For it happens that only the former regalia remain of man. And with Lesha it was very interesting, lively and nonlinear. At first I wanted to build the text more “correctly”, but then I realized that it would be “wrong”. . .

- Lesha, in the 90s could have turned quite differently?

- You hitting the patient? Yes, it could. That is why I try to justify my existence on this sinful earth. Because many of my friends, friends, classmates are no longer there, and for some reason I am alive and well and even moderately fed up. It seems to me that the Lord may have left me for this purpose, so that I could somehow tell about that time, and not only about it. Or something. He seems to have some plans for me... Space, if not God. Something's in there, I guess.

- What was the turning point?

By and large, I read and wrote since childhood, it is another thing that when I was with the boys...

- I'll reformulate. The way of life that has developed, delays. I know.

- I had to mimic the environment. Obviously, I didn't talk to the boys about Baudelaire. But I'll tell you, in those circles, I met representatives who read more than people with two college degrees. Of course, there is nothing to do in those places, and those who wanted, read, developed, some know several languages. They love philosophy and study psychology. Well, this is absolutely necessary by the nature of the activity. So they're not stupid.

- It's not stupid. The question of applying their skills and abilities

- Probably, yes. As for the turning point, this is the 99th, but I have told you about it 300 times, Neelov will tell you about it even better, because he saw it with his own eyes. I came, two foreheads with me, and they said, "In short, take him, he's a real fucking artist." Nikolaich is like this, a little on the lookout - what kind of tips came, but so, for the sake of view:
- All right, all right, let him pass the exam.
- What an exam, he's handsome, he really burns, as soon as he starts to soar, we're all lying around.
- All right, let him come to the exam.
All this time I was sitting and silent, realizing that the boys are conducting a dialogue at a completely different level, that there was already a completely unflattering opinion about me, but, nevertheless, I came to the exam, passed the first one brilliantly, then, also - the second. Now there are several versions - Glushko, Volosheniuk, Neelov, that he was the only "for", and the rest - "fuck us this bandit, he will not study, he does not need it for nothing, etc."

Which of your subpersonalities, hypostases, is closest to you - an actor, writer, director? Or are they equivalent?

- Definitely a writer. He helps, he's nobler than an actor. In fact, my subpersonalities - an actor, a writer, a radio host and just a person - a lazy Kurilko who does not want to do anything - are at war with each other. But the lazy Kurilko was pushed into a corner. So, the writer helps the actor - he comes up with texts, often the actor uses already written. But the actor does not help the writer at all. Whenever you need to tell something about my story in a publishing house that is completely unfamiliar with me, “turn on” a charming charismatic person, submit how incomparable this work is – the actor goes somewhere, and the writer sits down, mutters that “well, it’s about life ... well, read.” Something like that happens. So I position myself as a writer.

You could have monetized your talents and inclinations much more rationally, but you chose a slightly different path. Writing in our Palestinians is not the most paid job right now. In Zhvanetsky’s words, “It is necessary to write, as well as to write, when it is already impossible to endure.” Is your call from that category?

- I'm afraid so. I don’t know what to compare to... let’s try gambling. I just can't do without it. I can't stop writing, I'm getting really sick. Sometimes I don’t even know what it will be. I write lying down, or rather lying down, like Pushkin, my office still does not exist. So I take a pen, a notebook, it's the old-fashioned way, I don't type, and I can spin a pen for four hours without writing a single sentence. My girlfriend watches and in about an hour, three and a half, she asks the question:
- What are you doing?
- Working.
- Mmm. I'd like that job.
Thank God she understands, but there are moments like this. And sometimes - watered - and just do not have time for the hand. I bought a tape recorder, but it turned out that it was not my method of writing.

- Doesn't work?

- No, no, no, no. Because when you say a lot of words-parasites, sometimes you repeat.

You said you could lie down for three or four hours without a word or a line. And then it can water. Do you think that what is pouring at this time is the authorship of Lesha Kurilko or the issue is very controversial?

