Prilepin - Tolstoy: “The Motherland is more important than your freedom. Prilepin latest publications With Bulgakov on friendly terms

1. Ukrainian media is broken by cognitive dissonance. Some write that Putin sent me, while others write that Putin is purging field commanders, since he needs to give up Donbass, and therefore I will be purged tomorrow.

Guys, you will somehow decide.

2. My dear critic Kostya Milchin writes that I will soon get bored and come home. Kostya, I have been in Donbass for three years, since December 15th I have been working as an adviser to the head of the DPR, and since October 16th as a deputy battalion commander. What are you talking about? I'm still waiting for you to get tired of scratching your tongues at each other and being condescendingly ironic. But I definitely can’t wait for this.

Because: who are you and what are you without your irony?

3. All handshake political scientists in Russia and Europe united in the prediction that my private appearance there is a declaration and renewal of war. I’ll repeat it once again for the stupid: I’ve been stuck there almost nonstop for a year now, and I’ve been wearing shoulder straps for five months. The battalion began to be created in July.

What you have now learned about this is not geopolitics. It's just you slowing down.

4. I did not give an interview for reasons of principle all this time.

The decision to tell Sasha Kots the details was born spontaneously, on the eve of a planned ten-day vacation, due to the fact that I need to make large-scale purchases for the battalion and at the same time present a new book. I decided to tell this at the same time, before the Ukrainian Armed Forces photographers copied me in positions. Everything will be more fun.

But for some reason, even Channel One says that the battalion was created yesterday, and yesterday I received the shoulder straps of a major.

Damn, you're adults. Do you even understand what it means to assemble a battalion? Several hundred soldiers? Collect, arm, equip, make a coherent combat unit? Bring to position?

Do you think all this happened on the day of Kots’ interview? Some savages, by God.

5. In short, I would ask everyone to calm down. Everything is fine. We're working, brothers.

There is no need for revelations, funeral parables, or hearty toasts. I'm not doing anything new.

I do everything the same as before.”

What might the author of the film “Kolyma” know about real fear? The superficial, not very smart documentary film by journalist Dudya “Kolyma” was watched by 10 million people in a few days. The video has over half a million likes. The meaning of the film is banal to the point of...

30.04.2019

Writer Zakhar Prilepin harshly criticized journalist and video blogger Yuri Dud's film about Kolyma, suggesting that money for it was given in the West; Dmitry “Goblin” Puchkov devoted an analysis to the facts from the film Dudya with historian Klim Zhukov….

23.07.2018

Can the fate of Donbass be decided by a popular vote? The Russian President allegedly proposed to the US President to hold a referendum on the territory of Donbass. In order to identify the real preferences of the region's residents in the fourth year of the war. Let all European observers come and observe...

09.07.2018

Writer Zakhar Prilepin announced his resignation from his post as deputy battalion commander of the army of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). “In Greater Russia, during my two years of service in Donbass, I have accumulated a lot of pending and unsolvable matters, in this...

30.05.2018

For a long time Arkasha was sure that it was he who shepherded his flock. And it was the flock who shepherded him. He came up to meet him himself, at a literary seminar in Lipki near Moscow. It was, it seems, 2004. We sat with the writer Sasha Karasev. Babchenko was the tallest of us, a meter, a meter...

14.02.2018

Writer and political instructor of one of the DPR militia battalions Zakhar Prilepin confirmed the death in Syria of retired GRU captain Igor Kosoturov, who went to the Arab Republic from Donbass. “To avoid false talk, one more person died...

12.12.2017

We are informed about Syria: more than 67 thousand square kilometers of territory, more than a thousand settlements, 78 oil and gas fields and 2 phosphate ore deposits have been liberated. 6956 aircraft sorties and more than 7 thousand helicopter sorties were made. More than 32 thousand militants, 394 tanks were destroyed...

07.11.2017

About who planted the bomb under the empire and those who saved the country from collapse When discussing the revolution, its opponents walk in the same circle, diligently reproducing the same, in our opinion, erroneous arguments. 1. Even if you really love the monarchy,...

15.10.2017

More than 20 thousand neo-Nazis marched through Kyiv Columns of young neo-Nazis - more than twenty thousand people - marched through the streets of the glorious city of Kyiv. We celebrated the 75th anniversary of the formation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Remember this great joke from 2014: “Show us...

