Dmitry Glukhovsky: Why is the novel “Text” perceived as absolutely reliable. Interview with Dmitry Glukhovsky to Novaya Gazeta

Glukhovsky was the first Russian author to make his book publicly available online. He was then writing his first “Metro” and delivering it piece by piece. This was back in 2002. Today he is one of the most successful and - it happens! - independent writers of Russia.

dates

2002 - start of work on the Euronews channel in Lyon

2005 - the first book “Metro 2033” was published

2007 - made the world's first TV report from the North Pole

2011 - became the father of a girl named Emilia

The World Cup is an excellent backdrop for tough pension reform

- Dmitry, what can you say about the football championship? Are you a fan?

No. Completely indifferent to football. Because of this, of course, I always feel a little inadequate with all the euphoria that has unfolded. In addition, my grandfather, for example, is a crazy Spartak fan to the point of a heart attack. And other relatives, who are 75 years old, enthusiastically watch basketball matches. What is there to see there?!

But from everything I see, I am pleased that Russia has opened itself to the world. True, experience shows that these discoveries occur on the eve of some kind of compression and enclosure, and that later all this is remembered like some kind of midsummer night’s dream. This happened with the 1980 Olympics, which took place at the beginning of our invasion of Afghanistan - and then international isolation followed. And the Sochi Games also seemed like an integration into the global world of friendly and open Russia- and were exactly on the threshold of 2014 with its Crimea, Donbass and our new isolation. And now everything seems to be so good, and all these crazy Mexicans and Uruguayans are having fun in the streets, and we suddenly turned out to be kind, and not uptight and embittered, and our cops are not chasing anyone. And everyone was allowed in without visas, including, apparently, “MI6 spies” - and nothing was wrong. That is, one could simply unclench the sphincter, so to speak, and nothing monstrous would happen. But the ability to learn lessons and project them into the future makes one suspect that something bad is going to happen right now. Once we finish, we celebrate, everyone leaves and then they will never come here again. All this may be the last time.

- Is this shit already prepared? After all, the annexation of Crimea was prepared much in advance.

With Crimea, everything was carried out brilliantly from a logistical point of view, including bought or intimidated local politicians. So there was a plan in advance. Donbass is a different matter. It's a mess there and no one can do anything. Neither attach nor detach. Some kind of fermentation of the masses. It is clear that people did not have a plan.

Well, what was planned to be held under the guise of a championship is already taking place - an increase in VAT and the retirement age. This decision, I think, was made a long time ago. People were simply brainwashed with some other, redundant projects in advance, in preparation for announcing a real tough decision right now. It is clear that football emotions are an excellent background for such things.

Shenderovich once again incurred anger by saying that if such a great championship were held in a more decent country, there would be more joy.

I really want to be happy for Russia, of course. But after the Sochi Games there were no normal reasons for joy. Because Crimea is the joy of Cain's victory over Abel. Hitting your brother in the back of the head with a rock and taking something away from him is a great victory, yeah. Moreover, it turned out that all the joy about our Sochi victories was in vain, because we cheated, of which I am sure.

When you understand the socio-political structure of the Russian Federation and understand what kind of mentality the people at the helm have, who they are essentially, according to their past - yes, you understand, these people could, justifying themselves in any way they wanted, resort to any scam in on any scale.

In Soviet times, the party and the KGB opposed and competed with each other. And now there is the omnipotence of the special services, which, in principle, is always a harbinger of the last times. When the Praetorians - and these are actually the special services - began to come to power in Rome, these were already the last, sunset times for Rome. People who are engaged in security, entrenchment, searching for threats, people who are professionally suspicious - they cannot, are not capable of leading the country forward.

- But Putin communicates with young people and talks about the future.

Political strategists are trying to invent an image of the future for Putin, but they cannot. Simply because he's not talking about that at all. It is about protection and conservation, about neutralizing threats. This is what he does very well. And the political field around him has been completely cleared. The oligarchs are all under control. He who is not brought under control has hanged himself; he who has not hanged himself is sitting in Switzerland, and he has lost his teeth. The politicians either cooperate, or are shot, or leave the clearing, realizing that there is nothing to catch. And in principle, this is not even a dictatorship; it is a rather mild authoritarian regime in comparison with Pinochet. We don’t even need to be whipped with rods - we ourselves try to be quieter.

Medvedev is sabotaging

- According to a recent survey, 51% of Russians hope that Putin will be president in 2024.

Well, listen, Putin is a symbolic figure. People are ill-informed and deceived by television. Medvedev is responsible for all the failures and tightening of the screws - people do not understand that no decisions, especially related to living standards and taxes, can be made without Putin delving into the issue. Without his veto or approval. He is a very informed person. But he has the wrong priorities, in my opinion. People live in a world of myth, not seeing cause-and-effect relationships. And this division into the right king and the abusive boyars is our eternal monstrous naivety.

No matter who you talk to, you will hear: “Putin is handsome.” I can even judge by my own family. Grandfathers and grandmothers blame Medvedev for all troubles. They think that he is the one doing the sabotage on his own.

This whole Putin story is an eternal missed opportunity. Although his decision with Crimea was a well-thought-out multi-move - in order to get past the emerging economic crisis and at the same time not allow Ukraine into NATO. Coupled with the television pus that has overwhelmed us here, everything worked. We swallowed the halving of the ruble and the standard of living without falling out of love with Putin and learning to eat ersatz cheese. But! Taking Crimea and losing Ukraine forever was, of course, a monstrous failure. Because we kind of grabbed Crimea and forgot, but for them it’s a huge bleeding wound. Which causes both pain and suffering. We alienated the Ukrainians, perhaps forever. This is total idiocy. We took a useless, unnecessary piece of land and lost brotherly people, with which we are connected by a thousand years of joint history. Not just friendship, as with Venezuela, but mutual penetration at the level of families, cultures, everyday life, history.

What Russian hasn't dreamed of marrying a Ukrainian girl? And what Ukrainian didn’t work in Russia when he was young? And whoever has not traveled to Odessa has no heart. These were generally the people closest to us. All our graters were at the level of “Muscovites”, “Khokhlovs” and jokes about lard - the most innocent story. And what is this all for?

Everything is clear to me with Ksenia Sobchak

You once wrote that we never became Europeans due to imperial pride and complexes. But seriously?

Our story is completely different. For Europeans, civil revolutions and the process of crystallization of a citizen who demands respect, who believes that he has rights, occurred 200 years ago. Except that the Germans then went into collective insanity. In our country, revolution has a different etymology. And instead of civil society, a new serfdom emerged. We once again found ourselves in slavery to the privileged class. This is repeated and repeated. Only the privileged class has changed - criminals and demagogues have come to power. But we never became citizens.

But still, people who are now 20 and 30 years old are not the same 20-year-olds who were in the Soviet Union. So it is a question of the emergence of an unharmed generation. But our government is trying to fool the current generation of young people. All people involved in youth politics should burn in hell!

-Have you watched the film Sobchak about Sobchak?

Watched. A very boring movie. There is one good hero there - Putin. He is reliable and wonderful - that’s why he is the successor, and not because he understood that our politics are based on the games of the special services and crime. Everything is now completely clear with Ksenia Anatolyevna. We understand everything, thank you.

- You once asked Voinovich to draw a utopia for Russia in 2100. He then laughed it off. Can you do it yourself?

Free, prosperous, with healthy capitalism and a measure of social responsibility. the main problem- keeping such a gigantic country like Russia from collapse in the future. Now this is being resolved with the help of the FSB. We have a case for every boss. As long as you are our man, do whatever you want, kill people, go to the sauna with prostitutes, take bribes. But you know that daddy is saving up. Instead, we need federalism, an independent judiciary and competition between government bodies. And most importantly, its changeability. Forced change of power after 4 or maximum 8 years. That's the whole point by and large. And this whole story “If not Putin, then who?” - this is how some remember how Stalin was quickly forgotten and thrown out of the mausoleum - he did not justify the trust. So it would be nice for us to develop a little, like an ordinary country. Poland could be a good example for us.