-Aah. I get it. I even support the theory that some channels open and you give something away. But I don't really like the message "it's not me, it's God through me or anyone else." On the one hand, it's too loud, and on the other, I don't want to share! It's me!!! Sitting, giving birth for four hours and making up every sentence. I'm not that owner, but ... greedy to share authorship. “Thank you, of course, for opening the astral to me,” I say to the sky, but I did. Connected, wasted energy ... it's work ... sorry, I didn't take a notebook, you should see how it happens. Write the text - a draft version, with buckets and a bunch of "just in case." Then he's texting in the underwear. Then it is copied into a notebook with golden pages, then it is printed to my girlfriend, she types, I rule and give it to her again. And only then, as a triple distillation moonshine with additional filtering, it gets to the reader. I also have a notebook with notes and phrases, and as soon as it runs out, I buy a new one. I'm copying it from the old one. Over time, many phrases cease to be liked. But some have been wandering from notebook to notebook for 15 years. I haven't used them anywhere, I haven't used them, but they're still close to me, you know, so true to time. And some, which at first seemed brilliant, after a year were perceived as empty, trivial and “how could I write such a thing.”



How does the interaction of subpersonalities occur in combination with the laziness of the true Lesha Kurilko?

I've been asking myself this question, and I know that the brain actually eats as many calories, if not more, than physical labor. Well, what do you think you were doing? Sitting, I wrote. Clock. But there are times when it feels like three cars have been unloaded. And to the question of laziness, so in everything else Lesha will not lift a finger. He'll be in a new shoe for thirty hours, but he won't take a spoon. I have such a contempt for physical labor... and it is not invented, after all, since the age of sixteen he worked. First at the First Shoe Factory - opposite the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. At that time, it was impossible to use full-time work of minors, as if four hours were possible, but no one seriously checked it. I plowed all day, but I got a student salary. At first he worked as a completer of shoes of the third category - he scattered curl boots in size and fullness. The first month was so tired that he came, fell on the bed and fell asleep without dinner or undressing. Wake up, somehow took a shower, drove half asleep to work, there dined. But gradually we got used to everything, and two months later I was not tired, three months later I could calmly go out for an hour to smoke with the men, walk, and then in twenty minutes calmly sort what had come from the conveyor. And back to the smoker. A month later, we agreed with a partner (and there were two of us there) that we would work half a day. Then a day later, a week later. Of course, they covered each other, no one knew anything. As soon as I stopped getting tired, I lost interest.

- Was he in the beginning? Were you really interested?

-Yes. It was stubborn: I can, I won't give up. It was only in this that I found sporting interest. Because the money I got there I could make in twenty minutes. In another life, really. People from that life now sometimes find out when they meet. About five years ago, one of them asked on the street: “What are you, where are you,” and I, hiding my eyes, answer that, so, they say, I work in the same theater. Because it's not a job for them. Actors, singers, musicians they call "waiters for the soul"

- Special psychology. The trader is a hawk, the waiters are Chaldeans, the actors are waiters for the soul.

-Yes. There are some people who watch TV and go through their lip and say, "Uh, what people don't do just to not work." Plowman. A labour hero... Yes, so I answer “in one theater”, and he rounded his eyes: “Really?” Are you a clown? I explain that, no, it's very serious, it's theater, and somewhere in the back of my mind is the thought: "But anyway, yes."

- Interesting substitution. It is curious when and where it came from: if you do not work in the literal sense of the word, then you do not work. . .

Father Lerchuka, one of my co-hosts, once said: “Sashko, you don’t pashash. Pashesh, if you want to be robbed with your own hands.” And talking on the air is not a job.

You have contempt for physical labor.

- To a dumb guy who doesn't do any good, yes.

- So maybe it's not contempt, but the understanding that you'll put all of yourself into the process, and the return will be if not zero, then very low?

