Special correspondent of "Novaya Gazeta" Elena Kostyuchenko about her favorite books

Elena Kostyuchenko - special correspondent " Novaya Gazeta”And the author of reports from the most terrible and marginal places in Russia, from the village of Kushchevskaya to the trailer on the highway, where women who are forced to engage in prostitution live. "Gorky" discussed with the journalist her children's reading, how to write about the war most accurately and which Russian classic is more terrible than Stephen King

These are two different things, first of all, from the point of view of the relation to language. In journalism, language is a very important, but still a tool. And in literature, in classical literature at least, language is the god you pray to. That is why it rarely happens that journalists are good writers at the same time. But we can learn from each other, borrow some goodies. For example, Alexievich gave me a lot. This is nonfiction, but for me it is also an example of journalism. And modern poets read, for example, the press. This is also one of the cereals that they digest in their heads and from which poetry later grows.

What was the first thing you read from Aleksievich?

"Zinc Boys", twelve years old. At home we had a selection of the magazine "Family and School", my mother subscribed to it, and there was a huge article about "Zinkovykh boys" Aleksievich and a selection of letters from readers. Naturally, I immediately wanted to see what they scold so much, I found and read. And away we go: "The Chernobyl Prayer", "The War Does Not Have a Woman's Face", "The Last Witnesses". I read everything that came out of her, and reread it many times. In my second year I had a period when I read all Aleksievich's books in a row for a month. I printed them out in the editorial office of Novaya Gazeta on a printer - forgive me, editorial office.

Many people reproach Aleksievich for the fact that she has actually edited the entire speech of the heroes - what do you think of that?

No, I clearly hear that these are different voices and all these are the voices of living people. When you work with dictaphone transcripts, you begin to catch it: I read interviews with colleagues and I even feel the places where they rearranged phrases. Aleksievich has very little of this. I learned from her and Petrushevskaya to work with human speech. Because individual voices are, of course, unrealistic. I really want to be able to transfer them and use it.

What other books were important to you in your youth?

I started reading late, it seemed boring to me. I had a turntable and there were a lot of fairy tales on records, so I started with Soviet audiobooks. And then children's detectives appeared in the library. I started reading them, got hooked and away we go. I also liked Bazhov very much. Ekaterina Murashova - she had a book called “The Alienation Strip” about a boy who lived by the railroad. Then my friend and I accidentally found Terry Brooks' hidden books in my mother’s office and sat down on them. This is a British dude, he wrote almost simultaneously with Tolkien. He also has elves, gnomes, magic, druids. On the back cover was a list of his other novels. There were no bookstores in the shops. We went around all the shops in the city, and then we found a book collapse, and there were two. They cost 90 rubles a piece - very expensive. I ran home and told my mother: “Mom, whatever you want. I need 180 rubles. Right now". Mom gave it, I ran and bought it. We worked part-time with a friend, I washed the floors, and she, in my opinion, worked as a greenery, or rather a counter-greener, tore out weeds. And so we made money with her and went to buy Terry Brooks - it was a great feeling.

At some point, I accidentally found it on the Internet as an adult, of course, immediately downloaded it, rushed to read it - and it was a huge disappointment. For example, there is one such moment: the main character rafting down the river and, in short, there is a very ****** [bad] trip that will most likely end with his death and just complete ******** [failure]. And he does not want to go, but he cannot but go, because there are circumstances there, there is no choice left. And he rides on a foreign land, the river is gray, some kind of autumn slopes. I remember reading this as a child - it’s a feeling of inevitability when you know that you’re making a mistake, but at the same time you know that everything is going right, that you cannot turn anywhere. And you just have to wait and watch, and try not to sink too deep into it. I remember this feeling very well. Well, then, in short, I found this passage, opened it, and there was something like: Vil was looking at the river, the river was gray, the trees were orange, an incomprehensible melancholy gripped my heart. And that's all. It was kind of ****** [amazing]. It was very strange.

And if you remember journalistic texts that somehow sunk into your soul?

