SEVAOBOROT SIGNATURE TUNE Seva Novgorodsev: This signature tune was first broadcast on the BBC's Russian service on November 8, (that was on November 7, and that's a huge difference, because Nov 7 was a Memorial Day of the Russian Revolution, one of the 3 biggest holidays in the USSR, hence the mentioning of "revolutionary program" below. ) 1987, that is 32 years ago, and this was, of course, a revolutionary program, because for the first time people went on the air without any script. They spoke freely, one could say, improvised, but what was even more scandalous, they opened a bottle of wine on the air and poured it out to all participants in real glasses so that glass clinking sound could be heard on the air, which we will now demonstrate with a colleague, Professor Thomas [Garza]. To your health! Thomas Garza: Thank you. And to your health! SN: I will briefly explain how the wine came about. In 1987, [USSR leader Mikhail]Gorbachev campaigned against alcoholism. And the best method he came up with was the destruction of vineyards. In the Crimea, and in the Caucasus, the vine that grew for decades, perhaps for centuries, was destroyed by large bulldozers. Some winemakers even commited suicide, because it was the tragedy of their lives. And in order to oppose this barbaric process, we asked for a bottle of wine for the show. Besides, there was an idea to recreate the atmosphere of an English club where gentlemen are sitting, drinking, but not getting drunk. That is, to show that the process of wine consumption may be civilized, and we wanted, so to speak, to become role models, to set an example. TG: That's a great tradition, I like it very much. SN: The British [BBC management] agreed, and for the whole 19 years a trolley would come each week, with the glasses and two bottles of wine. I remember the first time we asked: “Why two?” - they said: “Well, while you will drink one in the studio, a technician who records the show can't just sit and watch you drinking!” So for 19 years, we put one bottle in the studio, and gave another to the equipment room, and the technician, as a rule, could not finish one bottle himself, and at the end of the program, he would say in an apologetic voice: “Sorry, didn't quite manage” - and we carried a bottle to a night shift staff who would finish it. Now, when you know the background of the issue, and why the wine was there, we can talk about anything. TG: That's a great honor for me… SN: And what a honor for us! TG: I already know so much about you, and yet, of course, there are always some questions, some topics that are not yet fully covered, so to speak. I was at your lecture [at the University of Texas] two days ago, and unfortunately there was no time to ask all the questions I wanted, so I'll try now. Firstly: as you probably know, we now have a new generation of rock music listeners among our young people, especially thanks to the film Bohemian Rhapsody, which is not only about that band, Queen, but also about Live Aid 1985. I remember this concert very clearly, and I remember the fact that the Soviet band, Autograph, appeared for the first time live [for the Western audience]. We were so excited! I remember that we sat there and [the commentator] said: “In literally two or three minutes there will be Autograph band from Moscow, and you will see them live” And we thought, no way, this will never happen. And suddenly it was. So for them, our new students -- they now even understand what Live Aid was, that it was like a world event -- both in London and in Philadelphia -- I was studying in Philadelphia at the time... And now the question: you were already in London, what was your impression? Wembley Stadium, yes? SN: Well, of course, yes, the whole country has been raising money... But I can tell you a story about Autograph. When they arrived, naturally, BBC contacted them, and I met them (Autograph played from Moscow studio, they were not in the UK for Live Aid, so Seva's meeting with them was either earlier or later than Live Aid). They had this frontman, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, the guitarist (the Autograph's frontman name was Alexander Sitkovetsky). I think he also learned to play the violin. He is from a very musical family. And his uncle, [Dmitry] Sitkovetsky, whom I also met who was a guest of my show, is a great symphonic conductor (conductror and violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky, is a cousin, not uncle, of the Autograph's Alexander Sitkovetsky). Autograph were allowed to play [by the Soviet authorities] because they played very professionally, the music was smooth, conflict-free, they sang something about the peace, therefore ideologically they were acceptable both for the Soviet side and for the receiving side too. TG: They were published by [Soviet state-sponsored record publishers] Melodiya… SN: Yes. But the group did not exist for long (Autograph were active for 11 years, from 1979 to 1990), and later, when the market became open in 1991, no one needed them, because for