- Of course. For example, when he came to the studio and quickly came out in the front rows, around talking about star disease. That was 15 years ago. Why? Because I didn't drag chairs when I had to put them in their places after class. Everyone thought it was because I was staring. Nope. I just think everyone should do their own thing. I understand that this position is difficult to accept. But for me, physical labor is, for example, to come to the countryside and cut wood. Because it's new and high. It does not matter for whom, even if no one uses the fruits of this labor. This is a sport for 15-20 minutes. But when I realize that anyone can do this job, why should I waste my time and energy?
Of course, the working people may get the feeling that they are ploughing, doing something useful and material, the same chairs that we are sitting on now, and I despise him, you see? I don't despise him. If this work brings something useful to people, please. But I can't do that. So let's do what I can. “Let them sing in the Big One, and I will operate. That's fine - and no devastation.

Well, actually, the hardest work is intellectual. And it is easiest to reproach the unwillingness to “work” a person when the gyrus itself strains the break. For that matter, I can, say, dig a hole or chop the same wood. You sit down and write.

-Yes. But not everyone understands that, that's the point. I don’t think I’m an aristocrat. I was working. Shoes, then a loader for three months. I know what physical labor is and I know that I am not interested in it. As long as I am physically tired.
Once there is no sporting interest, there is nothing to overcome, there are no obstacles - everything.

Comments from outside are one thing. Have you ever felt like you were starving?

-Never. Many people who read this will disagree with me. But I've always been. Kindergarten, school. I only accept that kind of attitude. I’m either rebuilding the team or the team is losing me. When I was a kid, I was funny, I could retell a movie or a book, even a classic one. The kids then try to read, and it's not that interesting. But if there was a situation, “Oh, Leha has come!” Tell me something funny, he said, What am I, a clown? Can I sing some more? I don't owe anyone anything. Now, sometimes people ask to take a picture or sign a book, and I understand that for some reason my face is needed, what is the question - time takes a little, please. But when it begins to “well, smile” or “hug me”, then I’m sorry, do I have to? All right, I'll smile and you sit in the swan position. Conflicts begin, and I do not like to conflict, to knock down the veil. People think “artist, writer, celestial.” The same person sometimes hurts me.

- Do you believe in destiny?

I'm a fatalist to the bone. Like Lermonotov. He almost told himself he would die young. By the way, I had the same thing, I thought, from power 35 God measured me. He was afraid of the number 37, and when he was, he breathed with relief: “Thank God, there is time until 42.” Three years ahead) It seems to me that everything has long been known. Moreover, I believe in all this nonsense about parallel worlds, I believe that there is a world in which Kurilko achieved more than he dreamed of. The most important thing for a person, here Oscar Wilde and I agree 100% - it is self-realization. A person has come into this world and must express himself to the fullest extent in order to share his experience, perhaps, of previous lives, leave a scratch on the bark of life, as Sergey Donatovich said, and leave. By and large, we are building a huge anthill. And for something and someone, you see, how many have already been built? Maybe once it was like this and someone stepped on it, maybe now it is smaller. There are, however, parasitic ants, there are larvae, male uteruses that believe that everything is done only for them, but this is a separate conversation.
I believe in everything otherworldly, but I cannot say that I believe in God. I don’t go to church, I don’t need to.

- I mean, believe, but not religious.

Yes, I do not need to wear a cross or read Our Father. I can read the Bible, I respect it, but I understand that people wrote it, there was some editing, censorship. History is written by the victors, at the moment by the Christians, and they write what is convenient for them. Moreover, we know that religion works in tandem with the state and will preach what it needs at the moment. Be fruitful and multiply? - Of course. Caesar from God and so on.
For example, I do not consider suicide a sin. I don't know, maybe it is. But to say "this is a sin" - with what joy? - "It says in the Bible." So what? Who knows, we don’t know all the laws and can’t understand everything, and that’s good. If only we knew for sure... but not yet, and without control roll into your animal – mark the territory, more females and further down the list. And yet, if you rise above it and realize how vain and fleeting everything is, that this is not why you live...

Or maybe we went the wrong way, machine civilization and everything that comes out of it?