Medvedev even tried to take us to some other place to look. True, he spoke more than he did, but the rhetoric was better - there was no trench in which one was supposed to sit. And without Putin, neither famine nor locusts happened. And the mood was better. But Dimon cheated us. Putin came and changed everything in his own way, as in the joke about a husband and a lover. And instead of a utopia, I think we will slowly smolder and rot.

- But he said that there would be an economic breakthrough and everything would be fine.

It doesn't matter what Putin said. The only thing that matters is what Putin does, because his words are in every case at odds with his actions. Putin is a man whose power is based on the disorientation of everyone - both “partners” and the population of the Russian Federation. He very often tells lies. While he is mystifying, he is unpredictable. As soon as it became transparent, that’s it, it opened up for the strike.

Honesty does not require heroism

It so happens that in our country literature is given great importance. When you write, do you think about artistic value or is a book just a consumer product?

Noooo. You can’t treat a book like a product. For me it the only way self-realization. In general, I don’t do anything else - I write books and dabble a little in journalism. And if I start to waste my time and cliché, stop trying to surpass myself yesterday, to summarize what I understand, then I will become nonsense. It's a matter of proving to yourself what you're worth. That's why I try to write a different book every time. It's boring to repeat yourself.

Well, I was lucky, I accidentally discovered the formula for success and at the age of 27 I already had large circulations and translations.

- What will be your next book?

There will be two very different ones. One is about artificial intelligence. And the second one is like this magical realism on Russian soil. Everyone says: you’re a cosmopolitan, you lived there and lived there, and your dad is from Arbat, from a medical dynasty. It’s clear that I was a city boy, but at the same time, there is a powerful Russian component in me, right at the core. As a child, I spent a lot of time in the summer in a real village house with a well, a canopy, a washbasin, with cucumbers in greenhouses, with beetles and slugs in cabbage. I spent all the holidays there. There is a completely different attitude towards life and death. IN big city we are completely isolated from death. We don't see funeral processions. In our country, the dead are fussily carried out of the entrance in zipped bags. And there is a cemetery within the city limits, and the coffin on a ZIL with lowered red sides is driving through the entire city. Your dead relatives don’t seem to disappear there. They appear to you in dreams, give you everyday advice, and something else. Because of this, there is no feeling of irreversibility and finality of existence.

- Will it be straight Marquez-Marquez?

I do not know yet. But Cortazar, Marquez and Borges are my tribute.

- You will be forty in a year. Maybe it's time to change your life strategy?

Horrible, yes. But I had a life strategy from the very beginning. Taking over the Universe. Through stories, gain power over minds. Power in the vulgar sense - over human resources and financial flows - does not interest me at all. She spoils people, but I don’t want to spoil myself, in principle I like myself and have built everything so that I don’t depend on anyone.

I was offered to join the Human Rights Council under the President, and I was invited to join the Cultural Council. They invited me to meetings like “Putin and Writers.” And I didn't go anywhere. Because when they try to feed you, it is always temptation and temptation. It’s not that I’m some kind of desperate oppositionist, I don’t carry out subversive activities, but it’s very important for me to maintain freedom of thought and judgment. Once you start feeding from someone's hand, you can no longer bite it. This is clearly evident from the different writers we have. This is about the role of literature in our lives. Literature, with total propaganda in the big media, remains the last space of freedom where an honest discussion on important topics is possible.

- By the way, you could be a good politician.

No no no. I can't and I don't want to. It would break me. I can't stand so many compromises. Either they will kill you, really break your back, or you yourself will make it worse and be reborn into something else. For what? I believe that maintaining a certain level of honesty in judgment in our times does not require much heroism. When everyone is wildly lying, and you simply call black black and white white - it seems like some kind of courage and originality. Although you haven't done anything incredible.

Being Navalny - yes, it requires heroism. I wouldn't want it that way. I have always been interested not so much in the detailed structure of power, which I am quite squeamish about, but in the degeneration of a person from the people who has come to power. Violence, lies, manipulation - and a person decays through permissiveness and impunity. I have several books about this.

P.S. At the very end of the interview, Glukhovsky asked: “So, can you publish all this directly in the newspaper?” Well, let's publish it.

The material was published "Interlocutor" No. 26-2018 under the heading “Criminals and demagogues have come to power. But we never became citizens.”

All your previous novels were about the future, but the new one talks about the present time. Why did you decide to change your approach?

Because the present has become interesting. About eight years ago, when I wrote “Metro 2034,” the present was boring, and besides, it seemed to us then that there was nothing to complain about. This was the time of Medvedev's modernization. It seemed that protest political activity had come to naught because Medvedev had taken over the protest agenda. He said very correct things, another question is that what he did had nothing to do with what he said...

But in the last 2-3 years, the official agenda has become so obscurantist that it is now very interesting to live, to watch how the system takes steps to ensure that everything goes to hell. It can be observed how state level fascism is modeled. After all, you and I did not live during the formation of a totalitarian regime or even a simulation of such a formation.

Do you think that fascism is on the rise? Or that there is a simulation of its formation?

At certain moments it begins to seem that everything is very serious. Until some time it was postmodern, a parody of cannibalistic practices of the first half of the twentieth century, including television parody. Television is used to achieve a virtual effect - instead of dealing with reality. You call extras, Cossacks and vacationers, with their help you portray something, then with the help of TV channels and talk shows you replicate it throughout the country and create the “impression of what.” You give the impression of becoming totalitarian state- in order to crush the protest. You create the impression of an absolute Putin majority in order to overcome all those who waver. Or (if) you create the impression of liberalization - in order to reassure people who are impatient for the future.

This is reminiscent of Guy Debord's theses about the "society of the spectacle." But why do you think the current authorities do not strive to develop a real ideology, and not just “pretend that”? No request? No ability? No interest?

These people are purely cynical and very pragmatic. And I have a feeling that they are completely insatiable, just some kind of Tim Tyler. Apparently, their childhood was so hungry that they just can’t get enough to eat. They stuff everything into themselves and cannot digest it, but they cannot eat enough either.

This is a tragic situation: people in power in the country are not government officials at all. Of course, businessmen cannot rule the country, but neither can special agents. In Rome, the coming of the Praetorians to power marked the onset of the “end times” and the pre-collapse state. Praetorians are excellent at preventing conspiracies, protecting the emperor, and catching villains, but they do not have strategic thinking. They act as guards. Power in our country is divided between security guards and businessmen.

Businessmen treat the state in which the people live as a commercial corporation that must be managed, extracting personal profit from it, without thinking about the interests of the people. The people for them are to a large extent a burden on the territory. They purchased an “apartment with a burden,” with a grandmother who lives there, and until she passes away, nothing can be done with the apartment. This apartment is called " Russian Federation"It seems that there is some kind of social contract and you cannot help your grandmother die, but there is no interest in helping her either. You just have to wait until she dies.

It seems that people are out of place. Nevertheless, they are very well entrenched in this place. But the only task they solve is the task of their continued stay in power. They are not trying to make the country better. They want to imitate getting up from their knees, imitate the revival of Russia in the status great power, imitate confrontation with the West, imitate modernization, and so on. Any “state project” always has a specific beneficiary, most often from among childhood friends.

Are you interested in their logic or how it affects society?

I'm interested in the reaction of the population. I, too, am not the heir of some nomenklatura figure, who from childhood was introduced to the secrets of managing the masses. I, as a representative of the plebs, go from being one of the heads of livestock and gradually, with the help of friends and my own interest, I begin to understand what is behind this veil of propaganda and half-truths.