rock and roll audience they smelled like the old Soviet government, censorship and all. I think this Dmitry Sitkovetsky then moved to the United States, and was engaged in the trade of musical instruments - apparently, importing from America to Russia. TG: Interesting! SN: I met him a couple of times. He recorded a great album named Zello, [music from] which I used as a jingle in my [Rock-Posevy] shows. So that was quite a family and quite a destiny. TG: Did they pick up that song, We Need Peace, themselves? SN: More probably, one of the official composers wrote it for them. TG: Specifically for that performance? (We Need Peace has been written by Arthur Berkut, a member of Autograph, to the lyrics by Naum Olev, a prominent Russian songwriter, who was, indeed, "official", ie allowed by the Soviet authorities, and writing mostly for the state-sponsored artists. Another song performed by Autograph during Live Aid concert was Vertigo, also written by Autograph member, Leonid Gutkin, also to the lyrics by Naum Olev ) SN: Soviet composers have defended their territory very well. They did not like amateur authors, and if you wanted to exist without conflict, you had to take songs from the Union of Composers. Well, first of all, they were, of course, written very professionally. Perhaps there was no sincerity in them, and therefore for the open rock-and-roll market these songs "did not shoot," as the Russians say. And everyone understood that the Soviet Union, since Stalin, every day called for peace, but at the same time was, three times a day, preparing for war, you see? There was a joke: “We will fight for peace so that there is no stone unturned!” TG: That's great! And how at that time - since you saw it all with your own eyes - how did it seem to you that the Soviet ensemble, the Soviet band, was playing live? SN: It was interesting to me, because at the time there was no connection with the Soviet Union. The Perestroika was just beginning, only the first steps. So I met my fellow musicians, with whom, if my life had turned out differently, I would, perhaps, have traveled together on tours. And it was important for me to plunge into this musician climate, for which I felt nostalgic. I did not feel nostalgia for the Soviet Union, for geography, for the places where I lived or studied, it all went away from me. But I didn’t have enough musicians around me. When a band is touring a big and rather hostile country where nothing is organized, with all these bad hotels where cold blows into the windows, with all these bad restaurants, where you can get poisoned in an instant, where everything is unsettled -- the musicians keep together as a family. They support each other with jokes, when they need to share a compartment in some smelly train or in bus made from plywood under Kuban brand, along bumpy roads to a concert and so on ... Therefore, I missed this climate of the musician fraternity. I met with them, and, of course, we talked with them in this vein, like musicians do. As for the perception from the English side, I liked that Bob Geldof, who started it all, he was a punk in the past, he didn’t brush his head, walking with disheveled hair, and saying with his Irish accent “Give us money! Give us money!" I liked him in that sense. And they, of course, succeeded, because they raised – I don’t remember how much money, but more than a million, that in 1985 was considerable amount. (according to various reports, between £40 and £50 million had been raised on the day of the concert and it is estimated that around £150 million in total has been raised as a direct result of Live Aid.) TG: Yes, both from England and from America, all this together, even for the next year money continued to come. SN: But you are right that for rock musicians this Live Aid with a billion people watching became a tremendous springboard, an impetus, because the whole world noticed that they are not only musicians but also socially concerned people, that they do care, that they have a conscience, that they want to help the starving -- in general, this was a very useful event for all. TG: It is interesting that at the same time, in 1985 (it was in the summer of 1986) - you also spoke about this in your lecture – there were these space bridges, [live TV shows between the USA and the USSR]. I remember very well how our Phil Donahue and the Soviet Vladimir Pozner were the hosts of these shows. It was at the same time - if I am not mistaken, again - in Cambridge - this is our Cambridge, near Boston, - the space bridge between Boston and Moscow (actually it was the space bridge between Boston and Leningrad) between women in both cities. The topic was “The Woman Question”, let's say. (it was called "Women Speak To Women") And there was - if again I am not mistaken - this famous phrase "There is no sex in the USSR." And of course, the whole world was laughing, because ... well, this is obvious. The question is this: for you - you have already did a whole lecture course on the topic of Sex, Drugs and Rock'n Roll - such an expression, such a phrase, that we have no sex in the Soviet Union - what does it mean? What exactly did she mean? SN: First of all, Comrade Stalin was a big purist ... TG: That's right… SN ... he did not tolerate any dissoluteness, and therefore the laws under Stalin were cruel, almost medieval. If a married man had some kind of affair, and the wife went and reported to the party organization that he was cheating on her, he was called to the party meeting, could be expelled from the party, fired from work, and in general he was in big trouble. There is a joke from that time: a man is summoned to a party committee, and they say: "Your wife complains that you are not performing your marital duties." He says: “I can't”, they say: “Why?” - “I am impotent”, and the party secretary yells to him: “First of all you are a communist !!”. You see, he did not even understand what “impotent” was, it did not occur to him. And I remember that medieval, almost Spanish Inquisition-like atmosphere concerning public morals. This began to change, of course, in the early sixties, when the sex revolution came from the West, and from a country called Hungary, the first contraceptive pill called the Infekundin began to be delivered to the Soviet Union. I remember joking about this - because I was married to a Tatar then, and the Tatar topic was close to me - I said that Infekundin was invented by a Tatar doctor Inekundinov. But these first pills liberated young girls - of course, only in the capital cities - Petersburg and Moscow, it didn’t go further. I remember when I first came to Rome in emigration, and then we went to Naples, and then we went to Herculaneum, the ancient city covered with ashes - among other excavations there were ancient brothels, lupanariums. And in these lupanarians we, Soviet emigrants, saw what is now called pornography: various pictures, poses, and I remember that I wrote in a letter that Ancient Rome, and these people, buried under the volcano, they are in terms of sexual development were well ahead of the modern Ryazan region, Kursk province and so on. Because the Soviet people were suppressed, nothing of this was known, so the culture of personal relationships, and family relations, suffered a lot because of this, I think. Although, maybe I am wrong, because families began to crumble with the emancipation of morals, before that families were stronger. TG: For you, such topics - I mean in the BBC programs - were banned? Or you could choose any topic? SN: The BBC, as a large corporation, in a sense slightly resembles the Soviet Union ... TG: Precisely… SN: ... they teach and educate you professionally, as a producer, as an editor, to the extent that you know exactly where the red line is. For example, an experienced editor in Soviet times did not even think consciously that of what's allowed and what's not - that was his sixth sense. TG: Who defines these limits, where are they? SN: Well, that's a general principle. For example, on the BBC - and the BBC began Russian broadcasts in 1946 - the gentlemen who ran the broadcasting service, they defined the principle: you can criticize ideology, you can criticize government, but the personal criticism is not allowed in any case. This principle of the BBC is still preserved, and if you turn on Soviet television, they simply scold each other: “you are an idiot, you are a crook,” and so on. [Seva probably means post-USSR Russian TV here, as personal comments had no place on the Soviet TV either] This is completely beyond what is permitted on the BBC. So if you are aware of the producer’s guidelines, then you can, from the Russian point of view, raise perilous topics, staying within the corporate limits of what is allowed on the BBC. And the situation was more or less the same from the Soviet side. As I always joked, “What you can say, we can not. And what you can not, we can. " Because you can do any personal comments on the air... TG: I wonder - since you talked about the Soviet Union, and then England - do you feel any difference between the United States and England in this sense? SN: You see, the liberation of a woman, which was proclaimed immediately after the [Russian 1917] revolution, led to strange things: almost all doctors, at least children’s, were women, and there were typical female professions that Americans cannot even imagine. For example, plasterer and painter were female professions. And plastering is a terrible job, because you need to do this cement or plaster... So there were women with strong arms who did all this. Or, say, the railway [construction]. In America you sent chain gangs to do this job – in the USSR it was a women's job. So the liberation of women sometimes turned into such a strange professional twists. But in general, women felt confident. For example, almost all primary school teachers were women. Half of the teaching staff were women, there were a lot of women in museums and theaters on the service side, and so on and so forth. Therefore, the issue of equality of rights with men did