- Yes, this is generally a topic that I am just approaching now and realize that a mistake was made at one time. Of course, I can approach it with humor, but in the process of writing, the improvisation actor is involved. A good improviser actor includes an actor, a playwright, and a director. So, my trouble is that when I write, I often think about how my reader will feel. Haven't I put on a very smart period? Isn't it time to act like Disney - he sat down in the hall with a stopwatch while watching, and if there was no laughter for two minutes, he cut this piece out of his fairy tale. I thought there should be a laugh every two minutes. Then we can get serious again. This is respect for viewers, readers. Or not playing for more than two hours is also a respect, because a person is physically tired of receiving information. All of this must be taken into account. On the other hand, I constantly get angry, especially when it comes to journalism. I will write, and then I will say: “Lesha, well, 22 pages of an essay is a lot.” This kind of thing is written in 10, well, 15 thousand characters. I have 60. That is, three or five pages a person will master. And 22, you see, no. And I said, "Let it work." And then the dialogue with the editor:
- You got the funniest thing at the end.
- And let him come with me all the way, what am I supposed to give him on a plate? Let him work, concentrate. Yes, there are boring places, there are places to stop and think. Three out of a hundred who have begun to read will reach the twenty-second page, so they are dearer to me than all those who have not finished reading.

- This is almost a reference to a recent FB correspondence with Valery Hayit. . .

You know, Valery Isaakovich and I regularly astonish each other by stating independently and in parallel those messages that we try to convey to our readers and friends. “Alexei, I’m literally the same...”, “Valery Isaakovich, and I mean the same...” We have such a unity of souls and thoughts that I am amazed. Apparently, because of the commonality of ideals – Benedict Sarnov, Stanislav Rassadin, if we touch on literary critics. Among the writers - Pushkin, Dovlatov. In general, I am suspicious of a person who claims that his favorite writer is Dovlatov. I'm starting to think he's not very intelligent. I'll explain. The fact is that Dovlatov is loved by many. But very few people understand how much he is a poet, how much he knows literature, how educated and read. Dovlatov also gives everything in easy form, and you know that it is easy to read - it is not so easy to write. The easier, the harder. Yesenin only in the last couple of years began to write poems, which many condemn, because they are simple. These critics claim that Yesenin drank his gift. Dmitry Bykov believes that this is a complete degradation. I personally declare that the last period of Yesenin is brilliant, I will not be afraid of this word. Yes, there are simple words, but in "Letter to a Woman" he said nothing new: "You remember, of course, you all remember..." Simple words about simple things. “My head is like a kerosene lamp.” But this is what Pushkin called for and what he came to himself when he stopped using kisses, Persians, lanitta. Although he said that Derzhavin, going to the grave, blessed and left the lyre, but! Aleksandr Sergeevich raised the lyre, but he recalibrated all the strings and began to play – speak and write – in an accessible, normal, human language. And, although many writers say that, they say, we all came from Gogol’s “Overcoat” – no and no. We're out of Belkin's uniform.
Moreover, the Russian language absorbed a lot, and as a literary language had currents - French, English, heavy German. So, for a long time we repeated the Germans, only in our own way. Then came English. And only then, somewhere after Maupassant, the time came for French - they began to write easily and melodiously. Short understandable phrases, and at the same time unexpected plot twists. These are Babel, Kataev, Ilf and Petrov...

- Zoshchenko. . .

-And him. However, Zoshchenko still had a super-task - to go down. After all, you need to be able to subtly hold the golden mean - take into account the preferences of the reader, but at the same time do not descend to his level. Down, that's it. It's clear that most people need jokes below the waist, they've worked and will always work.
So Dovlatov sometimes went overboard... Oh, back to where we started. Many people who say they love Dovlatov think so because he is a rusty writer, he is fun, easy to read. But they do not pay attention to the construction of phrases. They don't notice the rhythm. After all, Dovlatov was satisfied with additional obstacles, for example, not to repeat words beginning with one letter in a sentence. Because the prose writer Dovlatov came out of the poet. In general, I think, and I will write some work on this subject, that good writers are made of bad poets. Perhaps it will be difficult for a good poet to write prose, although, most likely, he will write it brilliantly, for example, Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Lermontov ... But unsuccessful poets – they remember all the laws of poetry, they understand that the phrase must be musical, there must be rhythm – so, Dovlatov understood all this. And some things may not have been controlled. If you read with a certain rhythm, it is a white verse, real. Just no rhyme...

