O.O. - Dear Venya! I will call you Venya, because the whole world calls you Venya. I am holding in my hands a little book like this. "Moscow to the End of the Line" [translation of "Moscow Cocks" - I.S.]. The cover says: "If you were caught reading this book in Russia you would be sent to Siberia. "If you were caught reading this book in Russia you would be sent to Siberia. Do you know that you have been published all over the world?
V.E. - Yes, yes. They decided to popularize it this way. It reminds me how in the Federal Republic of Germany they published a collection of short stories by Valentin Rasputin and placed a bearded portrait of the same Griska Rasputin on the cover. Again for popularization. So I am not surprised.
D.O. - Many people who know what books you have written wonder: why aren't you in Siberia, or at least you haven't been there?
V.E. - This is unknown. I myself have come up. But I was rid of it. I have never been summoned myself. Because there was no place to call me. I had no permanent place of residence. But one of my buddies, who occupies quite a large post, was still summoned and asked: what is Erofeoev doing now? It was a year in 73rd - 74th. He answered: "He just drinks and that's all". "Just drinks?" "Yes, he just drinks." And they were so satisfied, so even pleasing, that it was enough for them. They did not touch me or him. That is, the man finally took up the matter, because before he was talking some nonsensical literary nonsense.
O.O. - Tell me, how do you think they managed to alcoholize Russia to the end? Or is there still hope?
V.E. - Who is this "to them"?
O.O. - So I want to understand who "im" is. Who are these "they" who succeeded in alcoholizing Russia or did the people themselves do it?
V.E. - No, nobody alcoholizes her. She copes with it on her own and quite successfully. So it is not that someone alcoholizes her. It is even ridiculous. It is in the taste of our Russopians, Russophiles. And not only that. Everyone who tends to see it as a purely Jewish influence, which, they say, "before the establishment of the Jewish dictatorship in 17th, the Russian people did not drink. That is absolutely not drinking, can you imagine? Can you imagine? (laughs) And only when Trotskyi-Bronstein, Zinoviev, Kamenev-Rosenfeld, or whatever his name is, in general, when they took up this case, the people finally drank.
<Yes, no>, more or less fun all goes. And if alcohol is a little guilty here, then not in the first place, but in the fourth, fifth, or sixth. Well, as it is... For example, I recently talked to a man who performed execution functions on Lubyanka. I had a very nice conversation with him. He is an exemplary family man, but he chose tampering in the 30s on the Lubyanka, and in the 40s too. And he talked about drinking, <...> that every day he had to wash his hands of brains.
O.O. - Washing his hands off his brains is a wonderful image.
V.E. - What kind of image, when for him it was a daily routine! We still demand brains from the new generation and try to blame the degree of morality of our nation on this stupid alcohol. <A lot of people nod at Japan, almost no drink, and so they made such a giant leap in economic terms. <But they can strongly object to it - in the "Arguments and Facts" there was: <why don't Muslim countries make a giant leap, where they hardly drink at all?>
O.O. - So you deny the addiction of alcoholization, the amount of drunk and economic growth?
V.E. - Absolutely. Not the slightest bit of attitude.
V.E. - What is your education?
V.E. - One and a half years at Moscow State University and then one and a half years at Vladimir Pedagogical University.
O.O. - Why: have you been expelled from everywhere?
V.E. - Everywhere, yes.
O.O. - <Vo Vladimir> those students who simply knew you were expelled from the Institute?
V.E. - It is really so. Only for one thing. Well, here is at least the brightest sample... Already after my expulsion from Vladimir. This is the 62nd year. In autumn of the same year I came to Vladimir and met a fourth year student. I do not remember his last name, and I do not care. I asked him only: what do you have in the store? And he said: "In my opinion, yesterday <finger was>". That's all. It was on the street, under a little rain. And so he was dragged along <party?> ... I could have made it up and funnier! But he really was dragged to the party meetings by the party meetings....
O.O. <-A what was expelled from MSU for?
V.E. - Well, it was much easier there: just for not attending military classes - that's all.
V.E. - It was modest somehow.
V.E. - And from Vladimirskiy it was already more difficult. There was... in fact, there was nothing to exclude me for. I was the only round excellent student. <...> And here they came up with this formulation... My first wife had this order. <...> Incredible order! "For disciplinary, ideological and moral decay of the Institute. And that was it! No more than that.
O.O. - Is this the 62nd year? The height of the thaw?
V.E. - Yes, it is the 62nd year. The heat of the thaw.