I once wrote about Gorky. Good article.
Suddenly they sent me a link. Here, read it.
http://stnmedia.ru/?id=40119
""""
An endlessly bitter song
We will hear and cry. If you haven't gone completely deaf.
At first Gorky was very good. He was almost as good as Lenin. Gorky played chess with Lenin, and for a long time no one had the right to guess how that game ended. It could only end in friendship! Only with laughter! Vladimir Ilyich laughs boisterously, and a tear appears in his squinted eye. Alexey Maksimovich laughs out loud, and tears flow freely from his affectionate, slightly dog-like eyes. Sorrento fishermen trample nearby and also laugh.

Gorky loved people, thought a lot about them, helped them a lot, and only considered the penguin stupid. Gorky wrote fairy tales and adored children. To kiss someone small, he had to bend down. Because of this, he became stooped and somehow, perhaps, shy. Even from a distance of half a century one could feel that Gorky’s mustache was ticklish. When Gorky bent down to kiss the child, Korney Chukovsky froze with happiness and finally understood from whom he had based his Aibolit.

Gorky became a public figure, wandered around Rus', noticed and described Chelkash and Danko to us. Chelkash was Russian, Danko was international, but we liked both. Gorky was not an aristocrat and was the first to compete with the literary aristocracy, in which he beat blue blood and white bone. Gorky lived such a rich life that everyone, except Leo Tolstoy and Lenin, felt like children next to him. In literature, after the death of Tolstoy and Chekhov, Gorky became the eldest. Not only in Russian, but even in the world. Tolstoy gave him his staff. Gorky could have taken Tolstoy’s plow, but decided to leave it to the peasants in Yasnaya Polyana. Chekhov gave him his pince-nez. Tuberculosis could also have given, but Gorky had his own. Gorky could look Mayakovsky eye to eye - while everyone else looked up at Mayakovsky. Gorky could write about Blok and the prostitute whom Blok visited, but did not do anything with her, but just sat and was sad. Nobody asked why Gorky found that same prostitute. Yesenin read Gorky a song about a dog, so that Gorky would praise, and Gorky would praise. Everyone wanted Gorky's praise. Then Blok, Yesenin, Mayakovsky died, and Gorky praised them again: it was as if he had an innate right to do so.

All writers then wanted to be like Gorky. Leonid Andreev wanted to be like Gorky, but died early. Serafimovich wanted to be like Gorky, but he wrote one great book and got tired. Fyodor Sologub wanted to be like Gorky and pretended that his “Little Demon” was born from Gogol and Dostoevsky, but also from Gorky! Bunin pretended that he did not want to be like Gorky, but everyone knew that if he whispered “Gorky” in Bunin’s presence, Bunin would definitely break something: a pen, a secretary, a gramophone, an iPhone. Zaitsev and Shmelev wanted to be like Gorky, but they left for Paris and that’s it. Sergeev-Tsensky wanted to be like Gorky, but he didn’t go anywhere, but he should have. Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy was almost like Gorky, but everyone secretly knew that Tolstoy was a swindler and a count. Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov most of all in his life wanted to live like Gorky, but he died without waiting for a similar fate.

Gorky made everyone smarter: at first he didn’t leave, even though he could have, then he left and didn’t have to return, but he returned anyway, and everyone was glad to see him. Even those who were not very happy, diligently, until their cheekbones ached, feigned joy.