- I didn't pay attention. . .

- I swear. Read it again. The only person studying it now is Academician Sukhikh, he himself comments, so he was the first to notice it. “Rise, cup of coffee. "Goloise" . . . yes, then at some point the rhythm seems to get lost, then comes back again and there is a rhythmic posture. Why did he do that? Here's the Bulls. But, no, it’s better not to touch the buck...

- You don't?

You know, he's an educated, intelligent, charismatic, talented parasite. That's the horror. If a fool said that, I wouldn't pay attention. And when an educated man speaks and speaks well—you can listen—and says it to young people, and he is popular and young people listen to him, they believe that Bulgakov wrote a novel for Stalin. And after all, Bykov is an honored teacher of Russia... I understand that he needs to PR, but you can’t do that. I quickly realized his secret: he takes the theme, flips it over and pitches it. Of course, this is shocking, and a smart person can prove everything. That is why Bulls are an insidious enemy and we must fight them, because even I listen to them.

- So you think he's a opportunistic provocateur: catching a trend and squeezing it to the maximum?

I don't want to hurt a man without knowing him personally. Maybe he's different. Maybe I think that's it. But it feels like everything he does is done to attract attention. Everyone praises Putin? And I'm going to torture "Citizen of the Poet," and it's not his idea, but it doesn't matter. Now there for Efremov Orlush writes, the project continues, just changes the names. Well, talented people, he has parodies. The poems are beautiful, he is a strong lyricist, a wonderful lecturer, a great teacher. I'm sure he's quiet in class, not because he's afraid, but really interesting to listen to.

- He, I remember, even a kind of banal prose, written together with Chertanov

- Lenin?

Yes.

By the way, fiction is his weakest side. Unfortunately. Maybe that’s why he’s doing everything else to draw attention to his books, though hardly. He's a really good poet. However, poetry is now needed by a very limited contingent, even prose is now in crisis. Actually, the books themselves.

- Literature in general

-Yes. Literature as such, and I'm not just talking about paper books. I am told: “They stopped buying books, but they read from electronic media.” But what do they read? The news feed...

I dare say that before I came to the Square I had the same opinion. But I come and see that a lot of young guys and girls read and read a lot, much more than me, and this ratio is not due to my overemployment, but because of their keen interest. Maybe now is the time to split into factions? Light - up, heavy - it is clear where

Maybe this is the case, plus a changed presentation of information. Why read a book when you can listen? Why listen when you can watch?

- A fine moment. Audiobook, how not to spin - a narrator's presentation, and what will remain of the original atmosphere - unknown.

- And the movie is like that. If you look at the English version, you will be sure that Tolstoy wrote a love story. The classic triangle Karenin-Vronsky-Karenina. There is, indeed, the Levin line, but it is poorly built. And the novel is powerful because it simultaneously tells three stories, moreover, they intersect, affect each other. And, most importantly, three layers are involved: spiritual, physical and...
I have a terrible way of writing as I speak, when one thought leads to another, that to a third, but on paper it can somehow be traced back. It seems to be a stream of consciousness, but the central axis is preserved. And I'll go back to where I started and answer the questions. Sometimes it seems that I am too far away, and if you remove a solid piece, nothing will be lost. But without it, the reader will not go the way I have gone.



In improvisation, you need to tell stories, and to tell them nonlinearly is more interesting.

