Who said that the Soviet Union died? He once only pretended to be dead, although some believe it. Believed then Europe, for example. But not the writer Viktor Yerofeyev.
On 25 December 1991, in the evening I found myself accidentally on the stage of History. I went to visit my American publisher Nein Salter in the famous house on the embankment opposite the Kremlin. Then everything was possible, and I was not surprised that my American publisher settled in a huge gray mnogopodezdnom house, where according to the rumors, in Stalin’s time were persecuted, executed or sent to the Gulag residents of all apartments, except one. And on hearing this, everyone immediately asked ” who exactly survived? And China peak, too. And I said, what’s the difference, it’s like to be late for the plane that crashed.
In a sense, I was the only inhabitant of the apartment in the fading Soviet Union. All suffered and suffered from terrible congestion History, lack of food, money or prospects, annoying presence suddenly unexpectedly freedom, and I walked drunk from happiness. I have for the first time had money and sea of glory. Went for my first novel, “Russian beauty”, which turned into a book bomb. It exploded all over the world.
Viktor Erofeev
And as a happy man I was looking at the misfortunes of my countrymen with irresponsible optimism. It seemed to me that they’re suffering will be over, but will not die, but will live better. How cruel and inhuman mistaken happy people!
With Gateway we have long entered into a close relationship and were beautiful couple on the background of the Moscow river. We sat on the couch by the window, and she said, “Now I will be shooting in the Kremlin red flag.” I don’t believe it, but Americans always know better. We went out on the balcony. It was already dark. Windy and cold, as almost always in Moscow Dec. Suddenly over the Kremlin residence of the Soviet President wavered a huge flag. He hung for a moment on the level of mourning for himself. And then he caught spasateli flag and dragged into oblivion.
“What is the Russian for you, right?” asked China peak.
I replied: “In 1956, in the summer we with my parents (dad is a diplomat) was returning by train from Paris to Moscow. Europe lay in your everyday life, postwar. But it was enough to move the Soviet border, how things have changed. Our squad was met by friendly barking German shepherds. Soldiers, border guards rushed through the cars c huge dogs, trained to spy. In our compartment German shepherd crushed the front legs of the old woman. She screamed. The young soldier said sternly: “This is an order!”
The CONTEXT
Review: What Europe are visible from Russia
Rotten “Europa” or role model? In Russia, many different images of Europe that to understand them is very difficult. The writer Viktor Yerofeyev, however, tried to do it. (08.04.2016)
Review: Stalin had his way on the Red square
Review: Christianity at the last judgment
Review: Broken bones is whether Russian culture?
Viktor Erofeev: “the Culture can not be built. It is not the army and not the Navy”
I rang on the frosty wind ears. I didn’t believe that the red flag can ever be eliminated. For me personally it was not a flag of victory, and was bloody and about the curtain. And when he finally died, in his place over the Kremlin began to rise the flag, which was in the Soviet Union the subject of absolute prohibition. It was better to hang round then forbidden American dollars than to take a hand in such sedition. A flag similar to the flags of the European countries. Flag-the tranquilizer. From the evils of totalitarianism. But it did not.
I did not cry, clutching his face. I experienced a Moscow resident, I thought, just a change of scenery. We returned from the Gateway in the room, covered with a blanket, forget about the History.
Late in the evening when I was returning home on a dim Central streets were empty. No one was jumping for joy.
If I forget about History, the Soviet Union, playing dead, survived. He threw himself to the survival of not only the red skin, but any kind of Soviet Republic, which then dragged him to the bottom. He continued to live in the minds of most people in my country, in their ability to get over yourself. He knocked in the brain Yeltsin, when he refused to de-communization of the country and the services of the young reformers. It was revived in the Chechen war. The Soviet Union was slowly going on the mend. Thanks to the Russian people! Ultimately, no power, and above all his people came out and fattened.
And today the Soviet Union is blooming and smells. Restored according to the country’s monuments to Stalin, ends the frivolous free-thinking. The Soviet Union rattles the saber, everybody is scared, wants to become stronger at the expense of neighbors, to regain what is lost. Something has failed. For Example, Crimea. The Soviet Union is gaining strength to the applause of the people. There comes a new period of socialist realism.
But if the Soviet Union alive, then when he was born? Many people think: together with the Soviet authorities. Funny opinion! The Soviet Union was always Russia. Under Ivan the terrible and Peter the great, and all the other kings. He wanted to lie on two continents, across geography, and lay down. It all won because we were thrown into the furnace of the victory of their own people, and they burned more readily than other peoples. Here’s food that feeds the Soviet Union.
Most likely he was born of an unequal marriage, the Tatar-Mongol invaders and the Russian soul, who lived on the wooded banks of the Russian river. The Russian soul has suffered. He was born a little hero. The mother looked at him and thought: how would it be called? And called the Soviet Union. Beautiful name! Everyone knows him now.
Viktor Yerofeyev, writer, literary critic, broadcaster, author of “Russian beauty”, “the Good Stalin”, “Akeady” and many others, knight of the French Order of the Legion of honor.