Gorky saw through people and understood the essence of things. Things were afraid of Gorky. He wrote a huge novel about the life of Klim Samgin, which few people read, but many watched as a movie. At the time when this movie came out, Gorky was sky-high. And suddenly something broke. Some boy shouted from the bushes that Gorky had deceived everyone and that he was generally bad. It seems the boy had a beard. His name was Sasha, like Pushkin and Lenin’s older brother. His patronymic was Isaevich, as if it were some kind of prophet. The boy told how Gorky went to the Solovetsky camp. In the Solovetsky camp he was met by street children who conspired to hold the Pravda newspaper upside down so that Gorky would understand their hint: lies everywhere. He understood their bitter hint and took one street child to a secret room, where he learned the whole terrible truth about the camps. Gorky burst into tears, kissed the homeless child’s beard, promised to tell Stalin and Leo Tolstoy about everything, and left. The homeless children hid and began to wait for the commission to arrive, kill all the security officers, and dissolve the camps. Instead, it got even worse, and the homeless children were sent to a penal battalion. It turned out that Gorky didn’t love anyone: he didn’t love Russian men, he didn’t love Blok, he didn’t love Yesenin, he didn’t love Mayakovsky, he didn’t like priests, he didn’t like the Black Hundreds, he didn’t like his children either, he only loved his adopted son, but that was all there, too. as they say nowadays, it’s difficult. Next it turned out that Gorky’s novel “Mother” is a bad novel, and the mother in it is bad, because she is for the dirty Bolsheviks, and not for the democrats or the beautiful gendarmes, “The Song of the Petrel” is a bad song, because you need a storm , but we need a great Russia, and in the play “At the Bottom” there is nothing at all about fishing. Of all that Gorky wrote in modern times, only “Untimely Thoughts” was suitable - they were almost like Bunin’s “Cursed Days.” But due to the fact that Gorky later changed his mind and did not condemn Solovki, any of his untimely thoughts turned out to be annulled. We were also told that Lenin ordered “Mother” from Gorky as Bolshevik propaganda and paid him with party gold. The party's gold had previously been expropriated by a certain Koba, robbing a bank. Gorky kept the gold in Capri under his bed in a black suitcase. Sometimes Gorky looked at his gold, but if guests entered without knocking, he sharply pushed the suitcase under the bed with his heel. So two stripes remained on the floor, which memoirists often noted in their memoirs. Stalin lured Gorky to Moscow by promising him another suitcase of gold. But instead he asked for the old suitcase to be returned. Gorky had already spent all his gold on servants and life by the sea, so he began to read the tyrant a fairy tale about a girl and death in order to pity him. The tyrant heard poorly, and understood “girl” as “grandfather.” From his pipe, he poured poison into Gorky’s tea, because if grandfather wanted death, how could he refuse him? So Gorky died, although he could have lived another 100 years.

We could witness how Pelevin and Sorokin bark at Gorky, and he bends four over to look at them, takes each of them in his arms and, looking at them, laughs. And the tears flow. But we witnessed how Gorky was kicked out of all European theater venues, although he previously competed with Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov in the number of productions and most often beat them. Gorky was then kicked out of the Russian school curriculum. And for some time we lived without Gorky and even got a little used to it. Gorky exists, but it’s as if he doesn’t exist - only some kind of monument stands on Gorky Square in the former city of Gorky. In fact, Gorky remained exactly what he was. Gorky is a titan. We should be happy that he still sits on the Volga Escarpment and looks at the water, watching how the Oka and Volga meet. We are involved in this water, in this sky, in the land on which Gorky walked, in his word. Gorky was good and bad, honest and deceitful, generous and impassive - he was a man, not a monument.

from the author of the post Surge Blavat: Today, reading the headlines and then the articles that interested me on the Internet, I wrote a very sharp adjective, “The Madness of the Eastern Partnership.” It’s good that I didn’t have time to publish it, but noticed Zakhar Prilepin’s article in Free Press. I will publish the gag anyway, only later, but what Prilepin writes is relevant for us in Russia. We cannot, unlike the USA and the EU, ignore the “log in our own eye”. An article by Zakhar Prilepin about “geeks” in law enforcement agencies, but there are also such in the deputy corps, in local legislative assemblies and administrations of regions and republics of Russia. What is the value of the “criticism” of the Deputy Head of the Komi Republic Chernov about stickers on cars for May 9 - I understand this as a very strong inflection or deflection in front of someone and a misunderstanding of his role as a member of the government, or maybe the official wants to “make a statement” about himself!? Is there a place for such critics in power? No! They are no different from the Russia-hating outsiders from the “fifth column”, and especially they have “proliferated” quite a lot in St. Petersburg, I state with great regret...

We lack such articles and conversations about internal problems, one of which is touched upon by Zakhar Prilepin, in the media, on Radio and TV. We got carried away by other people's problems, leaving our own "in the background", however, the so-called "other people's problems" directly concern our country... I will publish my article “The Madness of the Eastern Partnership” later, and now about internal problems. By the way, go to the website -

there are interesting, relevant materials from young Russian writers and journalists.