And that, of course, too, but on stage I simplify everything, even my own monologues. My "Pulp Classic" is written more literary than the way I make it from the stage. By the way, Yesenin before his death said: “I only now realized that writing is easy – the hardest.” Maybe that's why Hayit and I got along. When he entered the circle of writers and poets, and they have their own mafia, their own circles: the circle of the Neva, conditionally speaking, will not accept a person from the Friendship of Peoples into its party - so Hayit said approximately: "Since they create their own mafia, we will create our own." Because it's disgusting. Not a word in simplicity, everything is pretentious, everything is sophisticated. . . ?
I had a period when I performed simultaneously with KVN-scientists and in the theater. In the theater: how difficult we are all, how difficult we are given a role! How deeply we penetrate the image... But all this is translated into reality, eaten up - all my good actors I know have a fucking hard life. And in Camedi, the club is all light, mocking over the same problems. No, they solve them too, but in another way, without complicating it, it's just a way of living. They laugh at their flaws and shortcomings.
You know, we don't have an interview, but a conversation turns out, in an essay I would leave everything like that, it's cool to watch how I came to this idea, through what maze I wandered. I ironically call my essays "research" or "investigation." I even make them look like I'm a private investigator, and I want to figure it out. That's the most interesting thing.
We know who the killer is. But we're wondering how Detective Colombo will come to this.
I was invited to work in the newspaper “Today”, I conducted “literary conversations” on the radio and first went the traditional way, and then began to violate, go beyond the flags. Otherwise, you will not create anything new. Oh, let's go now...



- No, no, come on, that's interesting, too. Why did you come there? Not how, why?

On the morning “Show in the big city” I’m not that stupid myself, but a fool – such a shallow womanizer, who, apart from the chick, interested only in money.

- Well, that's the morning.

Yeah. But to the primitive: “Good morning!!” – a loud and fervent Komsomol voice, rejoicing at what is not clear, when half of the listeners are angry in traffic – I do not descend. He often went on air in a bad mood without hiding it. If they were stupid on the air, I would say, "Well, what's so stupid?"
One person on the radio listened to this and said, “If you had spent 15 minutes in Soviet times like 3 hours, you would have been banished to 101 kilometers from any radio station and put on all blacklists.” I swallow letters, "eckay", sneeze, use slang words, I can tell you how things really are. Someone on "Melody" to say something revealing about our bright reality? A man will be tilted straight. And how me and Lerczuk on "Europe" hooligan... Well, that's a hooligan. For example, honestly, correctly, called the surname of the Chinese athlete, which on other radio stations voiced Liao Hai, then Liao Hoi. But he was actually Liao X*i. What we reported when we beat that moment was that I was like Uncle Grisha. The director called us and inserted us in full, concluding his speech with a brilliant phrase: “I don’t care that he is X*y!!!” The word "f*e" on the air is "no fuck." But the name is good and common in China, it is somehow connected with money.
Yeah, I'm breaking a lot, but I've brought back the classics, the ones I listened to as a kid. "Radio Theater", "At the microphone author" - it turned out to be revived. It is a pity that Nostalzhi station is small, and not very popular, it had no resonance. But I did. Maybe someone will. And I'm going to keep doing it, I like doing it. Now audiobooks are created in this way - play in roles. Pechorin reads Khabensky, Maxim Maksimych — some Porechenkov, not by morning be mentioned. It has its own directing, you have to play your voice so you can see it.
And then he started writing. This is when I spend an hour talking about what nobody cares about. A person soars career questions, and we tell him here about Pasternak, about the history of the creation of Doctor Zhivago. Does he want it? And I, regardless of this, for an hour laden him with such problems.

- You and I, we're sitting there.

If there were standard questions, we would have finished very quickly.

- I'm not interested in asking.

- I have to answer. I'm already so tired of this monotony, you gave space, but Kurilko just let it go.

Lesh, I'm interested in asking people what other people don't ask them. Sometimes you read an interview and think, “Well, we’ll do it!” Why that? A man is already flattened by this, the hundredth time asked the question, what will he answer you?

- No, of course, he'll answer like a polite and well-mannered man. But if a journalist has eight of the ten questions I recently answered, it becomes clear to me. If I was preparing for an interview with, say, Rosenbaum, I would try to find out what he was asked about, and about his pit bull, about many other things, not to be original. There's just no other way. By the way, many people think that Rosenbaum was just trying to copy Vysotsky. And maybe on a subconscious level it is present - not in the manner of writing or performance, but in what, probably, Dmitry Bykov is right, there are some repetitions from century to century, they were and probably will be - the transfer of relay sticks. That is, a person of a certain level of awareness and profession appears as if a successor who can even argue with the previous one, can refute and even humiliate. Kant - Schopenhauer - Nietzsche. Nietzsche, who adored Schopenhauer, then put him down all his life. And Kant, too. Because we must surpass the teachers, rebel against the father, according to Nietzsche. The son must kill his father or surpass him. Two ways. God, where are we going...