Oh, well, there are quite a few of them. Actually, I ended up in Moscow because of the journalistic text. At first I decided that I would enter the philological faculty of the Yaroslavl pedagogue, write poetry. Well, in parallel, perhaps, to work in a newspaper, because it was not the most difficult way to earn money, at least compared to my previous part-time jobs - washing floors, uprooting bushes. You write something there and they give you money. And then I accidentally bought a Novaya Gazeta kiosk - I didn't know what it was. And she opened it with Politkovskaya's text about Chechen children. There was a story about a boy who forbids his mother to listen to the radio when Russian songs are played on it, because the feds took his father away from this boy and returned the corpse with the circumcised nose. And some other stories of children who grew up between two Chechen companies. To say that I was shocked is to say nothing. I rated myself highly enough. I thought that I was educated, that I was well-read. The school subscribed to some newspapers for us - "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Arguments and Facts" and so on; I read them in the library. I watched the news on TV. I thought that I knew what was happening in the country. And of course, I thought that I knew how the lyrics were made. And then suddenly this. I read the entire newspaper from cover to cover. I realized that I don't know *** [anything] at all about the country, about journalism, about the texts - nothing. And I realized that I want to be there, since there is such a wonderful place. The last page listed the addresses of Novaya's editorial offices - the nearest was in Moscow.

In general, colleagues had a lot of texts. Lena Milashina has a wonderful text “The Fate of the Prosecutor,” for example. About the prosecutor who was a really stellar professional in her field and who simply broke her career as a locksmith who came to her. I still remember the text of Elvira Nikolaevna Goryukhina. This is our elderly reporter, in her 70s. She had a report from Beslan, it was called "One Girl's Street." This is the street on which one girl was left, all friends were killed. I remember Kashin's excellent reports. From books, specifically books, I was very much struck in due time by "Invisible thing" - a collection of articles by Panyushkin. Well, Dovlatov's Compromise is a very impressive reading.

I was really scared to read. There was the heroine Lidochka or Ninochka, whom the inventor knocked out a tooth with some ****** [nonsense]. A journalist who senses the topic and tries to interview an interesting person is such a terrible fate for me. It's also very cool that each story is preceded by a small note - as it happened in the newspaper. This is a very realistic book. Just an exaggeration, or rather, the removal of voids between events.

You talked in your lecture in Word Order that the goal of social journalism is to give everyone a voice. How do you feel about Dostoevsky?

To Dostoevsky it is very positive.

Probably, if I reread it, now my attitude will change a little. Basically, I don't really like the literature of the 19th century, because there messianism creeps out from every corner. The author always puts himself much higher than his heroes. Although Dostoevsky has less of this than the rest. Chekhov has practically none. Oh, can I confess? I have not read War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Fundamentally?

Very long. I tried when I was preparing for admission, but I could not afford to read one such long book. But I'll read it, I'm sure I'll really like it. Because I love these canvas books. One of my favorite books is One Hundred Years of Solitude. I was told that Tolstoy is like Marquez, but without magic.

Perhaps, perhaps, everyone died in Marquez, but still not in Tolstoy. Returning to the present: what was the last thing that you read that impressed you?

I am generally an impressionable person, everything makes an impression on me. From what greatly shocked - of course, "Benevolent". I read them about two years ago, but nothing has been stronger since then. Straight, bitch, shoved to the ground. Moreover, it was unbearable, because I read it all in Berlin and I couldn't stop reading at all. I just walked the streets with my head on my phone. She sat down in the Tiergarten, where the action takes place. I was amazed when I found out how Littell wrote all this.

At that moment he was working in Chechnya: either as a journalist or with some charitable organizations. From business trips he returned to Moscow. And I talked to a woman who is part of Moscow bohemia. She said that she remembered him very well: there was a guy whom everyone called to parties out of politeness, and people were very unpleasant, because everyone was discussing sublime matters, and he suddenly began to tell what the starving old people in Grozny told him. And ***** [why] should everyone listen to it? We are here about modern theaters, and he tried to appeal to our conscience, or something. Not in the sense of going to save everyone, but in the sense that since you are bohemian, write about it, how dare you write about something else if there is a war going on in your country? Then he rented an apartment on Chistye Prudy, locked himself in it for two years and wrote "The Benefactors."

Have you read his book about Chechnya?

No, but experts told me that it was not very successful. He understands the context worse than many. I also read "Chomsky Notebooks" with him - notes from Syria.

In the winter I did an interview with a girl who survived the Yazidi genocide in Iraq. She was in slavery, fled. And then I also talked with a doctor of psychology, who opened a program for the export of victims of genocide to Germany. And when I finished everything, I rediscovered The Benefactors. Because I don't really fit all this in my head anyway.

I had a period as a teenager when I read all the scariest books I could find. And without a difference, these were books about the Great World War II or the stories of Stephen King. There was a feeling that I was growing up, going out into adulthood, into the big world - but am I ready for what awaits me there? Maybe he is very scary and you need to find out what happens there. And then you grow up and it turns out that all this helps, of course, to prepare, but not really. Some things do not fit in the head at all. Although I recently read at the dacha of "Lord Golovlevs" Saltykov-Shchedrin - Stephen King is just resting. Really, to me, the person who read ***** [a lot] of Stephen King, is very scared. Night, dacha, mom wakes up, looks, I sit with bulging eyes over the book: "Lena, what's going on there?" - "Mom, do not bother!" Wildly scary, the ending is generally ****** [nightmare]. The middle is generally ****** [nightmare]. Some kind of wild book.

