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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Mikhail Zhvanetsky: “I Got What I Wanted But Received So Little in Return”

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

Mikhail Zhvanetsky has long been a symbol of our times. A kind of sensor reflecting fluctuations in the public mind. Using his own phrase that one should learn to distinguish between one's physical shape and emotions, Mr. Zhvanetsky's shape and our moods are in many ways intertwined.

Q.: We know that visiting your statue in the courtyard of the Literary Museum costs 30 kopiykas. Does this mean you want to help Odesa materially?

A.: What do you mean 30? I’m outraged. That’s another practical joke played at my expense. I haven’t had the time to visit the place myself. I know that someone even tried to vandalize it in the several months since it was unveiled, maybe it was a public response to this illegal admission fee. I’ll deal with the bastards personally. There will be no fee, or I will pay for all visitors for a month in advance, or maybe I will just stand at the entrance there and give every visitor 30 kopiykas. Something has to be done. And I consider this statue a very cruel joke. Building a monument to a person still living is extremely tactless, improper. One feels ashamed to live any longer. It’s as though you were told you must die, the sooner the better, to justify that memorial – or perhaps get yourself in a plaster of Paris cast and lie beside the statue to let the visitor compare the work of art and the prototype.

Q.: Some of your latest works betray a touch of sad humor, most likely because of your stay in hospital. We are all worried about your health, of course. How do you feel?

A.: Remember that old Jewish anecdote when, in response to this question, the man says, “Thanks, but don’t count on outliving me anyway.” Well, I’ve made it this far. I have to wear glasses, take enemas, and go to bed the way one departs to another city. And the doctors keep running tests, some saying I mustn’t drink, but I have my own arguments. If one listens to one’s doctor one will arrive at the conclusion that sitting, standing, and watching are all quite dangerous, especially looking on. A step to the left or right and you have dictatorship or rebellion. Apart from the flat hospital mattress and inedible mashed potatoes, I also discovered Diet No. 7. It offers a great many advantages. I stopped washing my spoon and picking my teeth. And my stomach simply disappeared with the pain and indigestion. Women’s ratings dropped down to 41st place. I started viewing dogs like a Vietnamese or an Indian. I learned to take my pulse and blood pressure readings without attaching any priorities. To have surgery one must bring all the medications and dressings. If you forget something you may well end up being cut open without anesthesia. Our hospitals these days are rendezvous points where you meet those you haven’t seen for a long time. The surgeons are quite professional and skilled, but once they sew you up the rest depends solely on your own resources.

It was there that I started having philosophical ideas. I have achieved what I wanted but received so little in return. I was on my way to the great beyond, but then they allowed me to return to this sinful earth. I really appreciate the opportunity. And as for ills, who can get rid of them entirely these days? Personally, I feel okay now (touch wood and keeping fingers crossed).

Solitude comes now when you wake up in the middle of the night howling like a werewolf. And not when you step into your apartment and find things scattered around the way you left them last year. Or when you turn on your television, radio, and electric tea kettle just to feel that you’re alive, hearing voices, music, and other noise. It is not a folding cot you lie on at your friend’s place or when you eat his soup. Things like that can be corrected, although such corrections are hopeless. True solitude comes when you talk to yourself through the night and no one understands you.

Q.: How about the sense of humor found in all those “servants of the people,” “new Russians,” and “friends” from other countries? How do they respond?

A.: Previously, our powers that be liked to invite me over to their baths. Vladimir Vysotsky used to go there with his guitar and I did with my worn bag which I still consider a mascot. When you’re in a bath or sauna, you feel on equal terms with everyone else (and I had to rub shoulders with people standing very high). However, I never felt this, not there, not with those people. Their response to my humor was a bit slow, because each and every one was watching their boss to see his reaction and respond in kind. Sometimes I would be invited outside and papers would be signed – for example, when I wanted my ailing mother to have a private phone and had to make a solo performance for the Minister of Communications.