not arise, because women seemed to have enough fields for their activities, and even too many - because men did not go to the painting jobs, just women were sent there. TG: But was there equal pay for equal work, or…? SN: I think that in the Soviet Union the question of salary differences did not arise, because there was such a thing as staff list or a manning table. If you are a teacher, then you have a rate, it is the same for everyone. A woman or a man - it does not matter. In the Soviet Union there was no labor market, so everyone was employed, and the salary was, in principle, fairly uniform. If in today's America the difference between the lowest pay and the highest may differ in thousand percent, in Russia it was five grades. The plant director received 500 rubles, the engineer received 100. Well, the cleaning lady could receive 60. But, in principle, the spread was not that huge. Of course, poor engineers were jealous of the director, but they were jealous only five times, not a thousand. TG: Interesting. But out of all these delicate topics, what was your favorite, say, in your program? Let's say, the conversation began, and suddenly a topic arose... SN: We started [Sevaoborot] in 1987, and my favorite guests were, as I call them, famous historical traitors. TG: Like who? SN: Oleg Gordievsky, whose story is quite remarkable. And Viktor Suvorov, the author of numerous military history books. His real name is Vladimir Rezun, he was an officer of the GRU in Austria, and he defected... They had some clan wars there in the GRU, one group began to eat another, and he simply, so to speak, escaped from this and fled to England. But it was very difficult for him, because he had two death sentences on him. The GRU does not forgive traitors, and following [double agent and GRU Colonel Oleg] Penkovsky’s and other people's fate, he knew he was being hunted. I was introduced to him by [human rights activist Vladimir] Bukovsky. We agreed that I would go to Bukovsky's home, and meeting Suvorov there. Bukovsky lived in Cambridge then. I lived in London. I left the house well in advance, got into the car - and the car would not start: either the battery had died or the starter did not work, I don’t know - I called Bukovsky, and said: “The car broke down, I am going by train, maybe I’ll be late”. Finally I arrived at Cambridge, came to Bukovsky's place. Suvorov was sitting in the garden, seemingly nervous. And he told me, the first phrase: “Listen, Seva, in our business, either you come on time, or you don't come at all.” After that, I never was late for meetings with Suvorov. He explained to me that there is a rule in military intelligence: if you have a meeting with an agent of some kind, say, at 11 o'clock, you come to this place at 10, loop around, see if anyone is watching, make sure there is no surveillance, and so on. Therefore, if you waited for an hour, you will be on the spot at the exact moment. And since then I was very precise with him. There was also a very delicate situation with Suvorov, in terms of the contents of his book. At the time he wrote "Aquarium", and we first discussed the "Aquarium", it was not published yet, I read it only in manuscript. Suvorov analyzed the beginning of the World War II ... Sorry, that was not "Aquarium", but the other book, "Icebreaker"... He applied the rules and methods of the GRU to the analysis of the World War II, namely: they were all trained to payattention to small minor details that literally at your fingertip, but no one can put them together in the big picture, because this requires a special military intelligence technique. For example, before the beginning of the war, they tracked the price of sheep skins on the European market, and it was known that these skins did not rise in price. This means that no one buys them. This means that the Germans will not make warm coats for themselves. This means that they are going to end the [Eastern campaign] in literally three or four months, and if you drag the Germans into the Russian winter, they will all freeze and die. That's how it was done. It was all thanks to military intelligence. [apparently there are other theories, too] And Suvorov, using this technique, has found a number of historical evidence proving his theory that Stalin was the first to prepare a preemptive strike, that nearly a million parachutists were prepared, that light tanks were made that could remove tracks and go on European roads on wheels, that wagons and trains were concentrated at the western borders [of the USSR], on a narrow gauge, ready for Europe, that the Germans found more than one hundred thousand officers' chrome boots, in which the [Soviet] army, having entered Europe, was supposed to look smart, and so on, and so on. And Suvorov from all these little things gathered a completely different picture. His theory was in complete opposition to the established and academically supported theory — that Hitler had violated the treaty, and so on. And when I invited Suvorov, there were people at the BBC Russian