What other books about the war?

The most realistic book about the war, in my opinion, is still Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five. "Pathology" Prilepin, perhaps, too. And also "Ten episodes about the war" by Babchenko - a collection of very short stories. It is also well written. It seems to me that literature and art in general are partly to blame for the wars - although not the books I have listed. I myself went to the war, worked there. This is such an ultra-meaningless, cruel, stupid herota. It doesn't make any sense at all. And literature, painting or cinema put these meanings. A lot of Donbass veterans, for example, like to watch war films. Even those of them who have not watched before - this allows them to put their experience in their heads. It struck me at the time when I was writing a report about the practice in the police station. I thought that the cops would be the first to laugh at the serials to themselves. But it turned out that they watch them voraciously, because this allows you to somehow structure reality. And many books allow you to put in your head, make the idea of \u200b\u200bwar acceptable and even desirable. This is such a ****** [nightmare]. I understand that it is not always the case that the author sits and thinks: now I am propagandizing war. It's just that we're all trying to get some ******* [nightmares] into our heads. And maybe sometimes you should admit that some things don't fit in your head. In general, it seems to me that the description of the war should sound like this: “On such and such a day, under such and such a settlement, people killed each other. Here are the victims. General list ". This is the soundest description of what is happening and the most realistic.

Is there some kind of reading list that is always guaranteed to help when it's hard, to somehow let go, it becomes easier?

Depends on what is hard. Ukrainian science fiction writers Marina and Sergey Dyachenko, for example. They are also, of course, not easy, but you can get confused with their book, instead of bothering with some real things. There is also a book by Berkovich, "The Non-Terrible World," documentary, by the way. She also somehow deduces. And poetry. Poems are, in fact, the fastest to deduce. When photographer Anya Artemyeva and I left Kushchevka after all these murders, it was necessary to write a text. We sat down in the Krasnodar edition of Novaya. I remember that I was practically hysterical, because I felt that I could not have time to write to the number. I was hysterical not even because I ********** [broke] the deadline, but because I realized that I would have to sit for several days with what was inside me. And I didn't want to sit with it at all. Because when you write a text, it becomes separate from you. You are already beginning to relate to this more detached. And then I realized that I was not in time, and it was terrible. And we listened to Swarovsky on VKontakte, there is a certain amount of audio recordings where he simply reads his poems - “One of us”, “About the robot”, “About Masha”.

I have a list of poems that will rehabilitate me quickly. Sometimes there are difficult situations when you need to let you go, and right now. And I have a list of poems that I can quickly turn inside myself, and the soul will come into place, and I can continue to work. In addition to Swarovsky, this is Brodsky - "When there is so much behind everything, especially grief." Vodennikov - "So let life be blessed: like a freshly washed shirt - in the wind." Goralik - "There is a soul swinging." For Goralik, this still helps:

“He descends, and he just comes out, and they meet by the river, -
a many-legged purse, purses and bales dragging along the muddy waves,
pouring out from the first to Rozhdestvenka, to Voskresenka,
from the latter into dead black dead ends.

It's time for both of them to start - but they are silent
and look over each other's shoulders.
And everything around flows to itself and flows, no one notices them, -
only the escalator on duty smells something,
nervous, claws stroking the lever.

It's Friday, 8 pm, underground heat, exhausted bodies,
and they read in each other's eyes about their shoulders, saying: "I came for you", -
and turn pale, bow the crowned brows, -

and don't turn around.

The ceiling does not collapse.
Lamps do not turn black, do not exude fumes.

And then the attendant at the escalator steps over with his hooves, presses the lever.

Escalators slow down.
Those coming out fall on the forehead.
Night remains over Moscow, everything is black and black.
These two unseeing eyes look ahead, -
and Christ is silent,
and Orpheus sings:

“No, death has nothing for me.
No, death has nothing for me. "

Generally magical. I can actually scroll it inside myself in ten seconds.

Does it happen that you specifically read something bad?

From time to time I download something from Lukyanenko. I read, spit, then delete, then after a while I want to read something from Lukyanenko, download it again, read, spit ... I read so much all sorts of garbage. I buy good books on paper, and download bad ones to my mobile phone. Therefore, if my mobile is stolen or confiscated during a search, then Life News only needs to publish a list of books that have been downloaded to my iPhone - and that's it, shame, I will emigrate and change my name. Because I only download shit.