And what do you think is the reaction from society? OK? Resistance? Indifference?

At first the population simply survived. Then they gave it something to eat, and it was very happy about it, because it had not been given anything to eat for a long time. He was also allowed to have housing, a car and travel abroad. And this was enough for 10 years. As soon as these valves - foreign travel, housing, food - began to be turned off, it was necessary to distract the population with something. By preemptively simulating a siege of our fortress by Western forces of darkness and darkness, we ourselves initiated all these crises.

That is, for some time people had no time for this. While the level of well-being was growing, the mythology was working that we have never lived as well as we do now. What difference does it make, they say, how much they steal if they do not steal from our pockets. And for the time being, they really weren’t stealing from our pockets - except for some individual stories like the Magnitsky case. But all other money was stolen directly from the depths, to which the people never had any connection or access. But at the moment when they began to get into people’s pockets (because there was no longer enough resource money), the population began to move.

The authorities modeled a conflict with the West, which allowed them to divert people’s attention from internal problems and switch it to external ones, and at the same time explained all our troubles as harmful external influences. In addition, they got the opportunity to say that since we are in a besieged fortress, we must look for traitors inside. This logic works flawlessly, and they applied it. In this regard, there are smart people in the presidential administration at the management level. I think that different scenarios were discussed there, and this one was chosen because it had already been successfully used several times in a variety of countries.

What would be the reaction of society if the ideology were proposed seriously? What if they proposed to truly build an empire with an alternative picture of the world, a system of values ​​and a path of development to the West?

Before Crimean events I have always said that we have a country with an ideological hangover. For 75 years we were told about building paradise on earth and attributed all our difficulties and sufferings to this. Then the authorities suddenly told us that all this was not so, that everything they told us about building communism could be forgotten, and they advised us to go and mind our own private affairs, to live as we want.

At that moment they, too, had important matters to deal with in cutting and distributing the socialist economy. At ten s extra years the state withdrew itself from the ideological sphere. It seems to have become a state of technocrats who are not interested in any ideology. And the population in those years would have reacted with great skepticism and disgust to any attempt to re-instill some kind of ideology.

But another moment came. According to Maslow's pyramid, first the nation addressed the security issue (in Chechnya), then it ate - and it wanted self-respect. And self-respect for us is the return of the status of an empire. Empire is a powerful and not exclusively Russian idea. One way or another, every former empire dreams of returning to imperial status. This even applies to, for example, Hungary, not to mention the UK.

Therefore, it no longer surprises me how the same people can fall into awe when thinking about both Nicholas II and Stalin. They seem to be opposites, but in reality there is no contradiction. AND royal Russia, and the Stalinist Union were empires.

When teenagers say that they love Stalin, it is obvious that the point is not about Stalin, about whom they know nothing. They know about the mustache and “shoot everyone.” Stalin is a meme. To specific historical figure it has very little relevance.

In the same way, Nicholas II is a meme and symbol of the empire. People just want an empire.

Do they still want it?

Undoubtedly. And it’s stupid to blame them for this; we were a great power that for decades instilled fear and terror in our neighbors, and that suited us quite well. It was considered unnecessary for us to be respected in the same way that, for example, Japan is respected.

Is there a way to combine life in an empire with full civil rights?

Yes, such empires exist. The United States of America is just such an empire. Inside the country it is democratic and gives people freedom, but outside it behaves like an empire. It seems to me that we could well be such an empire. We would like to live in a country where people are free and their rights are protected.

I think people feel very insecure. And the request for the greatness of a power is a sublimation: instead of a solution, the issue of personal insecurity is transferred to a higher level. Maybe no one respects me, but everyone respects my country. I am an ant, but together, like a termite mound, we can eat anyone. 86% of citizens are ready to sign up for this. That is why they like tank parades on Red Square and the Russian flag over Sevastopol. They identify themselves with these tanks and believe that they are personally afraid of them.

I think that we would like to live in a country where, if necessary, we can find justice for illegal actions of the police, where through elections we can remove at least the mayor, or even the president. Although our president is more of a symbol than a person, an individual. That is why no one asks with whom he baptizes children in literally this word. We like his rounded statements and quotes precisely because, by and large, he is also a meme. In general, the American civilizational model could be close to us. This is also why we compare ourselves to them all the time. They are a competing project.

My experience of living in Europe suggests that it is easier for Russians to find a common language with Americans than with Europeans. Have you ever had that feeling?

I can agree with this. Americans are more rollicking, just like us. And they're pretty sincere people, while Europeans are quite tense and complex, this is due to their history. Europeans have a lot more taboo topics; in America it’s mostly just political correctness. Leave blacks and gays alone and say whatever you want.

Moreover, they, like us, are a melting pot, a multi-ethnic history. In our country this happens under Russian dominance. They have the Anglo-Saxons, having formed a culture and political system, have now receded into the background. Therefore, it’s easier for us with them, besides, they are also an empire. The same liberal empire that Surkov talked about.

I don't understand why their model can't work for us. Why do we need this oppression of private initiative, stupefying, feeding and intimidation - the four pillars on which our power system rests. Maybe the difference is precisely this, in how people came to power. The people who came to power in the United States are a meritocracy. Even if you are a protege of the Rothschilds, you must prove yourself. And we have very random people in power.

One of the main recent stories on the topic of “power and art” is the battle between the authors of “Matilda” and deputy Poklonskaya. Do you agree that this is her private initiative, or is there something else behind it?

Characters like Poklonskaya are useful for the authorities. They indicate a conservative trend. People in power are mostly pragmatists. Not to mention the fact that they are security officers who have undergone professional deformation - “there are enemies all around,” “people can be manipulated,” “compromising evidence can be found on everyone.”

It's like a talk show here. We need to call one balanced person, eight rabid imperialists, one marginal democrat, preferably a Jew, and some caricatured Ukrainian or American. These latter will be the whipping boys, the frantic will sputter, and the conditional “Soloviev” (who sold his soul to the devil, but is an exceptionally talented demagogue), as if moderating this discussion, will turn the cup so that the only balanced person will win the vote with a convincing margin. This is how public opinion management works. Poklonskaya, in a certain sense, appears on a national talk show. There are a number of speakers - Chaplin, Poklonskaya, Zheleznyak. This talk show sets the national agenda.

To what extent is this talk show moderated, to what extent is it controlled?

There is control domestic policy Administration of the President of Russia, it is engaged in moderating, working with leaders public opinion. There are also various kinds of expert institutions that develop and propose certain agendas.

Another thing is that all this management comes down to a situational response and distraction. By and large, all this is just a giant smoke machine that does not develop a strategy for the country’s development, but produces a smoke screen. Strategic thinking No one has it there, there is only a tactical response. The West is like this for us, and we are like this for them. Navalny is this, and we give him this.

These people have no project for the country. They found themselves at the head of a great power with a very dramatic and bloody history. And they feel out of place. The scale does not match the role. These people, from Yakunin to Medvedev, are people from the local cooperative who suddenly stood at the head of the state.

You started our conversation by making the present interesting. Would you prefer it to remain this way, to have something to write about, or would it be better for it to become a little more boring?

As an observer and writer, it is, of course, very interesting to me. Although, let’s say, the 2000s were interesting, but at the same time satisfying. We are only now beginning to understand this. Then people felt a little dizzy; it seemed that every next day would be better than the previous one. Now there is the opposite feeling - that every next day will be worse. And yet, as an observer, today's Russia fascinates me.

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“I wanted to become a writer immediately, without putting it off until “when I grow up.” My father worked at the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company in the editorial office of broadcasting to Yugoslavia. He was both a reporter and an editor, and at the same time earned money by translating Serbian poetry into Russian. All evenings he sat in the kitchen, smoking and drumming on his Olympia. I would wait until dad left for work and grab his typewriter. As soon as he walked out the door, I was heading to Olympia. Blank sheet paper and began to hit the keys with all his might: otherwise the letters would not be printed. Sometimes I missed with a swing - and my childish fingers slipped between the keys. It hurt, it even tore off the skin. But I realized that writing is inextricably linked with suffering.