- All right.

You know we either repeat our parents' mistakes or we do everything against them. Either you become the exact copy of your father, or the complete opposite.

Not just know, but with tears and snot, I raked so I wouldn't repeat it.

- I get you, so do I. So, the transfer of the baton. Pushkin dies and Lermontov appears. It would seem that it is quite different, it is impossible to compare them - Pushkin's lightness and Lermontov's heavyness - this is me now about poetry, not about prose. Heavy composite lines, and even quite pessimistic, fatalistically gloomy. He clearly gravitated toward darkness. Counteraction. Because he loved Pushkin. “No, I’m not Byron, I’m different” is actually “No, I’m not Pushkin.” Byron-nj copied Pushkin more, and Lermontov, taking the baton from Pushkin, was very afraid of comparisons.
So is Rosenbaum. Sometimes, wanting to flatter him, he is told something like “you are our second Vysotsky”, and he does not want to be the second Vysotsky, he wants to be the first and only Rosenbaum. Although Semenich loves and respects - he grew up on the Beatles and Vysotsky.

Well, a person with ambition, comparisons — maybe — are flattered at the beginning of a career, and then fired.

- Of course. But on a subconscious level - take his poems and plays - he often repeats themes. I know, in my own way. Vysotsky’s main message is that there is an obstacle, we will overcome it, even at the cost of our own lives. He's got all the songs, and I'm gonna go. This is the message of his life, he wanted freedom. Rosenbaum has a different setup. That's an example. Vysotsky has a song about an abandoned ship. Rosenbaum has a similar theme. But the first — all left and did not return, and the second ship catches up with his squadron. Reflection of life conflicts. “You are my friends, why did you leave me?” Friendship for Vysotsky was very important. Rosenbaum is a loner, even though he has many friends. Vladimir Semenovich thought that he had many friends and constantly ran into betrayals - one betrayed, the second, the third. In the last year of his life, the theater greeted him through one. There was a tradition on Taganka - every year they made a film about their actors. There is a show, on the screen of Laughters, everyone greets with applause, “Oh, Venya!!!”, Zolotukhin appears – similarly. Vysotsky is a deathly silence. And how many times did the wheels of his car pierce, and his own, the car stood on the territory of the theater. Of course, all this upset him wildly, he spent his whole life looking for a real friend. First Zolotukhin wrote, but something did not work out, then another... The only song, not with its own lyrics - Song of akyn on the words of Voznesensky, this is not accidental:
No fame and no cow,
Not the shaky crown of the earth.
Send me, Lord, the second.
To sing with me!
Please don't love the stolen one.
Not the glory of a day.
Send me, Lord, the second,
Don't be so lonely.
For someone to understand,
Not often, just once.
He lifted up my wounded lips
Bullet-scratched horn.
And let my partner sing.
Forgetting we're the two of us,
Me, pale with rivalry,
Cut at the common table.
Forgive him.
To the grave.
Loneliness surrounded.
Send him, God, the second.
Like me and him.
He lacked friendship, he was an extremely lonely man who expected to be supported and covered. With the only one who really long been around – Vsevolod Abdulov – there were constant conflicts when Vysotsky used drugs. Abdulov didn't take it. But a friend is someone who, even in such a situation, if you choose and it is your will, will support you. Will not humiliate...
Back to the question of who I position myself. Given my acting, radio and writing merits, I was invited to work in the newspaper “Today”. She may not be the most popular, but she has five hundred thousand subscribers. Plus someone's buying. And that means there's a little podium where you can say something. Something important. We took literary conversations, but a little, some seven thousand characters, not much dispersed. But I will try, without stressing anyone, to convey to people important things, from my point of view. I will continue to do so on the radio. From the morning air, however, left - too busy, but there is such a "Saturday Smoking Room"



- You have a playable surname.