From science fiction, the Doomed City by the Strugatskys is very good. I don’t understand at all how it’s done. What's the point? Some dudes find themselves in a place where an experiment is being carried out: either monkeys will attack the city, then the sun will turn off, then something else. You read it all - dialogues, events, and then at some point you realize that they are in hell. It's just that such a realization comes to you. Then, after fifty pages, for the very stupid, the secondary character in plain text says that they all died and went to hell. But I understood this before, and I talked with my acquaintances - and they also understood everything before, although not different pages... And I still don't know how it's done. Another of Natalie Sarroth's favorite books, Tropisms, she is *********** [very good]. Like Mulholland Drive, just a book, and made sixty years earlier.

A very interesting paper book, by Sophia Kovalevskaya, recently accidentally found in the library. Feminist prose is perfect.

Which library?

Regular, regional. Just do not write in which area, because I do not advertise where I live. She is very good. They opened drawing courses there, and I attend them. We made a shelf where you can change books. Internet is free. There is a lot of literature in the languages \u200b\u200bof the CIS countries. There I met a bunch of workers from Tajikistan, we became friends, they go to learn Russian, come and study from textbooks. It has a bulletin board and it is the liveliest bulletin board in the area. If you need to give a chair or buy a piano, you write an ad and people start calling you. There you can always find yourself a kitten or a dude to run together in the park. Or successfully sell boots that didn't fit. I really love libraries, actually. I say this all because I owe them a book. I'm just afraid of shame because I have a good reputation there. They will open my form and say: “Lena, did you borrow the book in April? In April? Is it August now? " Very scary.

Sports hall of school №1 in Beslan. Photo: Elena Kostyuchenko / "Novaya Gazeta"

In the first school in Beslan, an attack was made on the correspondents of Novaya Gazeta and Takih Dely Elena Kostyuchenko and Diana Khachatryan.

The attack took place under the following circumstances. A large number of people in civilian clothes, many of whom are young Ossetians in anti-terror T-shirts, surrounded the mothers of the Voice of Beslan in the gym. They were filmed on camera by Ella Kesaeva (her daughter Zarina was held hostage at school - ed.). They grabbed the camera from her hands and tore Ella's dress.

At that moment, Kostyuchenko took out her phone and began to film what was happening. They also grabbed her phone, twisted her arms and dragged her through the entire gymnasium and the school yard outside the metal frames. They dragged further, but the people in civilian clothes were stopped by the police. These police officers told Kostyuchenko that they knew those who attacked her and would return her phone.

Elena was next to the police when a young man, familiar to the police, in a T-shirt "Antiterror" approached her and poured green paint on her. The police made no attempt to arrest him.

A policeman records the testimony of the Novaya Gazeta special correspondent Elena Kostyuchenko. Photo: "Caucasian Knot"

When Diana Khachatryan tried to take pictures of Lena and the traces of brilliant green on her clothes and face, another young man in an "Anti-Terror" T-shirt hit Diana on the head, took away the phone and left without haste. The police made no attempt to detain the person and prevent hooligan actions.

Elena Kostyuchenko is going to give explanations to the police, but the police do not introduce themselves and hide the tokens. On my attempt to talk to them (I introduced myself - I spoke on the phone to Ella Kesaeva, who handed her phone to Lena so that she could contact the editorial office) - the policeman who was conducting official actions with Kostyuchenko swore and hung up.

Also, after the attack, Lena Kostyuchenko and the mothers of the “Voice of Beslan” were approached by the head of the “Mothers of Beslan” Committee, Susanna Dudieva, and said: “You (addressing the mothers from“ Voice ”) can return to the gym of the First School. And you (addressing Kostyuchenko) - sit here. Always, when Novaya Gazeta comes here, something happens. I don't want to see you here again. The phone will be given to you after research (apparently the contents and footage on the phone). "

Federal law enforcement agencies have taken control of the situation.

Novaya Gazeta intends to appeal to the Investigative Committee on the fact of police inaction when attacking journalists.

Updated at 15:13. Journalists from Novaya Gazeta and Takie Dela portal attacked for the second day in a day

Diana Khachatryan ("Such things") reports: "We, together with Lena (Kostyuchenko - ed.) Went to the cemetery. A man in civilian clothes with a hat on his head came up to us. As we were told later, this is the caretaker of the cemetery, his child died in a terrorist attack. He came up to us and told us to "get out of here." He took us by the scruff of the neck, dragged us along the ground, then stopped, began to beat Lena, hit her in the face. He decided that we were to blame for everything, he organized the action on September 1. The police were standing seven meters away. They did nothing. "

You are, of course, aware that our unelected Duma is about to give birth to another brilliant law. The new article for the Code of Administrative Offenses - 6.13.1 - is called “Promotion of homosexuality among minors”. You can watch it. In general, there is a lot of fun here - for example, an explanatory note from the deputies of the Novosibirsk Legislative Assembly - “an avalanche of information falls on these gentle cats every day,” or the conclusion of the legal department, which neatly reminds of the absence of a legislative framework and, in general, a legal definition of the word homosexuality. Gays will coexist with the "propaganda of drugs".