- What did mom do?

- Mainly through my nutrition and upbringing. My parents studied together at the journalism department of Moscow State University, and then my mother went to TASS photo chronicle as a photo editor and archivist. True, she did not work there for long. She became pregnant, went on maternity leave, and I turned out to be a rather sickly child. Due to endless bronchitis, I almost didn’t go to the garden, and my mother, accordingly, didn’t go to work. To improve my health, I was often sent to my mother’s parents in Kostroma region, to the city of Manturovo. Regional center for 33 thousand inhabitants, semi-rural, semi-pastoral, own house, garden of 20 acres. I not only breathed fresh air there, but all the responsibilities of a person living on earth extended to me. I collected Colorado potato beetles from potatoes and slugs from cabbage. There was a real Russian stove in the house, and we cooked food in it, baked pies - I baked it too, by the way. When I got older, I started fetching water from the well.

— Quite an unexpected immersion into traditional Russian life for a Muscovite.

— Especially considering that my father is from a professorial medical dynasty. Imagine, two completely different worlds: Mantura’s grandparents have a well and a stove, and Moscow’s have an Arbat apartment with four-meter ceilings. It belonged to my great-grandfather, a professor of medicine, a urologist who treated party bosses, even Beria, it seems. Beria abused women. Based on his hobbies, he even specially organized All-Union competition gymnasts and became his - and their - patron. My great-grandfather was friends with Professor Vovsi, Stalin’s personal physician, who in 1953 became the main defendant in the “Doctors’ Case” - the last chord of Stalin’s repressions. A case was then initiated against a number of medical luminaries. Both the doctors themselves and their family members were arrested. My great-grandfather would also certainly have fallen under this flywheel if he had not died of a stroke shortly before the start of the repression. Thus, our family was not exiled anywhere and everyone remained to live in their Arbat apartment. Under my great-grandfather, it seems to have been a five-room apartment, but when the daughters grew up, they divided it, and my grandmother Nina Yakovlevna already had a two-room apartment. I describe it in the novel “Twilight” - old, with high ceilings and ancient furniture made of Karelian birch.

First, my grandmother married geologist Marat Zinovievich Glukhovsky. By the way, he also appears in my stories. I have a book “Stories about the Motherland”, and one of its characters - a geologist, doctor of science, like my grandfather - while exploring the bowels of the earth, opens the gates to hell. This is my own grandfather. Due to constant expeditions, his relationship with his grandmother completely deteriorated, and she divorced him when my father was little. She married the main artist of the Krokodil magazine, Andrei Porfiryevich Krylov, the son of a painter and caricaturist who, with friends Mikhail Kupriyanov and Nikolai Sokolov, created the famous group “Kukryniksy”. This grandfather, my father’s stepfather, is like my own, I love him very much and always listened to his stories with my mouth open. He traveled all over the Union in his time - he visited Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Chukotka and Kamchatka, all the countries of the socialist camp, and flew to Cuba four times. And from each trip he brought impressions, souvenirs and sketches, which he later turned into oil paintings, and made friends all over the world. And my mom and dad and I lived in Strogino in an ordinary sixteen-story panel building, in an apartment with an area of ​​thirty-something meters, with synthetic brown carpets and standard Romanian furniture - the whole country was filled with sideboards like ours. Apartment on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, in which we are talking now, is my attempt to reconstruct the one in Arbat. When renovating it, I tried very hard to make it the same in spirit and in detail.

- Wow. I thought that you inherited it in approximately this form. There's a feeling in it family nest, where everything is preserved for decades.

“When remaking it, I didn’t just rely on my memory, but took my grandfather to the construction market to select colors. In this sense, the main pride is the hallway: it is exactly the same terracotta color as it was on Arbat. And the furniture here is from my great-grandfather - the sideboard, table and chairs are a hundred and fifty years old, the mirror is generally over two hundred.

I not only came to visit the Arbat apartment, but also lived there for three years when I studied at junior classes. I was sent to a nearby French special school - it was our family school: my father went to it before me, and my grandmother before him, although in her time it was not yet a special school, but women's gymnasium. It took a long time to get there from my parents, from Strogin, and from my grandparents I only had to cross the Arbat diagonally.

“It’s still a pity when a child doesn’t live with his mother.” Have you ever thought about enrolling you in a school near your place of residence?

“I was enrolled in a school in Strogin, I spent a year in grade zero, and then the teacher told my parents: “The boy has talent, don’t cripple him with our school.” I started reading and writing at two and a half years old, by the age of five three digit numbers I added and subtracted in my head, their program really wasn’t very interesting to me. In general, I showed hope: my grandparents thought that I would grow up to be a great scientist and that I would receive a Nobel Prize. Eh, I feel like I’m letting them down, they won’t see mine Nobel Prize like your ears! In fact, I don’t think that I have any outstanding abilities - they just worked with me a lot, developed them. My daughter Emilia is four years old, and she has also been reading and writing since she was three years old, even earlier - because we also study a lot with her. After all, it is absolutely clear that if you develop a child’s abilities, then by the age of five he will quite easily master the school curriculum of grade up to the third. The first two years it was so easy for me at school that I completely let myself go, all I did was talk in class, and in middle school I started getting C grades. It got better in seniors, but I still got two C marks on my certificate.

— It’s funny, if it’s in Russian and literature.

- No, for them, of course, A's. I had no luck with physics and astronomy: I got into a clinch with the teacher. She seemed to be nice, and then suddenly she set the trouban, I didn’t even have time to understand what was happening. But in general, the teachers initially did not expect exemplary studies and exemplary behavior from me, because they remembered my dad very well. He was a hooligan, boxed, fought, smoked in the gateways from the age of six, but at the same time he was, apparently, an absolutely charming child, because everyone loved him, despite his difficult character and long list sins.

— And you, too, from the first grade, ran into the gateway during recess to smoke - the same one as dad?

- No, I didn’t smoke, I didn’t box, and in general I’m a completely different person. With friends, I came up with games two or three times, which everyone then played for several years. At first our entire class was drawn into the game, then the fashion spread to parallel classes and so on. When I read “Conduit and Shvambrania” by Lev Kassil, my friend and I came up with our own states with our own monetary system, between which there were complex diplomatic relations, wars broke out. Soon a variety of states were founded in each class - and the game went on and on! I also developed a modified version of the Cossack Robbers.

During the collapse of the Soviet Union, a wild fashion for obscurantism began. I read in the magazine “Question Mark” about bioframes - the wires with which they were looking for underground springs water, answered questions - and we made these bioframes and ran around with them, looked for each other in the yards, guessed the codes to other people's entrances. By the way, it worked. And then we all started writing science fiction novels. Even poor students wrote. Why, even the football players began to compose something fantastic!

— I came up with games that everyone then played for several years. In the photo - the one on the far left. Photo: From the personal archive of Dmitry Glukhovsky

— Did you start working in that genre at the age of three?

- No. As a child, I mostly wrote about politics. About Lenin - I had remixes from patriotic literature that was read to us in kindergarten and which I studied on my own. There were also journalistic essays about how in the Soviet Union everything is sprouting ears, wheat is ripening, computers are doing calculations, steamship factories are smoking, and life is steadily getting better. I don’t know where I got this from - either I re-read my dad’s materials, or I watched TV. But I became interested in science fiction only in middle school - first with Bulychev, then with the Strugatskys - and soon our endless science fiction novels began to appear in notebooks with 48 squared pages. Because more text fit into the box and it looked more solid, more mature than a ruler.

