Matvey Ganapolsky, Dmitry Glukhovsky
Yevgenia Albats: Matvey, you turned Glukhovsky's «Registration» into a fifteen-act play. I listened to all 15 parts, and I must say, it made a very strong impression on me. Even though, when I started reading, I thought: why should I read this, I won't learn anything new, I not only know a lot about this from various sources, but I have also traveled a lot around provincial Russia, seen how it lives, and have a pretty good idea of these people. I know this book made a very strong impression on you. Why?
The System Trains a Person
Matvey Ganapolsky: If you remember, the brilliant Pyotr Vail has a book, practically his last one — «Poems About Me», where he collected all those poems that made an indelible impression on him, defined his life. Well, if I may say so, I started reading this novel and realized that this novel is about me. After all, I lived in Russia for 37 years. I lived there, people walked around me, I had children there. And suddenly I asked myself a question... Well, that is, since the beginning of this war, especially the big war, I asked myself: how can it be that these people, whom I knew, wonderful people, well, they were different, like Ukrainians, like Americans — how did these people suddenly turn into this?
This novel is about the most important thing. And the most important thing is how Putin sat on the heads of citizens, what system he invented, how he implemented this system, and how this system turns people into mankurts
And in fact, there are two questions here. First, why did they turn into this? And second, why can't they get out of it and how does it work? Naturally, everyone remembers Orwell, «1984», remembers «Animal Farm». Well, there are a million novels written on this topic, how the system trains a person. This is an academic story. But in fact, apart from propagandistic clichés like «all Russians are like this» and apart from dividing into «good Russians», «bad Russians», we haven't seen anything. And suddenly this novel. I would like to draw the attention of those who criticize the novel, and many speak of it in obscene terms, that Glukhovsky is a serious author, he wrote this novel for two years. When I started reading, I realized that this book, this novel is about the most important thing. And the most important thing is how Putin sat on the heads of citizens, what system he invented, how he implemented this system, and how this system turns people into mankurts.
Everyone writes that there is not a single positive character in the novel. In fact, there is one positive character. It's Sansanych, who sits in the belly. He hasn't been born yet, he hasn't had time to do anything, so he wasn't taken into the army. So, he hasn't betrayed anyone, he quietly lies and forms.
Putin, if I'm not mistaken, is mentioned in the novel once or twice, just the surname. This should be noted because some, regardless of Putin, represent Putin's execution: the worst that is in people has surfaced, and they do it.
This is a polyphonic novel. Why? Because it tells how the main character, the girl Ulyana, changes, what metamorphoses happen to her. She, like water, takes any shape of any vessel. Circumstances begin to change her, strain her, test her, as in strength of materials, how much a person can endure. And in the end, she finds herself. It would have been better if she hadn't found herself like that...
The novel is about how to subdue the citizens of your country, how to turn citizens into residents. This is not «1984», it's scarier. It's about how you can twist ropes out of people
When I saw this, I realized that finally a work has been written about why Russia has been waging this war since 2014, and it's getting worse and worse. On my channel, I conduct broadcasts, my people in the chat constantly publish news. And there is a girl there named Lydak. Well, I don't know who she is. She publishes the number of nullified Russians. Exactly nullified, these are both wounded and killed, who will never return to the battlefield, ever. Now it's never below 1500. How can it be that one and a half thousand people every day! Once it was two thousand. These are real numbers.
The novel is about this, about how to subdue the citizens of your country, how to turn citizens into residents, this is not «1984», it's scarier. It's about how you can twist ropes out of people.
By the way, Putin has been practicing this for 25 years. And now we are observing such a process in the United States, in a great country. Absolute analogy. There was a great country, the Russian Federation, there is a great country, the United States of America. Different histories, different everything. Different origins, political traditions, civil traditions. Every American has a gun, everyone is proud, and so on. And here comes a person there, as here, who says: «Well, I said so». And there is a separation of the population exactly like in the Russian Federation. It would seem that in the Russian Federation there is a separation of powers, and in the United States there is. And here the legislators are silent, and there the legislators are silent. Even if the legislators say something in Russia, Putin will still sit in his place. In the States, there will be midterm elections in November, and if, for example, the Democrats win, Trump will still remain in his place. Absolutely polar societies, American and Russian, which have nothing in common with each other in their history, religion, many-many other things, can be twin brothers. Now we see the loving union of Mr. Trump and Comrade Putin.