who believed in traditional history and said: “Who is he airing ?! Some kind of tank officer, an impostor who wants to rewrite history? We are reading [military historian Dmitri] Volkogonov here! ”Everybody was against it: the Russian Academy and the English Academy. Because, as you know, scientists - if they spent half their life writing a book about something, they will not quickly change their mind. And I had a conflict then - hidden, English-fashioned one. I worked from home, and on Saturday there was to be Suvorov’s broadcast, live stream, and you know that on live stream – you say a word, and you won’t return it back. The Director of the Russian Service [David Morton] sent me a note with a motorcycle courrier, stating that "the person is ambiguous, the theories he expresses are not confirmed, and therefore I would ask you to remove him from the air." To which I replied to David - and then I had an English family, I felt like an Englishman, and I didn't give a damn about his opinion - I wrote to him: “Dear David, of course I am ready to take your opinion into account, but I will take off the air if only you can confirm that the views you expressed in the note is the official position of the BBC. " Obviously he was afraid to say such a thing, because it was his personal opinion, and Suvorov went on the air. If you take the first edition of "Icebreaker", then in the preface he remembers with gratitude the Sevaoborot team, because we broke through this ice - the book is called "Icebreaker", so we broke through ice, it went on the air, and everything else became history . And I am proud that I did not cave in to the management, and did that, however incautiously… TG: You mentioned that he was more than once on your show... SN: Actually he has participated 19 times afterwards… [in total Viktor Suvorov was a guest of 37 Sevaoborots, which makes him the most frequent guest of the show ever, ahead of second-placed Gordievsky, who was on 19 Sevaoborots] TG: Seriously?! SN: He would come with every single new book he wrote… TG: But was it your choice to have him that many times? SN: Sure, because " Icebreaker" has been sold in more than 10 million copies in Russia. (from 1992 to 2017, Icebreaker has been printed in 27 editions in Russia, slightly above 15 million copies) TG: Of course! Of course! SN: And all the subsequent books also were sold in millions. (only 6 of 19 Suvorov's books published after the Icebreaker were sold in more than one million copies in Russia, some of his books are still unpublished in Russian) If you invite such a guest, then half the country is listening. The BBC then realized that this was a normal editorial policy. We gave him some soft advice so that he would not do personal attacks, but would tell only facts. What he did. We were very friendly, and still are, when we are talking on the phone, he says: “The icebreaker is on the line!” TG: And who selected guests for the show? SN: That was me. At Sevaoborot it was my headache. I started the search well in advance, throwing a net, so to say. In general, the whole week was spent in searching, calling and so on. But when it was an empty week and no one appeared in London, we always had a reserve, which was listeners' letters. This was our favorite show, because we could just respond to the letters of the. We were three people in the team. I made the team on the principle of the Beatles, so that the voices were different, or "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", you know, Grumpy, and others… TG: Sleepy, Dopey etc... SN: Exactly. I was the neutral person who led the whole topic, then we had Leonid Vladimirovich Vladimirov (Finkelstein in real life), an old journalist with a brilliant training who was imprisoned in a Gulag camp, almost died there… He was a fierce anti-Stalinist, a man of incredible erudition and infinite journalistic curiosity. When the news came out, he would run to the radio or to the TV to listen to what had happened. He lived all his life with this journalistic energy and agility, until he died at the age of 91. And the third person was my friend, Alexey Leonidov on the air, Leo Feigin in life, the host of the jazz program, who brought me to the BBC. I loved him for his a beautiful tenor voice and for the fact he laughed easily, so I had a guarantee of reaction to my jokes, you know? Then again, Leonid Vladimirovich was such a materialist, he did not support any of our idealistic positions, and therefore we had such a balance: one materialist from the bygone era, a man who brilliantly knew the Soviet Union, I kind of led a general theme, and Alexey reflected on the UK current events. That's how we co-existed. But when we talked with a guest, they could wedge in as needed, because I didn’t know everything either, and even though I generally was prepared for a conversation, if it concerned any historical references, then Leonid Vladimirovich was the king. We joked about him that he was everywhere in time and space. At the North Pole, and when Gagarin took off, he