— Did they buy you a personal typewriter by that time?

— Dad switched to the electric Yatran, and gave the old mechanical one to me.

— It’s beautiful and symbolic: a typewriter passes from a writing father to a writing son. By the way, did your parents take your creativity seriously?

“During my school years, no one believed that I was really determined to become a writer. The elders, especially my father, encouraged me to study to become a financier or economist, although I have no ability to exact sciences. But the strength of my father’s conviction was such that I still studied economics for a year. With each lesson there it became more and more boring and incomprehensible. I always sat in the front rows to make eyes at the beautiful young teacher, but even that didn’t work: my eyes stuck together and I fell asleep. And statistics in general were a complete nightmare for me! And not only are the subjects terrible, but they are also in Hebrew - I studied in Israel.

- Why there? Some kind of special Faculty of Economics?

- That's not the point. I had an example to follow - my grandfather, a journalist and traveler, who had traveled to a bunch of countries and felt like a citizen of the world. In addition, I graduated from school in 1996, when Russia began to open up to the world, everyone began to travel a lot more, and I really wanted to live and study abroad. But we couldn’t afford foreign countries like England or the USA, and a year of study at the University of Jerusalem cost $3 thousand - this was a more acceptable option. I wanted to study journalism, but there is no separate journalism department there - only a large department social sciences, and it has different directions, from which I chose journalism and economics. And with journalism, everything worked out wonderfully, although the teaching was not at all the same as ours: without studying language and literature, it was very applied - work with all mass media, psychology, areas of law related to journalism.

— And everything is in Hebrew too?

- Well, yes. I arrived a year before admission, just studied the language for six months, took preparatory courses for the other six months, and then studied along with the locals.

— Did everything turn out as you dreamed?

— According to my parents’ stories, I imagined student life a crazy fun and wonderful time, but for me it turned out to be more of a school of life and hardening. I started studying at the age of 17, and Israelis first serve in the army for three years, are demobilized at 21-22, then travel around the world and work and go to university at 23-24. That is, everyone around me was five years older than me, much more experienced and with completely different

mentality is average between American and Arab. I really liked it there, but I still felt like an alien.

Working in France on the EuroNews channel was much more like the student life sung by my parents. I arrived there at the age of 22, after graduating from university, I started as an editor, and at the end I switched to correspondent work. I learned what I could and should learn there in a few days, and then it was very easy. By that time I spoke four foreign languages, and they all came in handy, since there was an international team there. The first year and a half was terribly interesting, but I have one problem: the monotonous work gets boring for me. After working for three years at EuroNews, I returned to Russia and got a job at the Russia Today TV channel.

— Has work and life become more interesting?

- More fun. I’ve been everywhere - to the North Pole, to Chernobyl, and to a hot spot once. On the Lebanese-Israeli border, when Israel was at war with Hezbollah. I sat under mortar fire for two weeks, reporting. But this, of course, does not make me a military officer - just an isolated interesting experience. Some guys, my former colleagues, never came out of the war at all; now they are working as reporters in the Donbass. This kind of work changes a person: he becomes hardened, some feelings become dulled, and he becomes dependent on adrenaline. Israeli acquaintances who served in the army said: “You crawl around Lebanon for five days, sit in ambush with a machine gun, ready to be picked off by snipers at any moment, and then return home for two days to Tel Aviv and, as if through a dusty bag, you look at everything as if in a dream. Real life is at war, but in a peaceful city there is no sense of the reality of what is happening.”

— Was that the most dangerous business trip?

— Judging by the consequences, the most dangerous was an innocent trip to Guatemala as part of the presidential pool. When we arrived, we were treated to a cocktail at the hotel on the occasion of our arrival - and he turned out to have jaundice! Seven journalists and seven people from the presidential press service were seriously injured. Moreover, the cocktail included two different strains of hepatitis - the first had a shorter incubation period, the second had a longer incubation period, so we first got sick with one variety, and then the other. But, fortunately, food-borne hepatitis is curable, unlike those that are contracted through the blood. So I was cured, I just had to give up fatty and fried foods. And with alcohol. But it was in Guatemala - after a six-month stupor - that I managed to complete the Twilight novel. You know, almost half of the population of Guatemala are Mayan Indians, and Twilight is the story of a translator who is entrusted with an order to decipher the diary of a Spanish conquistador sent from secret mission into the wilds of the jungle - into the very heart of the Mayan lands to find and destroy all the Mayan manuscripts, one of which contains doomsday prophecies. The whole book was ready, but I was stuck with the ending for many months. And on that trip to Guatemala, it was as if the chakras opened. But I had to pay a price for it - a month and a half in a hospital bed.

— Have you ever wanted to avoid obviously dangerous trips like Chernobyl?

— On the contrary, I was eager to go to Chernobyl: I really wanted to see in person what an abandoned city, poisoned by radiation, looks like — that’s my theme. “Metro 2033,” my most famous book, “Metro 2034,” and now “Metro 2035,” which just came out, are novels about how people in Moscow survive two decades after the third world war, after nuclear bombings. In “Metro 2035” the descriptions of empty, dead Moscow are very important: everything is contaminated with radiation, there are abandoned houses around, rusty cars in endless traffic jams, empty mailboxes with tin lids flapping in the wind. But life and civilization remained only in the Moscow metro, which was built as the world's largest anti-nuclear bomb shelter. The main character does not lose hope of finding other survivors somewhere else on Earth and leading people there from the subway, from the dungeon. So God himself ordered me to study Chernobyl.

And this place really surprised me: usually it seems to be an extinct area where mutant moose roam, and it seems that it is located in the wilderness. But the nuclear power plant, just an hour's drive from Kyiv, a city where several million people live, was the first discovery. The second discovery was that nature was absolutely blooming there. Still, she becomes prettier without a person. But the city itself was strictly as it was described: a rusty Ferris wheel, empty houses, from which either looters or the owners took out absolutely all the furniture, not being afraid of radiation. The glass is dusty, kindergarten with abandoned toys.

So reporting work has determined a lot in my life. And I also owe my marriage to work. We met Lena at Russia Today: she was my producer and helped me arrange the most interesting business trips.

— Did you believe then, hope that you would be published and your books would become bestsellers?

“I didn’t expect that I would even become a published author.” There was a dream, bright, but timid. And in my free time from studying, and then from journalism, I continued to do what I did in high school. After all, I came up with the story “Metro 2033” - about how people live in the subway after a nuclear war - when I was 15 years old, and then I slowly wrote it for many years. I really wanted someone other than my friends to read it, and when I finished the first draft at the age of 22, I sent it to all the publishers I could, but was ignored by everyone. I’m stubborn - I called them for several months afterwards: “Have you read it yet by chance? Haven’t you heard, the person who promised to look hasn’t returned from vacation?” And every time you have heart palpitations, sweat, and you press the wrong buttons on the phone because your little hands are shaking. And one day at the publishing house that eventually released me, they said: “You know, it’s a little damp in this form, and, most importantly, the ending is unformatted. In genre novels, it doesn’t happen that the hero walks and walks towards the goal and, before reaching halfway, is killed. Write it down, change the ending, and we might consider your proposal.” But I no longer believed that anyone would agree to publish my “Metro” - I decided that no one understood me and everyone rejected me. And it was 2002, the Internet was already in full swing, people were downloading and reading books in pirated libraries, and I thought: if you can post other people’s books, then why not post your own? I made a website, posted the novel there for free and began writing on all forums dedicated to the metro and science fiction: they say, there is such a dystopian novel, please read it and tell me what you think about it. And metro drivers, engineers, track workers - people who, unlike me, knew the metro very well from the inside out, said that I describe the feelings that arise there very correctly. There were, of course, bores who nagged: “The fire can’t burn at the station because there is no ventilation, the station will be filled with smoke, and everyone will suffocate.” But I didn’t write a performance characteristics manual, but a book about the human soul. The main thing was not to make a mistake in this, and not in the description of the engineering intricacies of Metrostroy.