In other words, I hold this book in very high regard. Besides being smart, it's almost a physiological study. In the Middle Ages, doctors took the bodies of the deceased and studied the structure of a person on them. And where does this vein go? And what is that dark spot there?.. A gloomy book, a terrible book, a hopeless book. But it's not for nothing that there is Sasha, who sits in the belly. I don't know if Glukhovsky himself intended it that way, but I did graduate from the directing faculty. Why do we stage classics and why is the classic always new? Because there is an amazing rule: the sum of ideas that the viewer or director brings to a work is significantly wider than the ideas that the author brought there. And this is timeless. The same with this novel. The processes that occur with a person, with power that oppresses a person and turns him into nothing, do not change over time. Therefore, this is very good material for reading. There is a polyphony of characters, their change, the self-justification of all the characters. Because how to admit oneself guilty? It's better to invent who is to blame. Well, like Trump blames Zelensky. Well, who else? Not Trump himself, he's holy and divine.
Dmitry Glukhovsky. Photo: glukhovsky.com
I posted all parts of Glukhovsky's book, and it started my project, which will last many years, I hope. It's called «Ganapolsky Readings», where I read my favorite books. This is science fiction that I loved, adventure books. Well, what did a boy read? They are all in oil stains because I ate and read, slept and read...
Yevgenia Albats: Walked down the street and read...
Matvey Ganapolsky: Or rode on a bus. I had an incredible adventure when in the city of Kyiv, Yuri Pavlovich Batitsky, he was an accompanist, gave me a magazine with «The Master and Margarita». And I had to go to the Windy Hills, it's 30 minutes from Podol.
And I got on a bus, such a terrible, smelly «LAZ», with the engine in the back, and exhaust gases go into the cabin through holes. I opened and started reading. I went six rounds on this bus, and the driver kicked me out of the bus at the bus depot, after which I walked home from the bus depot for about two and a half hours, and back then we didn't have phones, and my mom had already buried me.
In general, I am a grateful person, and I decided to make my library, there will be about 15–20 books, well, as many as God allows me. Every day I read. Right now, for example, I'm reading a book by Ivan Putilin. Ivan Putilin is a super detective of the previous century. He wrote memoirs. The last edition of these memoirs was in 1913. The book is called «40 Years Among Robbers and Murderers». Just the title is worth it. And you know, it's like popcorn, you can't tear yourself away. Suddenly the realities of St. Petersburg exploded. And he is a dry person, a detective. There is none of this: «The waves were silvering, and at the time when the first autumn leaf fell from the sky, I discovered a corpse». No, it immediately starts: the corpse was lying on the embankment, and that's it. In short, he describes the cases — the most interesting, in his opinion, incredible, but you immerse yourself in that era because he names already forgotten words, he shows how people communicated. It's like touching that era.
Trump Won't Stay
Yevgenia Albats: I completely disagree with you about the parallels between Russia and the United States. I'll give just two examples. First, in the United States, more than a million people across the country came out for the anti-Trump marches No kings. In Russia, as you know, one person comes out with a blank sheet, he is immediately sent to the slammer and imprisoned. Just recently, Sonya Rozenfeld, a scientist-zoologist, a specialist in Arctic geese, who in 2021 made two transfers to Navalny's** FBK**, a thousand rubles, totaling 24 dollars. She received more than three years in prison. Second, of course, Trump will stay now, in America, there is a presidential republic. Now almost a new Congress will be elected, the Democrats will take control of at least the lower house, which means he won't be able to pass many laws and will rule by decrees, and decrees are good because they are repealed by the next president. But the most important thing is that in two years, according to the constitution, Trump must leave. And believe me, he will leave. And Putin, as we know, has been sitting for almost 30 years.
Matvey Ganapolsky: I probably wasn't understood correctly. There is feedback, you rightly said that now everyone is waiting for the midterm elections and that in two years he will leave. But now he does what he wants, twists as he wants. That's what I meant. I didn't mean that America is not a democratic state. Today I opened my news feeds. There he is criticized by congressmen, senators, and even Republicans. I understand all this.
Yevgenia Albats: Yes, for the statement about Zelensky, that a new president should be elected in Ukraine because Trump is now kissing Putin.
Matvey Ganapolsky: Only one problem I was talking about: the guy does what he wants. He is in this sense a great person, God bless him. But this personal voluntarism, it is the same. And America is a great country, no questions.
Yevgenia Albats: You said that after reading Glukhovsky's novel, you finally understood how those people who walked around you could support aggression, how it became possible.