stood there waving to him, and when Gagarin went down, he already met him with flowers, and so on. Leonid Vladimirovich always had contacts everywhere, in all spheres, at all times. Therefore, he could talk about the thirties, and the forties, and about the war ... The last detail about him: he participated in that training program for Stalin's paratroopers. He was a master of sports in skydiving, he made over a thousand jumps, so when the war started -- he was young then – but he was enrolled immediately, and he jumped to the partisans with a parachute, and then I don’t know how they took him out , but he was behind the line of the enemy - it was necessary to fly over the Germans ... He told terrible stories, I will not retell them to you now, otherwise you will not sleep. TG: Don't tell please! That's very interesting. You mentioned these letters of your listeners… Could you describe your listeners? Who they were? SN: It all begun… They were teenagers who needed to make an order [to play a particular music in Rock-Posevy], or later we came up with a quiz to win records, well, that's how it started ... TG: Was it in 1970s or later? SN: I think it all begun in the early 1980s. First programme made by the letters was aired in October 1979. (Actually it was on March 30, 1979, after the first ever letters were mentioned on the air on December 1, 1978. There was as many as 8 episodes dedicated entirely to the letters in 1979 alone) And then they realized it was possible to write, and the letters were actually read and you were on the air, and then I would send them a confirmation letter with my signature… TG: 15 seconds of fame? SN: …yes, or I started to send them actual records… And people became actively engaged. And as this epistolary genre developed, people who wrote funny, diverse, and witty letters were put forward. Do you understand? - and soon appeared that group of listeners who more and more often went on the air, and people who were dull did not go on the air, do you understand? And so the epistolary genre with its heroes was created. And when Sevaoborot started, it was the end of the 1980s, they started to allow the mail to come through, and those who understood the genre and what kind of letters were in demand, began to write to us like this. Some were very funny, very witty ... TG: For example? SN: I remember professional humorists from “Krasnaya Burda” magazine wrote us. The magazin is now still published, but by a different team. We were rolling on the floor laughing when we read their letter. Like, “Here we come to the museum, and there are three paintings. The first: “Immaculate Conception”, the second picture: “Immaculate Conception in a Hammock”, and the third picture: “Immaculate Conception Standing on Skis”. TG: I see, I see. SN: That gives you an idea. TG: That's simply brilliant. SN: And, of course, the fact that we were live on the air. Firstly, remember that Sevaoborot was the first program [of the BBC Russian Service] to be broadcasted live. Now, when the entire Russian radio is live, few people will remember that it was a template, according to which everything was made later. Well, first of all, we drank wine there, joked, the conversation was spontaneous, but quite prepared at the same time, because in the first programs the train of thought was scripted by me and the producer: “He asks this, and then goes on to this, and so on” . About two or three years later I learned to keep the structure of the entire hour in my head. TG: Like in a talk show? SN: It was a talk show, yes, but you just remember the whole structure. And we played music - either the songs related to the topic, or we just asked the guest what he wanted to listen to, and how it fits into his story. So there was an element of music, and everything, and of course, the program was very popular until it was closed in 2006. TG: What do you think, why you or your programs were so popular? SN: You know, if you ask the nightingale why he sings so beautifully, he will stop singing. TG: I understand. The question is quite... unfair, I know. SN: But the secret, in general, is that ... First of all, I had been touring Russia with a band for 12 years before [the emigration], and I understood the audience: to what they react to, and to what don't. It was very important for me not to leave people indifferent. Then, during the tour, I saw enough of the hardships of young people, especially young girls in faraway towns, who felt absolutely miserable. It was almost like slavery. The men were all around, macho-culture as can be, everyone drinks a lot, all the girls are grabbed, and can’t argue, and then there is a lot of gossip in small cities: if she’s met someone, the whole city already knows... I heard a lot of creepy stories from women's life, so I was also very sympathetic towards them, towards young people. Therefore, I tried to entertain them, I tried to show them that there is some other way of life, more friendly... In general, I treated them like pals, and it was important for me that the program