By the way, in “Metro 2033” there is also a secret, personal layer that is understandable only to me and my school friends. The journey of the main character, Artem, from VDNH to Arbatskaya, follows the route along which I traveled from home to school (we had already moved from Strogin by then). Or, for example, after some tense scenes there is an episode at the Polyanka station - two middle-aged people are sitting there, smoking a hookah, burning books to warm their hands, and having lengthy conversations. So, these are my closest friends. The names of the heroes are the same as my friends - Sergei Andreevich and Evgeniy Dmitrievich, and they talk about what really happened to my friends. One recalls that he had a green Moskvich-2141 and he drove it around Moscow at night, installing a homemade accelerator on nitrous oxide. Another is that near the Smolenskaya metro station there was a “headquarters” of prostitutes who actually hung around there in the nineties. This is how I saved my beloved comrades in the Third World War.

“Metro 2033 has a secret, personal layer that only me and my school friends understand. With the prototypes of the novel's heroes - classmates Sergei and Evgeniy. Dmitry is pictured on the left (mid-1990s). Photo: From the personal archive of Dmitry Glukhovsky

— Do you often describe real people and events in your books?

- I still try to invent and create heroes - although, of course, I endow them with the traits and speech of both my relatives and strangers, which you happen to overhear somewhere on the train or in a store. As for events, there are those without which writing another novel would be completely impossible. Here I have a book “The Future”, for example. The idea came to me when I was about 19 years old: what will happen to us, to humanity, when we defeat old age, aging and no longer die? After all, this society will be completely different from ours today - people probably won’t need God: who needs a soul if the body is immortal? There will be no creation in it, because while creating, people try to leave something behind. But the main thing is that the planet will be overpopulated, which means the birth rate will be limited. And now, let’s say, they’ll force you to choose these immortal people: live endlessly, remaining forever young, or have offspring. And if any couple decides to have a child, then one of them - a man or a woman - must refuse eternal youth and life, receive an injection that will age him, and ten years later die before the child reaches adolescence and will be able to continue the family line himself. I came up with it

This story was a whole 17 years ago, but until I got married and had my own child, I simply could not take it on.

You know, few people tell the truth about this, you can’t rely on others: when a girl confesses for the first time to her young man that she’s pregnant, and he replies that he’s very happy, he’s lying. In fact, he is scared - scared of how his life will now change, of responsibility, scared of losing freedom. A child is something irrevocable that connects you with your woman forever. When young guys at the windows of the maternity hospital write with crayons “Thank you for your son!”, it’s just toadying. A father's love is not like a mother's. It comes over time. The first feeling is again fear, concern - not even for the child, for the wife. And when you are given a tiny red-faced gnome in the maternity hospital, you are terrified not to accidentally break it or drop it. Love comes later, slowly: that’s when your wife, tired for the day, falls asleep at night, and you sit all night long with your daughter, who is three days old, sleeping on your stomach. When is it the first time for you - and not for your wife! - smiles in response to your smile. It gives me chills and chills. When he rejoices at you and misses you. And the more time you spend with your child, the more you fall in love with him. And a year ago, his son, Theodore, was born. So I have a complete set. Each has its own entertainment. For example, my daughter and I played “Chuka and Gek” all winter, and I specially bought a “Polar Base” Lego set. I read to her a lot: I introduced her to the Moomins and Carlson, and now she reads on her own. I play with my son Theo and he just loves them. And he's a cow fan. It’s very amusing to show how a cow moos, in such a hoarse bass voice that it’s unclear how this baby doll makes it at all. And recently there was a joyful event: at the dacha they found a place where real black and white spotted cows graze, just like in the pictures in his books. He fell into the astral plane in surprise, and then did not want to leave and was eager to get to his cows for another hour. Until you go through this, you won’t understand how you can choose a child between eternal youth and a child. So I took up the novel “The Future” after Emilia was born. I had to bare myself before the reader and talk honestly about my feelings - and it was worth it: forty-year-old men confessed to me how they cried over some pages. You need to write about what you yourself have lived, and then it will come out truthfully. Each book is a step forward, the result of the years lived.

— But your new novel, “Metro 2035,” is a continuation of your very first book, which is already ten years old.

- Yes. And the main character is the same, although he has matured - he has singed his wings and is somewhat disappointed. And the book, of course, came out more mature: I myself have become ten years older, so has our country, and all my readers. The first novel was about how a young man is looking for his place in the world, in life, trying to understand what to believe in and what not to believe in, what is his purpose and mission, and at the same time protect his native metro station from a terrible threat from the radioactive surface . And in “Metro 2035” Artyom has a different dream and goal: to lead people out of the dungeon upward, to the Sun and sky. But is there somewhere to lead and will people follow him? Of course events recent years in life

The countries here influenced me a lot and made me think about a lot. And although I refused offers to write a sequel for a long time, in the end I felt that I wanted it myself.

You know, “Metro 2033” still brought me popularity, changed my life and remains my most famous novel, although it is a youthful, naive thing in many ways. When you return to the roots, you are afraid of spoiling something, disappointing readers, breaking the legend. This is definitely not worth doing for the sake of money - but many authors are tempted by money to write or film a bad sequel to a successful first thing! So, I must admit, I had jitters when I wrote “Metro 2035.” The book, however, turned out to be different: tougher, more realistic, intertwining two love lines at once - and not necessarily cloyingly romantic. And by the way, you can start reading “Metro” right away - the hero is the same, but the plot is separate, independent, so there is no need to turn to the original source. I was calm about new readers. And I was worried about the old ones: will they understand the deviation from the canons? But then I met with them - with those who had already read it. And I was surprised: how different they are - many girls, middle-aged people, whole families come. I ask: did the new book disappoint you? They told me: “We swallowed it overnight. When is the next one? I don't even know. To write the next one, I still need to live and live...

Family: wife - Elena, daughter - Emilia (4 years old), son - Theodor (1 year old)

Education: Graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Jerusalem with a degree in Journalism and International Relations

Career: Since 2002 he worked for the EuroNews channel in France, in 2005 he returned to Russia and began working as a correspondent for the Russia Today TV channel. In 2002, he posted his first novel, Metro 2033, on the Internet; it was published only in 2005. The book has now been translated into 37 languages ​​and has formed the basis of two video games. Author of the books “Twilight”, “Metro 2034”, “Stories about the Motherland”, “The Future”, etc. On June 12, 2015, Dmitry published a new novel - “Metro 2035”

The famous Russian science fiction writer Dmitry Glukhovsky came to Krasnoyarsk to present his new novel “Metro 2035”. Although, as it turns out, he can be beaten for the “fantasy” characteristic.

In an interview, Glukhovsky explained why Russian writers rarely travel around the country and meet with readers, whether there is journalism in Russia now, and why young writers should not ask Glukhovsky for help.

– Have you come to tell Krasnoyarsk residents about your new novel? Tell us.

– The book was published on June 12 in Moscow. First I had a presentation there, then in St. Petersburg and Voronezh. Afterwards there were three cities in the Urals. Now the tour continues. In the fall I plan to Far East, and for now Siberia.

If we talk about the book, “Metro 2035” is the end of a trilogy that began 20 years ago, when I came up with it all at school. The first book on paper was published 10 years ago.

And the decision was not easy - to return to what began so long ago. Taking on a new novel was a responsible decision for me. It was important that it didn’t turn out to be some kind of sequel, as often happens when a sequel is written out of necessity.

I thought for a long time about how “Metro 2035” would be, on the one hand, a continuation, and on the other, an independent work, which can be read separately from all previous books.

The task was not easy and not trivial. And I think everything worked out.