D.O. - Have you ever been invited to publish a book "Moscow-Cocks" in the Soviet Union as soon as you wrote it? Did you take it somewhere? Did you try to print it?
V.E. - No. Are you kidding me? Anyone would have laughed and I would have been provided with an asylum.
V.E. - Did you understand very sensibly and did not take anywhere?
V.E. - You bet! I know what to take to where.
O.O. - So you're saying that you escaped the asylum?
V.E. - I say only "one thing": I know what to carry. For example, I would not take my wine dishes to our sewing goods store. Or something like that. I know where to take it.
O.O. - How many wine dishes have you had to sell in your life?
V.E. - Extremely much.
O.O. - "Walpurgis Night", a play, also written based on personal impressions about a madhouse? Or did you avoid it?
V.E. - No. A little personal impressions were, <because I also somehow got there> after a little bite. Such a "tiny cute" bugle. And there I really had to face such things. Especially with this barbarism, the disfigurement of the medical staff. In Kashchenko. You can't imagine what it is.
O.O. - I can. Is it said that the book "Moscow Cocks" has finished Russian literature for the foreseeable future, as Khrushchev said, or eon, as Berdyaev said?
V.E. - Well, for example, this "famous Polish critic", Nikita Stravinsky, said in the preface to the London edition of "Petushkov" >: "this book shows that this is the last outbreak of the Russian national consciousness before it goes out forever. <I am not proud of it at all>.
O.O. - <nrzb> children, who are now 13-14-15-16 years old? Leave the country, leave it?
V.E. - Why? To stay at the mercy of fate, as they say. But I do not envy them.
V.E. - Tell me, do you consider the Communists, the Bolsheviks defective, dementia? Or do you consider them slaves? Or are they unhappy? Or innocent victims?... <...> Sound is off... Batteries are landing...
V.E. - For some reason, the batteries sit down as soon as the Bolsheviks are involved.
O.O. - Venya, what to do with the Bolsheviks? And what to do with traitors, murderers, who landed... Kill them, forgive them or forget about them?
V.E. - I would arrange a little Nurenberg.
V.E. - <...> that we are waiting for some huge events tragic this or next year.
V.E. - I think, or rather, I have a fear that something will happen to our president.
V.E. - Wouldn't you feel sorry for our people if something happens to the president?
V.E. - Then it will be very pitiful.
O.O. - For how many years will it be futile? Does Russia have to get out of the pit?
V.E. - It will not get out. Even if the president stays in place, we will be at least where we are. And if something happens to him, then the pit is already a pit. Not even a pit, but I would say even cooler.
O.O. - Solzhenitsyn writes in the "Archipelago" that there are such borders, having crossed which a man cannot return to his human form. Do you think that in this sense, for Russia, the point of no return has been passed? <nrzb>, spiritual, moral?
V.E. - I do not know, I do not know. But, in my opinion, no. <...> The line we have already crossed. Laughable for all humanity. Russia once caused horror, and now laughter causes. I think it is.
<...> Have you never been abroad?
V.E. - I remember I was invited many times. But now I've been invited - it's all too late. < Everywhere:> from the United States, Israel ... But, as they say, it's too late, because it's hard for me to move. But in '86, even before the second operation, when I was quite on the move, I was banned from traveling to France. In the 86th year.
O.O. - For what reasons? <…>
V.E. - That's the point. The invitation was from the Sorbonne, from the chief surgeon of the Sorbonne Oncology Clinic. And the second invitation was from the head of the Department of Russian language and literature of the same Sorbonne University.
D.O. - 86th year, the height of perestroika, when all passports were given freely? And the reasons for refusal were formulated?
V.E. - Very much has been formulated.
O.O. - Who is your favorite composer?
V.E. - U, very much.
O.O. - Well, three.
V.E. - If three, then Shostakovich, Sibelius, Mahler.
O.O. - And Russian folk songs?
V.E. - Russian folk songs are a matter of course. <...> I don't think I've ever met a person in my life who would love Russian folk songs more than me. I have not met anybody.
O.O. - Can you say, please, that your life until today, before the operation, before the publication of the first books in the West was near <...> systematic <...> some exiles, outcomes, humiliations?
V.E. - Of course you have.
O.O. - Do you belong to the Writers' Union?
V.E. - No, of course.
O.O. - So, you weren't invited?
V.E. - I wasn't invited <...>
O.O. - One second. How many countries have your books been published?
V.E. - Well, I will not count, I have <not everything, but ... >
O.O. - I counted them, but I could not count them. But thirty countries have already published all your books?
