Director Alexander Borisov staged a play about the heroes of the Northern Military District and went to fight.
Photo: Video frame
FOREWORD
The performance turned out to be worthy and unusual, it is now staged in Tolyatti, the audience usually stands up at the end and remains silent. Nobody asks them to do this, it is simply a reaction of the heart and soul that the actors and the director came to. But the fate of the first performance over the Northern Military District turned out to be difficult: too many inconvenient names appeared on the poster. Everything is clear to me and Prilepin, but there were also the conditionally “Donbass” poets: Anna Dolgareva, Igor Karaulov – “cottons and separatists.” The premiere was interrupted: the company of the Tchaikovsky Drama Theater rebelled. When we rebelled, we did not at all think that society’s reaction would be harsh. Then I had to worry, tell how they go to the “Immortal Regiment” and support Russia in difficult years… Later, at the front, Alexander Borisov admitted to me that he still does not understand how he, with such views, ended up as director artistic theater. God controlled, but to some extent, the performance had to be saved. And in this rescue there was blood and drama. A day before the assassination attempt, Zakhar Prilepin agreed to stage the disturbed performance in Tula. But Zakhar did not make it to the premiere: he was blown up by a landmine, my friend, a fighter with the call sign “Khmury”, died, Prilepin ended up in the hospital in a very serious condition. The confrontation was breathing down our necks, we felt its stinking breath and it was impossible not to notice it, to move away, to become chrysalises in our luxurious little world. With the help of good people, I agreed to an autumn tour of the play in Yakutia, but in September the director called me:
– Signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense for one year.
– And the acting?
– The performance has begun.
I just said, “You need help with the equipment, write, I’ll help you.”
FIRST ACT: “TORTURED DRONES”
In October, Sasha wrote: “I am fighting near Rabotino, 108th Airborne Regiment, signalman of the airborne assault battalion. We have been plagued by kamikaze drones and we really need a small monocular, a night vision device.” In two hours we bring together readers and viewers to obtain the necessary military information. The Harpy front drone was tested on Yulia Chicherina’s quadcopter. Thanks to the readers, I was able to buy it for half price and was once again surprised by the merchants who benefit from SVO, adding another 120% to the price! There is always a positive side, and I took up to two drone strikes, for the doctors of the evacuation team working near Artemovsk (see CP at https://www.kp.ru/daily/27538/4805027/). I bought a mini portable power station that produces 220 volts without noise or heat in any ditch. Why do you need a front drone if it is not loaded? I also bought Sasha boots for temperatures down to -50 degrees and many, many other things I needed on the front. I landed on a notebook stylized as the Ministry of Defence’s “Shooting Manual”, only on the cover it was written: “A brief guide to using captured cyborgs”. Sasha, as befits a Russian intellectual during the war, began keeping a diary.
The Harpy front drone was tested on Yulia Chicherina’s quadcopter.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN
Sasha arrived an hour late and this was normal given what was happening around her. A camouflaged warrior jumped out of the dirty and tattered Niva, his face weathered by the fierce winds of the steppe, sharp, petrified:
“I’m sorry,” Sasha said. – There was a drone attack in Pologi. A drone fell on the road they were traveling on and they were waiting to be neutralized.
This was the reality of the SVO. The enemy kamikaze drone failed to find its target and ran out of charge in its battery. Last summer they began installing thermal sensors. Due to the difference in temperature, the explosive charge went off when the drone was picked up by curious hands, but now, in the months before winter, it can explode if you approach such a bird.
ACT TWO: “THE ROAD TO THE FRONT”
The only place I could talk was in my warm car, hidden between the brick walls. My car was still clean inside and it seemed to me that Sasha somehow relaxed, suddenly finding herself in a small but comfortable area. And this assumption was also correct. I started with the main thing:
– Please explain to me. Here we are, in a combat zone. I am clear, I am a reporter, I have been here since March 2014. And you? You overcame all obstacles, you performed well, thousands of people supported you. You could have worked harder, but you cut off all the loose ends and went to fight. Because?
– During a theatrical conflict, they accused me of “promoting myself for the Northern Military District.”
– Make them shut up.
Sasha disagrees and points out that he did not set that goal:
– I would survive this accusation, I would swallow it. I understood that it would bring more benefits if I did my thing. But there was no place for me in that theatrical world. After such accusations, I didn’t want to work as a taxi driver, but I need to feed my family. I have a growing son, let me be honest with him and my name is milk mushroom. I climbed into this body and I will try to return home. Back at the theater, I have something to say to the audience. Not only in military matters.
Sasha arrived here, near Rabotino, through Lugansk. There he had his first training. After two months at the front, he didn’t value his usefulness much. I realized that the same thing happens with journalism. A true journalist is in the field, not in the classrooms.
– And then they began to train us “musicians” who signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense. They were appointed instructors for a time. They pushed us hard, shot us with normal live ammunition and taught us not to be afraid. Then there was a short training here, on the Zaporozhye front and “Hello Verbovoe and Rabotino!”
