Guests from Vendee

It would be an exaggeration to say we differed on everything, for we cannot appraise differently or justify by any kind of logic the evil - political and social - that disgraces our life today. However, my guests appeared, as if born blind, not to have noticed a single sprout of hope, a single bright ray over the past few years, even in their own life, although something there has changed for the better also. To start with, Mr. N (let us thus call him) has been writing poems, essays, and sketches all his life. As far as I remember him, he dreamed of having at least a part of his creative work, albeit a small book, printed. For all his attempts, this required "before the new era" so many permissions, restrictions, recommendations, decisions, censorship, and high protection that it was practically impossible for an ordinary person, moreover, for someone not a member of the Writers' Union. And now I have been presented by Mr. N with four books of his poems published in the past few years. "Now money is the only problem," says the author with a happy smile. "All I had to do was find a sponsor!" A sponsor was found and is now financing my friend's fifth book. It might seem that the fulfilled dream might override the author's many everyday-life hardships. "What's that got to do with this?" Mr. N asks with irritation, "Did the state help me?" He also does not want (or is not able?) to appreciate his tremendous opportunity to express himself absolutely freely and write everything he thinks about. Where would the author be now if only a pale copy of his current criticism of the state system and the power-holders had rung out in public some 10-15 years ago? Now he takes it for granted and sheds tears over "stability," a 135-ruble pension, and respect for war veterans. What is the use of that bureaucratic respect if his pretty verses have seen the light of day! I can also remember other new circumstances in the life of my friends. Such as, for example, regular foreign tours for their talented son, visits by a married couple of their relatives in Germany, where they also visit in return.

Meanwhile, Mr. N is gnawed by Communist nostalgia for equality, a nostalgia that turned into traditional hatred for the rich, for those who managed, one way or another (unfortunately, more often "another"), to achieve high material well-being. To crown it, "they" do not share their wealth with us (!). What about this? First, let them really share with us by paying the relevant taxes (I only wish the authorities collected them). Secondly, the rich do share (for instance, they publish other people's poems). The main thing is different, after all. Each has his own talent: one makes money, another writes poems and has to be happy with that. And the stormy ocean of commerce is today open to all: dip in it if you are not afraid.

There was one more popular subject in our chats: the villas and luxury mansions "they" build. I think for some reason that the new buildings in good style, the restored old structures, and the decent interiors of various public institutions are intended not only for the owner but also for each of us. For we are surrounded by a whole city, not just an apartment. We have lived enough among boxy barracks and tin- and plywood slums, let us now feast our eyes on palaces. For Mr. N, such ideas are strange and unacceptable. His motto is: let there be Donetsk slums, but all should be the same.

What especially struck me was the general atmosphere in certain Donetsk circles of intellectuals which my guests conveyed. Their picturesque tales formed a mosaic of a blank backwater province, a Ukrainian VendОe, where everything is painted in monocolor; where there are no ethnic differences, no sides, no parties (there is only the Party); where to be Ukrainian is not only the ultimate plebeian shortcoming but also a danger of remaining a pariah forever; where a wickedly distorted Ukrainian word for "independence," almost forgotten even by the Russian media, has preserved its primordial freshness; where saucy jokes are being told about the Ukrainian language (e.g. Pushkin's well-known verse "Will I fall down, with an arrow in my chest?" is corrupted as "Will I fall down, clubbed on my head?"); and where loyal, moderate, citizens dream of "an independent state as part of..." As Talleyrand once said about France's pre-Revolutionary aristocracy, "they have forgotten and learned nothing."