- In that sense, yes. And I think this is not accidental, because it is not only the epigram of Pushkin, which has already used the popular proverb “live, live the smoker”. Vladimir Dahl writes that the roots are in the game of the ray, which was transmitted in a circle, condemning the very words. Whoever dies, loses. When they say “live, smoker” – it is either about a person who should have died unknown when, but somehow remained alive, or about a long time did not remind of himself. So the name is not random, and in my life everything goes according to it. Not the Tsar's or there's a winner, but Kurilko, well, that's great. Smoking is a place where people smoke and talk. They exchange information, they talk for life.

- What would you wish for yourself now?

- Just health. It seems banal, but I understand that I do not have enough time, health, and the courage to do everything I want. We must always go against tradition, against the majority. Often I want to convey an important, but unpopular idea, complex, unnecessary for many people. Overcoming serious internal barriers. Not to mention the social preferences of this society. Bulgakov’s diary says, “Why wasn’t I born a hundred years earlier or later?” The Chinese curse is “May you live in an age of change.” On the other hand, this is a good wish for the Japanese, and the most interesting things appear in crises. We have fallen on three fractures, losing relatives, relatives, friends. You know that.

- I don't know. The '90s were recently. And you had to do something. I think I started, but not that. That's not it again. And I came to the theater and other things that I do now, only after almost twenty years. I wouldn't be afraid then. . .

You know, I was often told: “But if you were not lazy and got secondary education, and then higher, and then the second higher, then ...” Come on! How much experience would I not have? Bad, heavy, but very necessary. They say, "Do you regret it?" It hurts me to remember a lot of things, but I don’t regret it, because every writer has to have his war and he has to go through it. Not through war, but through hunger, through poor childhood, through terrible trials. Because a person who is doing well, what will he write? There were good poets next to Pushkin, who remembers them now? And the fact is that Alexander Sergeevich from childhood had a complex - he was black. Arapchonok. Not like everyone else. And the pope did not approve of the study of literature, at that time it was unacceptable: to earn money by your own work is to humiliate yourself. It is better to remortgage the estate, get into debt, but in no case do not admit that you live on any hard earned money. Goncharov Natasha did not want to give him for two reasons: the first is that he is a writer, and the second is whether there, at the top, he is treated well? And he had to bring a note from the tsar that he was good to Pushkin A.S. and what he was doing.
So, for a long time I wondered: “Why did I go through so much, why did I undermine my health – a broken nose, intensive care and so on?” And sometime after 2005, another topic came up: “Why was I, a person who thinks and writes in Russian, born at this time and in Ukraine?” So it's not an accident. If I wrote in Ukrainian, it would be three hundred times easier. No, Russian-speaking writers are not pressed, they are just trying to play and speculate on this. But it is strange that a person does not write in the state language, living in this state. I love Ukraine, our values, respect history and know it, unlike some who love their country so much that they know nothing about it. Such straight patriots do not distinguish Mazepa from Khmelnytsky and who had a position.
Summarizing. I am a writer, but I need acting because I can:
- check your texts in public
Try to share some thoughts.
In general, acting, Black Square is also a kind of tribune with which I can say something. Many people consider me a comedian, a humorist, but in any, the most ridiculous sketch, there are 2-3 minutes of very important information. In fact, for these moments of touching or intelligent thoughts, 20 minutes of fun are played. It's worth it. I guess that's what I need now. We live in such a miserable time that the writer, in addition to his skill, writing, is also forced to be able to speak beautifully, be charismatic, witty, smile, sing, dance step, spin foueté, make a couple of kulbits on bars, walk in fucking arms, and all this only in order to be able to hope that his book will be bought and read, God willing, they have enough patience and intelligence to fish out a couple of intelligent and important thoughts. In short, classic: Oh times! Oh, morals! Or even better from Pushkin: A terrible age, cruel hearts...