In short, this law wants to make about 5% of Russians invisible. 7 million people including me. Including your loved ones, perhaps your children, sisters and brothers, classmates and classmates, friends and colleagues. Yes, we are deprived of the right to marriage, the right to joint custody of children, the right to peaceful processions - but now we are deprived of the right to just be ourselves - openly. Because to be open means not to lie. Anwser the questions. Articulate your thoughts.

Laws regarding the dissemination of information exist in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Uganda. In these countries, any mention of gays and lesbians in the media, except accusatory indignation, is prohibited. Journalists who write about LGBT people without authorization from above are fired and the media are fined.

In Russia, which should add to this excellent range, a one-time propaganda for an individual will cost from 4 to 5 thousand rubles, for an official - from 40 to 50 thousand rubles, respectively, for a legal entity - from 400 to 500 thousand rubles. At the same time, there is no definition of “propaganda of homosexuality” in the law. Generally. I suspect that the deputies find it difficult to define a non-existent phenomenon. But it gives unlimited opportunities for cops of any rank to replenish their pockets or budget.

The deputies of the Novosibirsk Legislative Assembly write that their innovation will prevent "distorted ideas about the social equivalence of traditional and non-traditional relations", as well as "the idea of \u200b\u200bhomosexuality as a norm of behavior." Fucking our United Russia doctors and sociologists, as well as world science and - not for the first time - the Constitution. Modern Russians must be sure that we are geeks and that our families are inferior and unequal to yours. Geeks will not be able to open their mouths - the law prohibits telling us about what we feel and what we think. It forbids speaking even to the dead - in St. Petersburg people were convicted for the quote of Faina Ranevskaya, this one.

Two years ago, my girlfriend and I went to a gay pride parade for the first time. We left because we needed legal rights equal to you. Then I wrote this post. But now, with Putin's new term, the legal field for LGBT people is narrowing very quickly - just like it is narrowing for volunteers, for activists, for voters, for journalists, for artists.
On December 19, Wednesday, when the first reading begins in the State Duma, and the unelected deputies will emotionally imitate legislative activity, Anya and I will come to the State Duma. We will kiss.

The kiss touches two people. It does not require approval from the Moscow City Hall. Love does not require approval from State Duma deputies. We do not ask permission - we are and we live. We are visible. Nervous United Russia members can hide themselves.
I invite all people - heterosexual and homosexual - to join us. Bring your loved ones. Come alone - with balloons and confetti. You will probably have someone to cuddle with :) Let's arrange a holiday under the walls of the State Duma, a day of kisses.
Because we are free to love. And this should not concern * bathing policy.

19.12.2012

The rally of opponents of the adoption of the law banning the promotion of homosexuality has ended at the building of the State Duma. More than 10 people were detained

Report "Novaya Gazeta", photo by Anna Artemyeva.

Today at 12.00 in the center of Moscow near the building of the State Duma a flash mob "Propaganda of Love" began. The protesters opposed the adoption of a bill banning the promotion of homosexuality.

A few minutes after the start of the action, unknown provocateurs started throwing eggs at the activists and tried to start a fight. Security has closed the entrance to the State Duma "for security reasons." Neither MPs nor journalists were allowed out of the building for 10 minutes, until the police detained the most active provocateurs and several LGBT activists.

During the action, several dozen police officers were on duty in front of the State Duma.

At about 12.30 one of the policemen turned to a girl present at the rally, who had a video camera in her hands, with the words: “Take them off beforehand. It will look like an unauthorized picket, ”and pointed to a group of four LGBT activists holding hands and posing for photographers. After the girl recorded what was happening on video, the activists were detained and taken to a paddy wagon. Among the detainees is the special correspondent of "Novaya" Elena Kostyuchenko.

The promotion has been completed by now. The participants in the flash mob disperse. The central entrance to the State Duma building is blocked.