My interlocutor did not serve in military service, he says: “I am absolutely a civilian, zero”, but this biographical fact can no longer be determined with the naked eye, only with words.
AET THIRD: “THEATRIAL BOHEMIA IS ABOUT ME”
I also used to think that the hardest thing on the front was waiting for a shell to arrive at any moment. But the psyche displaces this expectation, qualifies it so that the person does not go crazy and other phenomena appear on the scene. I ask, what seemed the most difficult here? Sasha laughs for the first time in this conversation:
– I’m a sybarite! Bohemia!
I laugh too, assessing the situation:
– Good! Theater!
– Yes, a cup of coffee with a cigarette is about me. The bombings are scary, of course, but the worst thing is everyday life. Life itself in the trenches. Coming home and washing is already considered happiness. Personal hygiene is difficult in the trenches.
– If you have time, what kind of leisure?
– I play chess on my phone. I’m waiting for the package to arrive with the tablet and the books loaded. My wife sent nine packages through campaign mail. Four came straight to the front, right where we’re parked. And the five sent earlier are still on the way.
We talked a little about age, Sasha is the oldest in the unit. All the others are 25 years old, like Dr. Dima who brought him. A young boy, but he had fought, he was carrying two fragments, but they didn’t take him out – “they will come out alone.” The front softens the age:
– Boys are different, that’s understandable. There are very complex personalities. But God somehow protects me. Difficult people are eliminated. Those who remain are often rude, but sincerely honest and pure. And you can trust them and, if they have experience, they will support you, even though I am a lifetime older than them.
Everything is fine with food on the combat contact line, but I ask the routine question: “What did you have for breakfast?” Sasha laughs:
– As expected, a cup of excellent coffee from the “humanitarian workers” and a cigarette.
ACT FOUR: “UKRAINIAN RELATIVES, BULGAKOV AND THE PHANTOM PAINS”
On Sasha’s mother’s side, they are all from Ukraine, from the outskirts of kyiv. During collectivization, a branch of the family was evicted to the Urals. The great-grandson returned and do you know why? Sasha explains:
– All Ukrainian songs are my children’s songs. I don’t want to give up my childhood because some people in Belovezhskaya Pushcha signed a paper. That’s not how it works: in Russia, 30-35% of citizens have direct family ties to Ukraine. We have exactly the same rights to this land as kids with a Ukrainian passport.
We are talking about premises. There are many of them in the front line area, on this stretch from Tokmak to Polog. An entire bush has been planted, the quarries are working, cereals were even planted and harvested, despite the situation. My interlocutor sighs. That is why they long for their own people, not for strangers:
– Someone baptizes us when we pass. Someone is hiding. It’s understandable when the fight comes to your house and you’re an ordinary person, you just wanted to live in peace… And then everything collapsed. I understand them. And I understand that in Mariupol, for example, the attitude towards Russia is completely different. That here, in the towns devastated by battle.
Yes, Mariupol is a wonderful example of Russia’s return. But it is not enough to rebuild what was destroyed. I, like everyone, am tormented by the question: what’s next, how will we be together again? And I ask Sasha:
– You thought about it, we all think about it. Here we are breaking the military machine of Bandera’s Ukraine. We are returning part of the territories. We create garrisons, commanders’ offices, we establish a peaceful life, but then what?
– We need to go back to what it was before the revolution. Taras Shevchenko, in response to the question “is he Ukrainian?” he replied: “I am a Russian nobleman.” We must return to the concept of unity of the three branches of the Russian people: the Great Russians, the Little Russians and the Belarusians.
– Simply, one of the branches of the united Russian people. Can we make peace with the Little Russians?
– There are no options, let’s make peace. Not with everyone, of course. Everywhere in society, as in a theater company, there are activists, ordinary people and passive people. There are more and more middle peasants. We will make peace with them, but very strict measures will have to be applied to the asset, which does not exceed 10%. And there is no need to repeat the history of Khrushchev-Beria with the rehabilitation of Bandera’s supporters.
– The last question: creative plans?
– I really want to put on “The Days of the Turbines”, this story really moves me. There is something to be said, the director has an idea how to stage it. Bulgakov does not even need to be “modernized”, he is already relevant at all times.
EPILOGUE: “A WRONG PROPHECY”
I left the combat zone and drove for a long time, many hours, on the flat roads to Donetsk. The roads are empty, unlike the transport corridor to Crimea. The asphalt was laid in the summer: Russia has arrived, look! I passed clumsy army columns, passed cozy little towns, chatted with soldiers at checkpoints and reflected on the director’s last words. And this is what happened:
If everyone had read Bulgakov carefully, we would never have met Sasha Borisov here. Fate would not have brought him together. The Lord sent us a prophet, but we did not listen to him, which is what we endured and all that remains is to quote the prophet, putting a new and modern bitterness in his words:
“The snow will simply melt, the green Ukrainian grass will sprout, weave the soil… lush shoots will sprout… the heat will tremble over the fields and not a trace of blood will remain. Blood is cheap in red fields and no one will buy it again.”
THE NAIS IS OFFICIAL EDITOR ON NAIS NEWS