V.E. - I have no idea. But, in any case, a lot.
V.E. - And there have never been any calls from the most liberal figures?
V.E. - Not a single one. Not a single one. And I am proud of it. (smiling)
O.O. - And you did not apply yourself?
V.E. - I would have done it! I would have been the last dickhead.
V.E.- There are rumors that you were finally accepted as a member of the "Litfond?
V.E. - Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I forgot about it. About such an important event (smiling). Your pension will increase a little bit.
V.E. - You had a pension of twenty-six rubles, didn't you?
V.E. - Twenty-six. And now it will be bigger.
O.O. - I don't even ask how much, it's a nondescript question (Erofeev splashes with laughter), and you don't like nondescript questions. Well, I think it's not bad money, in general. <...> Venya, jokes with jokes, but tell me, did you believe in Perestroika?
V.E. - No, of course not.
O.O. - Why? What, you don't think you can save Russia by anything?
V.E. - Nothing, I think.
O.O. - Writers, those who live in our country are left... Could you give us the names of people you read with pleasure?
V.E. - I would name many poets. Well, if we talk about prose writers ... I do not know what can be chosen as a measure of values. In my opinion, in quantity even ... if he entered my house, how much would I pour to him? Well, for example, Astafyev or Belova. I would not have poured a gram. And Rasputin would have poured 150 grams.
O.O. - And Shukshin?
V.E. - Shukshin, well... we do not speak about the dead. And if Vasil Bykov and Ales Adamovich had come, I would have poured them a full glass. <…>
O.O. - Yuri Trifonov how much would you pour?
V.E. - We do not speak about the dead.
O.O. - Anatoly Kim? Makanina?
V.E. - I don't know these people, frankly speaking. I have only heard about them.
O.O. - Bitov?
V.E. - Well, Bitovu gram 120, probably, would have cut out, like this. <If you take these> units of measurement.
O.O. - And to the poets? How much would you pour, say, Yevtushenko?
V.E. - Yevtushenko? It is doubtful here. I would still find him some <...> mumbles. And I would hide a good drink from him.
O.O. - We will then consider this conversation about drinks as a rhyme to this conversation in general. But here is a serious question...
V.E. - No, this is, of course, a somewhat paradoxical measurement of value, but why not take it as a basis? Who forbids us to measure at least such a measure?
O.O. - One Evtushenko - one hundred grams. Ahmadulina - five Yevtushenko, for example.
V.E. - I would certainly pour almost a whole with Akhmadulina.
O.O. < nrzb>?
V.E. - No, just taking care of her health, I would, after all, reduce her a little.
O.O. - Venya, and the alcoholic classifications in the flavorful way... How much would you pour to writers Anatoly Ivanov and Yulian Semenov? And what?
V.E. - <...> Yulian Semyonov, I would have poured water from the toilet <a little bit, maybe>.
O.O. - And Anatoly Ivanov?
V.E. - I would feel sorry for Anatoly Ivanov as well. That's for sure.
O.O. - I mean, the two extremes converge. Yulian Semyonov, a KGB romanticist educator, and a singer of something that is not clear "nrzb" now converge? They are friendly, in general, and live.
V.E. - You bet. And what should they share?
O.O. - What is your attitude to Vladimir Vysotsky? Right here we gave you a small book...
V.E. - I fell in love with him much earlier than many others. When everyone called him a hoarse and even an unworthy hoarse.
O.O. - Tell me, please. You would be able to do anything in the country now. What would you do first? Would you build more beer stalls or open more churches?
V.E. - I would do both in parallel. And more temples, and that from each temple - at the exit from the temple, that there would be left and right of the temple.
D.O. - And how do you feel about the proposal to bury Lenin's body?
V.E. - This is what I welcome. I have already said for a long time, even at an evening in the Literary Institute in February <this year >. At that time I was asked a question from the hall: "What is your attitude to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin?" And I said under the general applause - at the same time, the demonstrative parthoger left the hall <...>, when I said that I would have buried this bald asshole long ago for the feet of the Mausoleum and buried where he should. In the ground, <...>.
O.O. - In this regard, maybe the presence of a corpse in the center of the country, unburied, non-Christian buried, really had a poisonous effect on people? After all, Russia is a corpse country.
V.E. - That is not the point. Henrik Ibsen has a famous ballad: "What is done on the ship? <and constantly someone, remember, reminds the captain> "I'm afraid we're carrying a corpse in the hold!", "I'm afraid we're carrying a corpse in the hold!" and this is repeated throughout the ballad and the whole <our history>. <…>