UPDATE. Yelena Kostyuchenko from the paddy wagon: “9 LGBT activists and 6 Orthodox were detained. One of them is a correspondent for the Orthodox World resource. They brought me to the Meshchansky Department of Internal Affairs, and they are starting to slowly run inside. "

UPD 20.12.12
The trial of the LGBT activists detained at the bottom of the kissing will take place on December 20, starting at 12 noon, in the court area 369 of the Tverskoy Magistrate Court, Novaya Ploshchad, 8, building 1 (may start earlier). They face up to 15 days of arrest for "petty hooliganism".

Among the detained LGBT activists:
- Elena Kostyuchenko, special correspondent for Novaya Gazeta;
- civil activist Anna Annenkova;
- activists of the Rainbow Association Pavel Samburov, Sergey Gubanov, Sergey Ilupin;
- KRI activist Igor Yasin;
- Member of the anarcho-feminist group Nao Lao (Rafail Deleshev).

UPD Elena Kostyuchenko: Everyone, free)

Relatives, thanks to everyone who came with loved ones, who came alone, who supported, handed over food and things (sweaters and blankets saved us), got to the cops, went to court as a witness and a TV speaker, who wrote us sms and put money on telephone, who collected photo and video materials, who worried and prayed. Who drove the information wave. We are together - this is very valuable. We are open. And every hour there are more of us, take a look around :)
Meshchanskoye police officers said that a kiss is more dangerous than a poster. I very much agree with that.
I spent 1.5 days in the police station with real people who took care of each other, defended themselves, sang, thought and had fun. Thank you) Even Enteo turned out to be not so vile (although he is a fucker and a careerist). Even in the cops, most of all shaking for their salaries, we found sympathy (a little, really). Lawyers - Tanya Glushkova, Sveta Sidorkina, Ilnur Sharapov, Kirill Koroteev, Katya Romanova - THANKS.
I'm tired, but very happy. They were questioned after their release - it turned out that none of them regretted leaving. And EVERYONE is going to come out again - on January 22, to which the first reading of the law on the promotion of homosexuality was postponed. And it seems that they will be released not only in Moscow.
In short. You are cool. I love you so much.

P.S. The detainees 29 hours later were charged a fine of 500 rubles under Article 20.1.1 (petty hooliganism). The composition and article were selected for a long time - while there is no law in Russia prohibiting kissing. But it will be if the initiative of the State Duma passes. We will challenge fines, unfaithful cops and dirty fuckers - troll and prosecute according to the norms of law, we will prohibit the law prohibiting kissing.
Kiss your loved ones and do not be afraid of anything.

P.P.S. Kissing at -19 turned out to be very good) Sweet. Try who doesn't

The State Duma postponed the consideration of the bill to 01/22/2013

As it became known to the GayRussia.Ru project, the Council of the State Duma at its meeting on Monday December 17 decided to postpone the consideration in the first reading of the bill No. 44554-6 "On Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation", aimed at introducing administrative responsibility for promotion of homosexuality among minors.

Initial consideration of the bill introduced By the Legislative Assembly Novosibirsk region, in the first reading was planned at a meeting of the State Duma on Thursday, December 19, but the Council of the lower house of the Russian parliament decided on Monday to postpone consideration to January 22, 2013. The corresponding decision was published on the official website of the State Duma on the Internet.

Earlier, the Parliamentary Committee on Family, Women and Children had proposed to recommend The State Duma adopt the draft law in the first reading and include it in the work plan of the lower house of parliament for December 19, but the State Duma Council did not heed this.

Recall that leading international human rights organizations “Human Rights Watch” and “Amnesty International”, as well as members of the European Parliament, appealed to the State Duma deputies to reject the discriminatory bill.

On October 31 of this year, the UN Human Rights Committee recognized in the case of Irina Fedotova v. Russia a similar law in the Ryazan region banning the promotion of homosexuality among minors as discriminatory and violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Elena Kostyuchenko's book "Conditionally Unnecessary" is written in very simple language. In fact, this is how I imagine the language of the new Russian prose - what it could become, but I have not wanted to yet. The title, invented by Linor Goralik, refers the reader to one of the novels by the Dane Peter Hoeg, whose prose in Russian, translated by Elena Krasnova, sounds about the same sparsely: emotions are carefully reflected and largely erased from the text. Sometimes this language reaches an almost formal state: it seems, just about - and the author will move on to variables and operators of mathematical logic. However, of course, this is so only for an eye or an ear, unaccustomed to the language of “journalism of fact”. Or, to put it another way: unfamiliar to speech witness.