As for “new Russians,” they tend to start laughing even before the end of my number, so they can fill their glasses, toast me and drink up. And the military make very appreciative audiences. They listen quietly and give me a long applause. But there is little laughter. The cons are the best. They are absolutely relaxed. They have nothing to lose. They laugh themselves hoarse. The guards sit to the side, watchful and reserved. Some of them may start giggling, only to receive a stern look from a senior officer and shut up. Diplomats laugh discreetly, shake hands, and leave silently.

Every beau monde gathering ends with heavy drinking. Men toast women bottoms up, and women respond by toasting their friends, sipping and sipping and sipping. Toasts are raised clockwise and the other way around.

I distinguish my audiences by cities. The most exacting are in Odesa and the most responsive in Kyiv. In the capital I do not have to make pauses waiting for the response. They start guffawing immediately.

Q.: You haven’t been writing much about politics lately. Why?

A.: Now that everybody is free to write about anything there is this feeling of repletion. My name is easily recognizable because of my straight-from-the-shoulder remarks. At the same time, politics has become an even dirtier game. After years of exhausting struggle we have built a system which is best described something we don’t need. We took our time debating the Constitution and finally enacted it, “simultaneously.” We have fought on barricades and elected our leadership. I mean the President. Now that we have one we shout that he is the wrong man. All those who built armored cars and tanks, are now screaming that they want the Communists. To provide workers with jobs we need a war. Our domestic producers cannot work properly, and so we can wear decent clothes. No one lives well in this country. Bankers get blown out of their apartments and limousines. Thieves are shot down and ministers get fired. Everyone seems to know how to rob a bank, but no one knows how to deposit money in it. Our stores are packed with goods. Everything is available, nothing in short supply, like before. Except that few can afford it. Starting with the 1917 Russian Revolution, only the “new Russians” have been granted the privilege. Changing colors and shades. Our government is debating the pension issue: when to start paying, at 60 or 65? And this with our statistical average life span of 59 years!

You open any newspaper, so what do you read? Dead-locked burlesque. Dead-locked journalism. Dead-locked people. Dead-locked history. Dead-locked ecology. And feeble-minded readers. Everybody. Or you read about bedtime manners and sex techniques. By God, it is though we spend all our time in bed, having sex.

Everyone wants to live a long and happy life, but try to find anyone who has had this experience. We have been promised happiness and fraternity. All we’ve got is violence, clowning, and misery. Yes, I do realize that I sound old and grumpy...

Q.: We know that you were offered to head the Ministry of Culture. Is it true that the offer came from Vladimir Zhyrynovsky?

A.: An interesting thing happened at Stanislav Govorukhin’s jubilee. And the audience was quite versatile, including Rutskoi and Ziuganov. In short, nobody to talk to. I took a look around and poured myself three fingers of vodka, downed it, and proceeded to converse with my inner voice. Then someone came over and handed me Mr. Zhyrynovsky’s visiting card, saying he wanted to talk to me in private. We had never met, but I would say something at a concert and he would reply in the Russian Duma, always ending at the same note: “Let’s get rid of him. His place is in Israel.” Considering our previous places of exile, this sounded quite humane. And so we met. He was with his aide and six bodyguards. He said I could have the Culture Minister’s portfolio. I was taken completely unawares and mumbled something about my impending exile in Israel. To this he said gruffly, “You join the LDPR and we’ll take care of the rest.” I said I had had a few drinks and couldn’t consider the offer soberly at the moment. I was handed several folders with program documents, whereupon they retired, boarding four Mercedes with flashing lights. It was then I realized how much a Jew could earn turning anti-Semitic.

Q.: What about you? What do you think your nationality is?

A.: I have dual citizenship (Russian and Ukrainian). I got in touch with President Leonid Kuchma and asked him to help solve this problem. He said, quite honestly, that there was nothing he could do officially, but he did something unofficially. I have two homes. One in Moscow and the other one in Odesa.

Photo by Serhiy DRUCHENKO:

THE ORDER OF NICHOLAS THE MIRACLE WORKER IS ONE OF ZHVANETSKY'S LATEST AWARDS

 

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