Zakhar Prilepin

about the “fifth column” in the ranks of law enforcement officers

Of course, there is a “fifth column”. There is no point in saying that she is not there if she is not hiding.

There are people for whom hatred of Russia - religion, physiology, the essence - they are no longer able to overcome themselves. It’s as if they were created to hate her, to wish for her a different past, a different present and either a future according to their recipe, or none at all. They pronounce nothing else with such voluptuous feeling than prophecies about the “inevitable collapse of Russia”, about the “collapse of the empire, which is happening before our eyes.”

But all these people are known by name, the harm from them can be measured, if not in grams, then in circulation and likes, and, ultimately, they fit perfectly into the overall picture: if life is a forest, then in this forest all living creatures should be a little space. Especially the one who is doing her usual thing: sharpening or eating away something.

A statehood that crumbles because a tree beetle knocked it down or a woodpecker knocked on it is a bad statehood.

The beetle must eat, the woodpecker must chisel, and statehood must stand. Culture is a living tree, not a telegraph pole. There is a place for everyone on a living tree, but only for a lineman on a pole.

The living creature that mimics raises far greater questions for me personally.

They look, say, like wolves, but they themselves are jackals. They look like moose, but in reality they are skunks. They are called forest nurses, but if you look closely: rats.

Now I’ll tell you with an example how this happens.

I have one who has known me for many years, Nizhny Novgorod “friend of Russia” Sasha Zaitsev.

A legendary political activist, participant in many protests, a fearless and kind guy. Last summer, like most of the National Bolsheviks, Zaitsev went to Donbass as a militia member.

He returned back before the New Year - having fought for almost six months.

He fought in the Donetsk unit “Ryazan” and, among other things, participated in the assault on the village of Marinovka: a corridor to the Russian border for the removal of refugees was successfully created there. Then he served with the legendary General Sergei Petrovsky “Khmury”, head of the DPR intelligence department.

The other day Zaitsev went with friends to a cafe here in Nizhny Novgorod.

One comrade had a little too much and Zaitsev took him home.

Near the store, Zaitsev sat his friend down on a bench, ran in for three minutes for cigarettes, and when he returned, his friend had already been tied up by the police department.

They asked Zaitsev for documents - he reached into his pocket and found a DPR militia ID.

The document caused an unexpected reaction: Zaitsev was also tied up.

They were taken to police department No. 4 of the Moskovsky district of Nizhny Novgorod.

Sasha says: “I couldn’t even think that this would cause such aggression among the police.” To begin with, they told me that they would hand me over to the FSB for being a mercenary. I explained that I was not a mercenary, but a volunteer who did not receive a salary. This was followed by a tirade from one of the policemen: “Because of you, assholes, our salaries were cut!” Then the serviceman switched to geopolitics. They say that to him and his “comrades in arms” “Crimea... did not fall!” From the outside it looked like this: three cops were sitting and taking turns barking at how bad I was. One of them asked me: who did you fight for? I replied that I was defending the Russian people. After this phrase, one of them hit me in the face, I recoiled. Then he wrapped a belt around his hand and began hitting me on the back and head. I really wanted to hit back, but I understood that I would immediately receive a prison sentence for attacking a government official. A couple of minutes later they kicked me into the cell. In the morning, an acquaintance of ours came, gave the “fine” to the police - and we were released.

Actually, that's the whole story.

This is not just one - in this case the tongue does not dare to say “policeman” or, in the old fashioned way, “militiaman” - these are three “garbage” at once, arrogant faces, crazy with permissiveness and disgracing not just the uniform, but the very name of the Russian person.

Boys from all over Russia go to fight for the freedom of their loved ones, perform unprecedented feats, die - and in police department No. 4 of the Moskovsky district of Nizhny Novgorod there are three - or more? - the brutalized ghoul and mock.

I have already repeatedly, raising my head up, addressed my state: what do you think, state, I asked and ask, who will protect you if trouble happens?

Militia boys, or these bribe-takers and sadists posing as law enforcement officers? Or, perhaps, the depraved growth, nurtured by the Yakimenko brothers and dissolved in the haze at the first shots in the Donbass?

No one is answering this question yet; although the answers are obvious.