"Conditionally unnecessary" puts the reviewer in a rather difficult position. Collected under the cover are newspaper reports, each of which I have already read in Novaya. Some things don't make sense to discuss: yes, this is journalism as it should be. Kostyuchenko is not a front-line correspondent or a political analyst. She does work much rarer in our latitudes. It is the work of penetrating the folds of social space — its dark corners and white spots. She searches the first with the beam of her pocket flashlight. Secondly, on the contrary, squinting, covering his eyes from direct light, he tries to distinguish familiar lines and features. The question here is: what new quality do these texts acquire when they find themselves book? What happens to them, withdrawn from the course of everyday life?

Unnecessary. Yes, in a way, this book is really about people that no one needs. The book contains an essay "The Path of War" - about Sergei Rudakov, who fought to receive a legal pension, did not achieve justice and as a result shot several officials of the Nizhny Tagil Social Insurance Fund. One of the heroines of the essay, the head of the state pension fund of the city of Kachkanar, says at the end: “Human life here has long been devalued and does not cost anything. Nobody needs us either. We're scared too. " The investigator in charge of Rudakov's case echoes her: “Yes, I felt offended, unnecessary. But in this country we are all unnecessary ... "Another text -" Kolchugino. Chronicles ", formally speaking, is a journalistic investigation of a wild story that took place in Kolchugino (Vladimir region, 120 km from Moscow): four young people burned (possibly alive) on the Eternal Fire a worker from a local metallurgical plant who made a remark to them. Two of the suspects are graduates of the Kolchuginsky correctional boarding school, the deputy director for educational work of which says about his wards: “Here they are given clothes and food and take their time. But you cannot save them from the world. And the world doesn't need them. They are disfigured from birth, abandoned by their parents. And when they leave the boarding school, the world spits on them. "

Common place

One way or another, almost all the stories collected in this book are about uselessness. But not only. Unnecessary almost inevitably entails the question: to whom? Unnecessary to whom? There is a simple answer to it: the state. This is what Linor Goralik writes about in the preface, proposing, in relation to the stories of this book, educated in consonance with failed state ("Failed state") term bailed state - "the dumped state": "leaving its inhabitants to the mercy of fate,<…> which returned citizens to a state of at least pre-modern, the most brutal community, where in a tiny world (be it the world of the Bukhalovo village or the police department) everything rests on the strictest, unbearably tense balance of individual survival and mutual support. "

In a book review, alas, there is no place for detailed polemics on abstract topics - however, it is impossible not to notice that in relation to the plots of most of the essays, the state cannot be called “dumped”. On the contrary, it is present quite clearly. The desperate, really completely hopeless position of the heroes of the text "Life of the Nest" - drug addicts who use desomorphine ("crocodile") - of course, would not have been so desperate and so hopeless if it were not for the senseless "war on drugs" in the Russian variant of criminalizing harm reduction programs and even substitution therapy. If “Article 12 of the 125th law, the main one for social insurance,” did not prohibit social insurance from increasing payments on its own, if the already mentioned Sergei Rudakov did not have to go to court - perhaps the essay “The Path of War” would not have been in this book.

But what is there: if “the long property dispute between the federal state unitary enterprise“ VPK-Technotex ”and the property department of Moscow” would not have won the city (ie not the state), then, you see, the 2004 tender on the resumption of construction won would not be connected with the city "Medstroyinvest", but some just a development company - and described in the text "KHZB" (Khovrinskaya abandoned hospital) territory would not be an "autonomous zone" inhabited by teenage outsiders, but something completely different. It's another matter that yes, of course, the heroes of this essay would not have gone anywhere.

But when the head of the Kachkanar Pension Fund Tatyana Ivanovna Grosheva says: “No one needs us either,” she, a civil servant, what is she talking about? To whom - to anyone? Why do the policemen from the text "From Dawn Till Dawn" watch serials about conditional themselves? Yes, because they, too, “no one needs”: “there is some unhealthy sublimation in the employees' love for the TV series“ about cops ”- the series convince that people really need the police very much”. Here, the forensic scientist Yegor, who got into the police to get away from the army for a short time, remains in the service, explaining it this way: “Don't think that I am afraid. I'm not afraid of guys. But they really, really need me. " In other texts, the dichotomy need - uselessness it is not spoken so directly, but it still turns out to be central - both in the long cycle “Life on the side of the Sapsan”, and in “Trass”, and in others. At this point, there is a temptation to start a conversation about a lack of solidarity, a low level of trust, a failed political nation - and no matter what vocabulary you use, this conversation will have some meaning. However, the evidence that makes up "Conditionally unnecessary" seems to be a little cramped within the framework of conventional political science hypotheses.

The book written in this language is actually a long, verified, relatively detailed speech - a witness. No witness - no prosecution, no defense - and not in court at all, there will be no trial.