- Certainly. 10 years ago a different me wrote a book. The first book was so educational - a young man leaves his father’s house and searches for his purpose in life.

Now the idea of ​​the state of mind, how society is structured, the structure of power - all this has changed a lot. And it has changed in the last two years for obvious reasons- because of the events that happened in the life of our country.

Plus, the book is stylistically different. She has a different mood. She's more mature and realistic. Is not fantasy novel.

I would rather call it a novel about Russian life. This is a book about why things are like this for us and why things will always be like this for us.

– But you are often called exclusively a science fiction writer...

– When a person calls me a science fiction writer, I immediately want to hit him with something heavy and stupid. Only two books out of all are exceptionally fantastic. The rest are a mix.

– Why do you have a predominant post-apocalyptic theme?

– When the Soviet Union collapsed, I was 12 years old. I grew up in some country that seemed unshakable to me. And suddenly all this crumbles to dust in one day.

Everything that generations of people believed in is recognized as invalid. All heroes become non-heroes. And the feeling of life on the ruins of an empire...

For me, unlike Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the collapse of the USSR is not a tragedy at all. For me, this is an interesting cultural experience from adolescence. You are trying to build a shack from the ruins of the empire.

And my fascination with post-apocalypticism was born from this feeling: there was a world that fell apart, and you survive on its rusty ruins.

– The reason is simple: 70% of all book sales take place in Moscow. And in the USA - throughout the country. Americans are a more reading nation than us. And they buy more books there.

If you write about Russia, you simply have to look at it. Last time I went six years ago - now I understand that my ideas are outdated.

Cities with a population of over a million have become more beautiful, people have dressed up, and everything is no longer the same as six years ago. Financially, such tours are practically not justified.

– How important is it for a writer to meet his reader face to face?

- I love. I am very grateful to my readers, I love meeting them. Moreover, all my books are available for free on the site and those people who buy paper books - I am really very grateful to them!

– You worked for RussiaToday, where the point of journalism is to show Russia as a successful country with a confident future. How would you generally rate the quality of journalism in modern Russia? All these patriotic talk shows and so on...

– When I switched from EuroNews to RussiaToday, this channel was created precisely in order to show freedom of the press in our country. There was noticeably more of it.

No one scolded Putin, but there was no whipping up of patriotic hysteria. And there was no whipping up of hysteria through hatred of other groups. Now everything is different.

Now we are good not because everything works out for us, but because we are surrounded by complete freaks. Americans are cannibals, Ukrainians are cannibals and Nazis. The Dutch and Germans are pedophiles. And against this background, we are the best.

For some reason, we are asked to be proud that we are a stronghold of spirituality. Although anyone over 18 years old understands that we are one of the most riotous peoples in the world!

When I started working for RussiaToday, everything was calmer. I did not have to sacrifice my principles, which I acquired at EuroNews: show one side of the conflict - show the other.

Now, of course, RussiaToday is an openly propaganda channel that simply “drives”, like all of our television. Especially talk shows on all channels are open propaganda of hatred towards Western countries.

There is no journalism today. Besides cultural, maybe. And political journalism has been replaced by propaganda that washes the brain.

- Let's return to literature. You published your novel “Metro 2033” on the Internet. This was a new and unusual move. How can today's young writers make themselves known?

– Now everything is more complicated. The Internet was not a mass phenomenon back then. Even in 2002, when I posted Metro 2033 online, there were no social networks or blogs.

There were guest books and home pages. And people were wildly afraid of the Internet. Beginning writers believed that the text would be stolen and published under a different name, and eminent writers were afraid that they would read everything and not buy the book in paper. And I had nothing to lose.

– How often do people send you manuscripts asking you to read and help with the first edition?

– I don’t advise or help anyone. I'm an asshole about this. I helped once and it started. I submitted the book to a familiar publishing house and this author loaded me with so many of his problems that I had to deal with his book, and not my own.

I did a good deed for a person, and they tried to sit on my neck. So I don’t help young writers - it’s a cruel world and everyone is for themselves.

– Is a successful writer an indicator of the quality of his literature?

- No. Firstly, the vast majority of readers are not able to assess the literary level of the author. Figurative language the reader finds it too complicated. Doesn't understand stylistic experiments. And he skims through philosophy.

Secondly, you need to understand that 10% of the country’s population reads. Of these 10%, another 10% understands literary delights. Successful literature is one that leaves an emotional response in the reader.

People buy books for the same reason they go to the movies - to fill an emotional deficit. They want to be someone else and through some concentrated story experience the emotions of another person. People sit on emotions, this is the main drug.

Sergey Sannikov

The main character of "Text" Ilya is a half-educated philologist. Why did you give your protagonist such a distinctly literary education?

Who is less prepared for reality than a philologist? Is there any education more disorienting in Russian life than literary and linguistic education? Where are the Russian classics - and where is our life today? It’s interesting to imprison such a person for seven years for something he did not commit, brought up in the humanistic tradition, in the idea that crime and punishment are always united. Moreover, on the simplest and most popular charge, two hundred and twenty-eighth (Article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Illegal acquisition, storage, transportation, production, processing narcotic drugs». - Note ed.). And let him apply the literature of the Silver Age, let him apply the Romano-Germanic group to the zone and life after the zone. From the furnace into ice water. Is this how the steel was hardened? And such a man comes out - Russia: half thinking in a hairdryer, half in Babel's language.

- A significant part of the novel - correspondence in instant messengers and by mail - is framed as ordinary dialogues. You deliberately did not highlight it graphically - as modern Western writers often do?

- On paper, emoticons look poor, emoji look bastard. They don't take root. For what? To make readers who grew up on smartphones feel more confident in picking up paper? Yah. It’s much more interesting to peel them off and give them a simple dialogue: will it work?

In connection with the “Text”, many recall “ little man"Russian literature and Dostoevsky's sensitive killers. How important is this tradition, dating back to Samson Vyrin and Rodion Raskolnikov, for you?

I never considered myself a Russian writer: I wanted to be a citizen of the world, grew up reading Western prose, and received our classics fish oil at school, like everyone else. But Europeans and Asians read my books in translation and say - typical Russian literature, a continuation of traditions. Maybe it's in the blood somewhere. Antibodies that are formed from this kind of our life. As he said: “The Germans do things - we... [make] tragic.”

- Your novel is written in dry, crisp language, somewhat akin to Limonov. Can we say that the cabbage soup cooling in Ilya’s Lobnya kitchen was poured from the same pan that is on Eddie’s New York stove?

I read Limonov at school as soon as he was released from us: my parents were friends with his first Russian publisher. Porn is good for him - that’s why he read it. Better than politics. He's basically a counterfeiter. Should they be inspired? No thanks. I am Babel, Platonov. By those who forged Newspeak. You need to be inspired by the unattainable. Present time Newspeak also demands: to fit our present-day into our eternal. Anglicisms and memes are crossed with camp slang and early Soviet prose. Who else should you entrust this to if not a philologist?

- “Text”, among other things, is a novel about technology addiction. How do you build your own relationship with electronics? Do you sketch on your phone or use a notebook?

Well, of course, I’m completely addicted. I have two phones, I stick to them like Macedonian. A carousel of Facebook, mail and Instagram, always waiting for messages. I manage my own social networks and have created accounts for myself everywhere. When no one writes to the colonel, I read the news. The focus of attention was reduced to one minute. I forgot how to write on paper. My hand gets tired of the pen by the end of the sentence, the letters dance, but I can touch typewriting and without looking I type messages on my iPhone without looking up from the steering wheel. All the time I try to photograph happiness or at least delight. Instead of memories, I keep albums from my iPhone in my head. Refused erudition in favor of Wikipedia. Typical representative.

Glukhovsky's first (2005) novel: survivors nuclear war earthlings huddle in the Moscow metro. Translated into 37 languages, total circulation - 1,000,000 copies.