Zaitsev, without hesitation, went to the forensic bureau, where he recorded traces of beatings, and wrote two statements - one to the same 4th department, and the other to the police’s own security department.

The OSB conducted an inspection. It turned out that Zaitsev’s presence in the department was evidenced only by a note in the duty department log. No protocols were filled out.

A few days later, in hindsight, a protocol appeared with an already paid fine, which the servicemen initially probably put in their own pockets.

Now the prosecutor's office is dealing with Zaitsev's statement.

Well, let's see how it ends.

Victory Day is just around the corner: they say there is a patriotic upsurge among the people. They no longer know where to tie the St. George ribbons.

On the eve of the holiday, I want to declare with all responsibility: I do not want to live with such police in the same city. Because such policemen become policemen in a minute.

Let them go dig ditches, let them be given a stick with a nail and let them collect leaves in the parks, we don’t have enough working people, and there’s too much garbage around.

I would like to see a report on how these three former employees of Police Department No. 4 were stripped of their shoulder straps.

Finding them is just a matter of extending your hand, no difficulty at all.

And if there is no such report, then our government and our Nizhny Novgorod generals are “protecting” the scoundrels. And we will remember this.

In this case, all your ostentatious patriotism is worthless, dear fellow countrymen from large offices.

People sometimes look back and are suddenly horrified. They are not just surprised, but rather horrified.

My generation grew up a quarter of a century ago: it’s scary to say anything. Almost like in the book about the three musketeers.

In 1991 I graduated from school. In the August days of the collapse of the USSR, I found myself in Moscow, wandering around and looking at people. People marched back and forth in excited columns.

Essentially speaking, they were also in trend then, in fashion - young democrats, heralds of perestroika, supporters - what were they talking about on every corner then? - “team contracting”, “glasnost”, “open borders”, “invisible hand of the market”, “repentance”.

Repentance is as necessary as fish oil. If you don't want to, drink it.

Now I secretly assume that two-thirds of those who then walked around Moscow and all other cities of Russia, shouting democratic slogans and campaigning for Boris the world of Nikolaevich, do not want to tell their grandchildren about this, many are simply embarrassed, others are bitterly ashamed , in general, the majority pretends that this did not happen, because it could not have happened.

But okay, politics. Here, as one of my good comrades says, “one can argue.”

I remember other things too.

When today there are huge queues to fall to the holy relics or venerate the icon of the Mother of God, I drive away the thought that a good half of the same people at one time charged water in jars under the guidance of a psychic Chumak and treated the kidneys, liver and pancreas, listening to the sermons of a psychic Kashpirovsky.

We looked at the TV screens and charged, placing jars of water around us. This, too, was a fashion - deafening, widespread, inexplicable.

Walking along the Arbat in August 1991, even I, a 16-year-old teenager, wondered how, how my quite enlightened country had reached such a point... what?

Yes, anything: unbridledness, recklessness, stupidity, meanness, openness, sincerity.

They asked me to sign for the restoration of the monarchy, people passed by chanting “Hare Krishna!”, pagans with ornate pagan swastikas walked towards them, people with “If you want to lose weight - ask me how” signs scurried between them, here they played thimbles, preached Adventists, Scientologists, Baptists, anti-fascists, telepaths, castrati; sloppily dressed people saved Russia from the Zionist conspiracy, intelligently dressed people with glasses saved Russia from an all-Russian pogrom, the date of which they knew to the minute - and the pogrom was supervised by KGB generals, also known by name; students called the country to an ax - although they themselves had clearly never held any axes in their hands, others found relief from all problems by dousing themselves with ice water, which they demonstrated here, leaving dampness behind everywhere, others, carrying out the circulation of fluid in the body, drank this , which is not necessary to talk about in a decent place, and they tried to treat others, while others drank everything in a row - and seemed to be the healthiest at this celebration of life.

But if only the capital would go crazy, finding itself in the crosshairs of dozens of fashion trends.

In order to be convinced of the horror of what happened to us, I didn’t have to go far: it was enough to go to any club - city or countryside - where young people, my peers, spent their simple leisure time.

Normal boys sewed red stripes into their tights - and whole cities walked around like that with stripes: the latest industrial Cossacks? Just dumbasses? Who were they? What happened to them?