was captivating and funny - I don’t know why, but I felt it was important, probably after my touring experience. Every week I sat down to write my scripts, and I was very tormented - because I had to come up with something interesting and funny, and I am not related to this audience, not by age nor genre: I was already forty-something years old... So I had dozens of what I call “barn books” - such, you know, big book, you know, huge, where the farmer records how much wheat he sold. So I wrote down all the drafts of the jokes there, and what comes into my head, and so on. I had some backlog, and some list of possible jokes ... TG: And that archive still exists? SN: Yeah, on my bookshelf. TG. Great. That's great. SN: I have some jokes in there… For example, an advice to electricians: make sure you are vaccinated against electric shock. TG: That's a good advice by the way. SN: …or to painters: there is a good paint -- striped and checkered. Or… there were posters in USSR: some worker asks the young people: "Come join us, work with us, forge, build ..." and I had a project of a similar poster: a concrete worker - a person pouring concrete - is standing in front of this liquid concrete, and he says to the youth: “Today’s slush will be a stone tomorrow!”. They are young, unformed - they are slush, do you understand? But they will harden, and they will lead the country tomorrow. Such is the motto of the concrete worker. TG: Do you visit Russia often now? SN: Now is a harvest time. Even not so much a harvest, but a time to trade dried fruits. TG: I see… SN: I am now working in a new genre. It all started Goa, India. There is a village of Arambol with a long beach - maybe 5 miles long. Russians go there to spend the winter. About twenty thousand people come every winter. The place is cheap, warm, many Russians are there, there is a [Russian] cultural center, they organize concerts, dances and everything. And there... But there is esoteric music. It a place for people who can smoke weed or practice yoga – the people who enjoy Indian esoteric thing. [Singer Boris] Grebenshchikov from “Aquarium” went there on his own or with a bandmate - and after the concert… they have a cultural center there, called Ash, under the open sky, on a river bank, under the trees, warm and beautiful, the lights flicker, some artists paint magical paintings during the concert ... And they asked Grebenshchikov: "Boris Borisovich, who else would we invite here?" - and Boris Borisovich, for some reason, answered without hesitation: "Invite Seva, he will tell you some stories here." And the organizer, Vasya Ash, said later: "You know, Seva, if the guru says something without thinking, it must be done." And so they invited us, me and [wife] Olga went to faraway India, flew 10 hours, and there was a concert. Well, the first concert was not well-prepared and didn't went quite well, but the genre was born, it became clear which way to move, and then these dried fruits, as I said, they were already in Bulgaria, in Varna, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Ukraine - Kharkov, Poltava [and Kiev] - and most recently in Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. Moreover, the Russian tour was organized by a professional team whose owner I have known for many years. As a young man - his name is Ed Ratnikov - he came here to America, and worked in California with rock bands as roadie - handled boxes to them. He worked for several years, studied the tour business, returned to Russia, opened his concert agency. Now this is a super-mega agency, and now they are bringing the German group Rammstein to Russia, for the expected attendance of 60,000. Can you imagine how difficult it is? So, they organized this tour for me to St. Petersburg, Moscow and Yekaterinburg. In Yekaterinburg we performed in the Yeltsin Center. This is a very interesting building, and the guys who came there with me were very impressed with the Yeltsin Museum, and were very touched because there is some kind of very strong emotional message in its exhibition. TG: Interesting… SN: Yes. In Moscow, it was in the Central House of Artist - and in St. Petersburg it was in the famous Gaz Culture House... So this is how the genre was born, and you see, my life carries me on somehow. And other people make connections, so we will see. Now in Ukraine very interesting things happen, it is not clear who they will elect [as President], but it is clear that there should be some kind of change in the political climate - and the people who have organized the Ukrainian tour to me, are going to make a TV series called “Meet Ukraine!” - say, a gentleman from abroad - with all these claims of gentlemanhood - will travel to different parts of Ukraine and get acquainted with the hidden gems. I also offered them that I will actively study the Ukrainian language in all its regional modifications. Well, just a few phrases, I suppose. This was agreed in general, but now, during the elections, it all slowed down for some time. I just want to say that the