Continuation of the post-apocalyptic saga. The most popular Russian book of 2009, surpassing Akunin, Ulitskaya and Minaev in circulation.

Collection (2010) of short, “realistic” prose by Glukhovsky - about vodka with nanorobots, corruption and the search for a national idea.

In Europe of the 25th century, a vaccine against aging is being invented: humanity can afford it if it refuses to bear children. Initially, “The Future” (2013) was published on VKontakte.

The finale (2015) of the underground cycle, which grew out of Glukhovsky’s work on the computer game “Metro: Last Light”. Winner of the Ozon.ru Online Awards in the Best Fiction Book category.

Fresh (2017) novel by Glukhovsky, favored by the presenters literary critics countries.

Your book is marked by today: the novel is highlighted by Trump, the National Guard and other signs of the times. How universal is the story you tell about arbitrariness and humiliation? Are these inescapable features of Russian life?

I needed a text about today. Urban novel. It seemed to me that everything I read from Russian was completely out of date. I wanted to make a box of nails like this: to hammer a nail into each of today’s main topics.

Some of today's topics are eternal topics. The lack of rights of an ordinary person before the system. A system of government and management built on deception and intimidation. The ability of power to involve and magnetize the most unscrupulous. And its ability to leper the idealists who find itself in it, to infect them with cynicism and hypocrisy.

But there is also something fresh. The disintegration of truth. The collapse of the coordinate system in which there is good and evil. The rotting of Christian ethics based on humility. The possession of the church by demons of power. A triumph of strength. Who rules us today, who is the main newsmaker in politics and business, and now also in art and spirituality? Prosecutor's office. Investigative committee. FSB. Security forces. People, empowered and, apart from strength, not believing in anything.

Although, maybe this is eternal, but it just seems new. It’s just that each generation has to wade through the lies on its own, debunk the myths on its own. To make an attempt on those who protect these myths, because through them they protect their power.

A significant role in the novel is played by the “people's” Article 228, which the innocent protagonist is accused of and under which almost 150 thousand people are imprisoned in the country. Are you close to the idea of ​​drug legalization - partial or complete?

I am for the legalization of soft drugs, prostitution and gambling. All kinds anyway human vices covered by the special services. It’s just that instead of normal taxes, which we could finally use to pay for the tiles on Tverskaya, the margin goes to the construction of private castles in Crimea.

In an interview, you said that your most famous series, “Metro,” is not least the exposure of the soviet, a person of the Soviet formation who does not want to come to the surface. Do you see in modern Russia other - primarily typologically - figures who strive, figuratively speaking, to leave the ring road?

It seems to me that the entire generation of thirty-year-olds is different. Twenty-year-olds are basically aliens. Everyone who does their own thing is different. They would like to go into the future, but they will not be allowed into the future. The government is aging, graying, balding. The authorities want to go back to the Soviet Union, to the days of their youth. The future scares her: like any pensioner, the president does not want to adapt to a changing world, he demands that the world return to its usual state, and is offended when the world refuses. Why then are there many Stalinists among young people, you ask? Stalin for them is a symbol of empire. The image of the empire is compensation for age complexes. They want to feel respected. In today's Russia this is impossible. In America, teenagers, dreaming of superpowers that would make their peers respect them and fear bullies, jerk off to superheroes, and in our country, to Stalin. Stalin is the Russian Spider-Man.

The political upheavals of the 2010s affected most Russian writers: some have become prominent oppositionists, others are forming their own combat units, and still others prefer to be above the fray. What place do you occupy in this socio-literary disposition?

Politics corrupts. Power is the breath of Satan. Writers who go to power to offer it their ability to persuade people for money are selling their souls. Writers who think that they can talk to the authorities themselves, educate them with their moral teachings - and for this purpose get closer to them - are idiots. As soon as they open their mouth there, they will immediately be given bread there and receive communion. Look at the directors who became deputies: they are all empty-eyed. What kind of power do deputies seem to have? And take your soul out and put it down. No, getting into politics is a bad idea. A writer in Russia must simply tell the truth, call a spade a spade. There is no one else.

Among the Russian prose writers who influenced you are very different views: Babel and Bulgakov, Platonov and Shalamov. Is it important to you what political position the author takes? Can you like a book written from a position that is not close to you?

It's a little different here. It is important whether the author is sincere. If a person is a convinced communist, a real one, of an idealistic kind, it is interesting to listen and read. If you are a devout Imperial, we’ll listen too. And if you are just an opportunist and a counterfeiter who doesn’t believe in what he says, a crook, a propagandist - I’m disgusted. Here one cannot admire the power of talent - hypocrisy obscures everything.

After the release of your new novel, they began to write about you - with some hesitation - as a serious author who had “overcome” his early genre works. Do you believe in this supposedly irresolvable dichotomy - “entertainment fiction” versus “serious literature”?

Well, “Text” is actually not fundamentally different from “Future” or “Metro 2035”. Those who simply disdain science fiction are dumbfounded. Who came up with genres anyway? They are wildly cramped. I want to mix them up, disrupt them, I don’t want to make any fateful choices once and for all: either you’re in science fiction, or in a thriller, or in “real literature.” Why can't you write a thriller like serious prose? Who said that science fiction should entertain and distract? Why should modern prose be plotless and boring? Literature, in fact, can give complete freedom - literature has a zero budget, you don’t have to ask the Ministry of Culture for money for a book, you don’t have to approve the plot from producers, you don’t have to worry about ratings. We must use this! But no. Writers are afraid of publishers, publishers are afraid of readers. A reader, if he falls in love with a writer for a particular book, then only asks for more. You can't surprise him - he might get indigestion. Publishers think so. I decided to test it on my own skin.

In the early 2000s, you were one of the pioneers of online samizdat: Metro 2033 was read primarily on the Internet. How do you assess the prospects for online literature today? Can the “new samizdat” seriously compete with more traditional publishing institutions?

Maybe, of course. It only suffers from a lack of editing. Editing and marketing are the only two useful functions of a publishing house. It’s awkward to sell yourself, but you can’t raise your hand to rule.

In March last year, you confirmed that the film adaptation of “Metro” would be done in Hollywood: producers were attached to the project “ Social network" and "Sin City". What's happening to the painting now?

Now they are looking for a director. They showed it to Darabont, he liked everything, read the book, played the game, but couldn’t come up with the director’s take and gave up.

Another international project, in which you participated - the creation of a libretto for the opera “The Three Astronauts” based on the story by Umberto Eco. Is it finished? When will it be possible to hear it?

The libretto is finished, but the music is not ready yet. The work of the composers dragged on, and while they were waiting, both authors of the original work died - and Eugenio Carmi. I managed to meet Carmi, I was at his family dinner in Milan, but Eco, whose fan I had always been, ended up in the hospital then - and it didn’t work out. Now the creators of the opera need to sort things out with his heirs and agents. I want to believe in the best, in general.

Your readers noted the transition to conventionally “realistic” writing back in the collection “Stories about the Motherland.” Would you like to return to a small form in the future? What is generally more sensitive to rapidly changing times - a short story written on occasion or a weighty, fundamental novel?

I liked writing stories. The novel, of course, is a cast iron thing, heavy, cast, a cannonball, it can tear off your head. More time is put into the novel. And the story is a pellet. But if you choose them correctly in a collection, using a mosaic, you can also achieve good stopping power. And then, the story is always a miniature work, an artistic cutting of a grain of rice. There is no room for unnecessary things; it must contain a whole world with living people in its few pages. Before Metro 2033, I wrote stories - in my first year, in my second. Such, in the spirit of Cortazar. They're hanging out online somewhere. So maybe there will be stories again. And novels: magical realism on Russian soil and polar horror. And plays. And film scripts. All will be. Please fasten your seat belts.