Do you remember this coloring of girls’ faces? Remember their hairstyles and what color the high school girls dyed their hair?

The wildest jungle, the most cunning jungle animals, could not reflect those magnificent colors. If the wise old chameleon were offered to hide in the hairstyle of a Russian high school student in the “era of change”, he would go crazy! - he would try all his possibilities, turn on the “autumn tree”, “bright yellow foliage”, “back of a hippopotamus”, “universal dirt”, “dust”, “frozen lava”, “night fire”, “thatched roof” mode “,” “I’m a banana, just a banana,” “worldwide cooling has returned, the first, not the most successful, snow has fallen in two hundred thousand years,” “okay, okay, now I’m a snake, I’m keeping calm” - and on the next attempt I would explode to hell .

What did they use to dye their manes? How did they curl them? Where did they find lipstick and mascara to bring themselves to such a state?

Demons! They were like lost demons.

I also remember girls in jackboots - these grenadier boots, which then symbolized courage and enlightenment; I remember how the singer Valeria performed in them, sang a folk song; At the university, some of my fellow students also wore these boots: at least until the girls of easy virtue, looking for luck along the illuminated routes, changed into the same boots.

Now, I’ll assume that they are embarrassed to wear such boots in brothels, except perhaps in some completely incomparable role-playing game, like “Madame Grenadier and her trained guilty soldier.”

And we listened - what did we listen to, what kind of music, if I may say so?! (Or rather, not us - but them, I didn’t listen, and I don’t have to slander myself).

We started with the Mirage group, which was already wild; then we moved on to “Tender May”, as if we hadn’t been brought up on songs for half a century Utesov, Vertinsky, Mark Bernes, Kristalinskaya, Eduard Khil, Muslim Magomaev and young Pugachevs- and all this time they kept us in the most miserable orphanage, on millet porridge without sugar, and everyone offended us: the nannies, the teachers, the stoker Fyodor.

Therefore: white roses, white roses, defenseless thorns! Y! Y!

It would be nice if more youngsters fell for Shatunova- no, the police, rural administrations, teachers of secondary and higher educational institutions listened to him, honorary pensioners came to the “Tender May” concerts. Where were these pensioners found, where were they kept for the previous eighty years? In the forest? In zoo? Could they have won the worst world war with songs like these? Why didn't they ask themselves about this?

However, something happened next that Shatunov began to seem like a completely nice and decent guy.

Some nasal idiots appeared, sometimes with a huge number of teeth, sometimes without them at all, representatives of the third sex, rainbow birds with feathers in the lumbar region, silicone lips walking on their own, in the absence of a head, other parts of the body, seemingly not adapted for singing, duets of different parts of the body, quartets of representatives of the third sex and a sex not yet explored by anyone except representatives of the third sex.

Oh, it's time for discovery! It's time for freedom.

In my class, I knew in 1991, not a single person had tried drugs, and three classes younger, by 1995, it was difficult to find anyone who had not tried drugs at least once. From barbiture to methadone, everyone understood everything, even elementary school students. It was fashionable for everyone.

The teachers who taught many of us - they, apparently, also hid something from the world for many years.

In the town where I was born, in the late 90s, the only school invariably closed from 12 to 14 o’clock: the teachers could not miss the next episode of some series, either “The Rich Also Cry”, or “Slave Isaura” - and Together with the students, hurrying and jostling, they ran to follow the fate of the mestizo or mulatto, or the completely, irreparably black heroine.

And then they returned: and taught the children history, the Russian language, Dostoevsky’s prose, the foundations of the state, law, and common sense.

Was this really what happened to us?

...today, it seems to us, the intensity of passions is no longer the same.

The paint the unfortunate girls used to dye their manes has run out.

Yuri Shatunov fell silent.

Quite decent people walk back and forth along Arbat.

Teachers, if they have a tendency to watch Latin American soaps, then hide them.

Young people no longer strive to try all the wheels in the world: many are aware that this way they can go too far.

Freaks take their rightful place, and excite only their quiet circle, and not the multi-million audience of TV channels.

And still.

Before you get carried away with anything, well, no matter what: piercing, diving, shopping, leasing, petting, outcomming, downshifting - stop for a second and ask yourself:

- Everything is fine with me? Am I too fashionable?

Count to one hundred.

Or at least until ten.