horizons opening up are completely different, and you never know. In addition, we have here the creator and webmaster of seva.ru website, Sergey Pantsirev. On that website we opened a store, on pay-what-you-want scheme. There is a recommended price - say, an audio book may cost 9.99 there - but the day before yesterday, some insolent person bought this book in three copies, paying 1 cent. But we are not against it, the principle is more important. But I didn’t even emailed him my usual “Thank you for your support ...”, I thought, “you will not receive a message from me for a penny!” But this is what it says: we have a little commerce, some books are sold . We do not depend on the publishing houses, the books are either electronic or in audio form, they can be downloaded and listened to. So whatever we get, it's all ours. TG: So, pay-what-you-want? SN: There was a person from a bank, a huge fan, who even paid some amount with a few trailing zeroes. That happened only once, but… As a gift, you know. So anything can happen. TG: And a very straightforward question: do you see a new Seva Novgorodsev in the new generation of young Russians? SN: There is a popular interviewer, his name is Dudj, D-U-D-J. Yound people like him because he asks obscene, direct, impudent questions, such as “When was the last time you had sex?” And so on. After such questions in England, a person would tear off the microphone and leave with dignity. But in Russia it works, because such a semi-hooligan generation has grown, which grew during the period of wild privatisation – when former socialist state money was divided among a small number of people, and now there's a record number of millionaires and billionaires in poor Russia, where they had to invent jargon words for large amount of money -- million is “lyam” or “lemon”, and billion is “yard”: “I gave him two yards”. That is, people operate with huge amounts, and often in cash. I know the story of how a Russian came to Switzerland to buy a huge castle. And he brought the money in a case - in a hard case from a double bass. That is, this whole huge thing was filled with American banknotes. TG: Wow. Wow! SN: And your pack of a hundred of hundred dollar bills, 10 thousand US dollars, is called "cutlet" in Russian slang. So he just stuck these "cutlets" into this double bass case and brought the money. So, people who grew up in this situation are completely different people. They are tougher, they are rougher, and if parents want to raise civilized people, they usually send them to study abroad. TG: To Europe… SN: Anywhere really. Therefore, the separation occurs. And this Dudj caters to today's market. He not only asks rude questions, he is in principle a young man of a strong temperament, with a good voice, so he has his advantages. But Seva Novgorodtsev, who would be sympathetic to the audience, who would try to appeal to some positive emotions, and to expand consciousness -- maybe there are such [media] people, but they are not particularly popular now. TG: It's difficult to define, right? SN: Any time has its heroes. TG: Don't you think that a lot depends on the time in which you live, on what happens around, what is happening right now in the country, in the world and so on? SN: Of course. TG: Not only on people? SN: The people of intelligentsia, especially those who remember what happened in the cultural life of Russia, react with horror to what is happening on Channel One of ORT [Russian state TV] (Channel One is not called ORT from 2002). The worst thing is that there is a hardening of character, a decline in the moral understanding of life, society and people - and the country will have to live with this burden. New barbarism is being brought up, and the new TV Huns flooded Russia. There is, of course, an opposition to all that - but this is an implicit opposition, it may not have much access to TV audience, but… As they used to gather in the kitchens to tell anti-Soviet jokes and talk about the most intimate things... It may come back to the kitchens, in Moscow, in Leningrad (St Petersburg) and so on. But in any case, the new opposition - there is a lot of it among young people - they are in opposition to the authorities, and there is a principle: “decent people do not watch TV”. The TV is is called "zombie box" Decent people go to some cafes, go to some of their theaters, go to some societies, circles, I don't know, artists unions, and so on - that is, what happened when we were young. We played jazz, and we didn’t want to have any contacts with the Soviet authorities. Now it's all coming back to this. TG: Finally: do you consider yourself an optimist or a pessimist? SN: Well, when I'm alone and I have to write another book, then I'm a pessimist. But in general, for people, I am certainly an optimist, because this is my function, as if the higher forces have put me on this job, I have no right to lose heart, and I have to help people to the last breath. And this is what I'm going to do. TG: Great, brilliant, thank you very much. SN: Thank you.