The quietest - and therefore more piercing - motif of uselessness sounds in the essay "Olya and Silence", whose deafened heroine plays Death in the play "Widows" by Slavomir Mrozhek. The play is being rehearsed, in turn, at the Cinematograph theater, which the leadership of the State Art Institute seems to have expelled from the premises of the institute, but we do not know the details, because the text is not about the theater, but about the girl Olya. She has a very unhappy fate, everything is against her. Here it would be supposed to write that she really wants to be happy. But it’s not, no. She wants to be needed. Therefore, first she marries ... honestly, I don’t know what word to put here so as not to violate a couple of "laws of the Russian Federation" - well, you understand who she is marrying. For a long time this m * daka endures. Then, having already freed himself from him, towards the end of the essay, he goes to "teach flamenco to deaf students of vocational schools and universities" for 13,000 rubles, while refusing the state allowance of 8,000. And when the lady in the social security asks her if she is sure that she wants to work - despite the fact that the difference is only 5,000, - Olya says: "Yes." And then he says, already to the author of the book: “You know, if I had heard, I would have had a different profession. Exactly. Would I be happier? "

Who (or what) doesn't need the characters in this book? You can, of course, say: to the state. But that would be the wrong - or at least far from complete - answer. Elena Kostyuchenko's book is a really important book, because, whether the author wants it or not, today's Russia appears in it as a kind of Swedenborgian hell, whose inhabitants do not understand that they have died, and most importantly, that it is already here. nobody nobody not needed... In the texts of "Conditionally unnecessary", everything is almost exactly like Swedenborg's: “in some hells you can see the ruins of houses and cities after a fire - here hellish spirits live and hide. In less cruel hells one can see like bad huts, sometimes completely like a city, with streets and squares: in these houses hellish spirits live, indulging in constant quarrels, strife, fights and tortures; theft and robbery are committed on the streets and squares.

No, not that it was a world without glimpses of light at all - but they are short and barely noticeable in the space of the book: well, perhaps the girl Sasha from KhZB says something like this: “I wanted to discover a cure for cancer. From the age of 12 I had such a dream. " Or the prostitute Nina from "Trassa": she is going to marry her fiancé Vasechka, he is "10 years younger than her, now at a construction site in Moscow" - and writes him every now and then tender SMS... Or, finally, the director of the theater "Cinematograph" Irina Kucherenko dreams that the Moscow Department of Culture, i.e. the current department of S. Kapkov, officially recognized them as a theater, then “it would be possible for everyone to make a small salary rate. There would be a hall ... "And she does not sit, does not wait for this to happen, but" fights for grants "; however, the theater did not and does not have its own stage and rehearsal facilities.

Attempts to become someone needed here do not end in anything: Olya eventually leaves her husband, breaking everything in their common house that could be broken - including the windows. One of the heroes of "KhZB", Slem, "dies after falling into the elevator shaft from the ninth floor." At the end of the essay, the heroine of Trassa, Nina, is given over to the settlement for the night. And this hopelessness - if you think of it as a property of a book, and not of the lives of people who inhabit it - is probably due to the fact that no speech can contain so much someone else's speech (although the author constantly retreats into the shadows, giving way to his heroes ) and as much other people's grief as it should - in order to be testimony.

“The life of the“ nest ”” ends like this: “in a week one of these people will die - at night, in a dream, the heart will stop. The other, in spite of everything, will pass tests and try to go to detox - to be saved. " “In spite of everything” and “will try to be saved” - and by themselves are not exactly words from the language of hope and faith in the future. However, the very last phrase is really hopeless here: and their names are not important, because you really don't care.

The question here is: to whom - you? Who is this book addressed to? Not to the state called Russian Federation... And not to the Lord God - probably not. TO us, in the sense, to all of us who make up Russian society, whatever it is - yes, but only in part. In some, as they say, cold higher sense "Conditionally unnecessary" as a whole seems to me a book that does not address anywhere, to anyone, to anything. He doesn’t address us less than the others / the rest - but also not very much. We are discounted in the very first text. Because we “don't really care”.

But now, now - when you no longer need to appeal, persuade, persuade, explain and generally make you and me and the world as a whole better; now, when there is no longer any special hope for anything at all - now, at this very moment, Elena Kostyuchenko's book appears - and the language in which it is written. Such a little inhuman, too even, too precise Russian: stingy, calm language evidence... And the book written in this language is actually a long, verified, relatively detailed speech - witness.No witness - no prosecution, no defense - and not in court at all, there will be no trial.

And just like that, just witness, just testifying. Just because it is necessary.

Elena Kostyuchenko. Conditionally unnecessary. Sat... articles... - M.: Common place. 274 s.