And do you remember that in 1991, when there was a coup in Moscow, a coup — Russia was asleep, only in Moscow and Leningrad did they protest? And all of Russia was silent. And what, was it somehow different in Soviet times, in Stalin's times? Or was it somehow different under the tsar? How is today's situation different from what it was in previous centuries?
Matvey Ganapolsky: Nothing, Zhenya. Glukhovsky's novel is not specifically about Russia. If it were written only about Russia, nailed there with a nail, it would be much less valuable. The novel is written about the people, and not about society and the people, but just about the people, the lower floor, you understand? The nation is not even discussed, there is no common nation in Russia. About how the mechanism is arranged so that the people do what the person at the top wants. There are a million books written about this, whole historical novels. But reading about our realities is much more interesting. That's why there is such a huge interest in Glukhovsky's novel.
What's with the People?
Yevgenia Albats: I am very closely following this terrible war. And in the story about how Russians are bought, for what money they go to kill Ukrainians, I didn't see anything new, just as in the attitude of this girl Ulyana to the severely wounded lover, whom she marries when he is already dying and suffering from severe pain because he is no longer given painkillers. This is one of the most terrible episodes, you read it just stunningly. Just a separate performance. And when this Sasha says: «Let me tell you», — he wants to lay out something terrible that he did there in Ukraine. He has an internal hell, you understand that he lives and dies in this hell, he needs to share with someone. But his truth, his words are not needed by anyone, including the woman who carries his child. I ask myself: what can be done with this population? Send it to the Moon, to Mars? Just like the supporters of Trump's MAGA movement, where to send them? Together with Musk to Mars?
The question of claims to the people, in my opinion, is completely meaningless because these people can do nothing. But Marina and Maxim in this novel, two intellectuals, nice, sympathetic philistines, who are for everything good against bad, but at the same time sit under the mattress and do not get out, so as not to, God forbid — that's who the question should be addressed to. And these are images that are worst written by Glukhovsky. They are completely flat. The same question, by the way, to the listeners of «Echo of Moscow», where we worked with you for many years: how did they allow a KGB officer to come to power, and then this office seized all power. We know the people who allowed him to power, how they brought him there. Alexander Stalievich Voloshin, Valentin Yumashev, Roman Abramovich — these people were not stupid at all. Don't you think that in this sense, the appeal to the Russian people is meaningless?
Matvey Ganapolsky: We have read enough various testimonies that the transformation of Putin into what he is now was a complete surprise. Because they bet on him as a temporary and manageable person. But what grew, grew. This is the first. Second — it seems to me that in this book there is the least attempt to fix something or appeal to someone. This book is like a textbook called «People and Power». It just tells how it works. Can anyone improve this? Well, in Russia all improvements ended in blood. Therefore, Russia lives as it lives. Glukhovsky does not call anyone to anything. Any change in Russia is Bolshevism because the country is too huge. I read some, including angry, reviews, and there were such: «And what, in fact, does he advise? He wrote a panorama of Russian trouble. And what does he advise?» He advises nothing. The book is not about that. The book is about Russian trouble. He did his job. And you, the young generation, young Bolsheviks, young Putinists, young oppositionists, please change it if you have the spirit, if fortune turns to you.
Yevgenia Albats: Matvey, a good acquaintance of mine, a professor at New York University, asked me: «Why, Zhenya, do you always say that you consider yourself guilty of this war? Why are you guilty of Russia starting this terrible war?» I answered him: «Because we allowed it to happen. And I, among others, allowed it». «And what could you have done?» And he suddenly says to himself: «Well, yes, you could have like the Ukrainians... Then in the thirteenth and fourteenth, 100 people died. And yet they overthrew Yanukovych». I said: «Exactly».
So I have a question for you. You once left Ukraine. I remember how you told me that in Ukraine there was such a level of anti-Semitism that it was impossible to be there. We know that in Ukrainian civilization, the Jewish component is very large and heavy. And at the same time, the same people elected the Jew Zelensky as their president. You were born in Ukraine, you lived in Ukraine, you work in Ukraine. Why could Ukrainians do it, and we couldn't?
Matvey Ganapolsky: The answer is very simple, Zhenya, and you actually know it. The more eastward, the more despotic. It's not for nothing they say — «eastern despotism». I explain this all the time.
Why don't Russians protest? In the end, a so-called center of attraction should appear. As soon as some center of attraction appears in Russia, people flock there
Yevgenia Albats: So geography?
Matvey Ganapolsky: Only it, nothing else. I'm going to say terrible things now. You see, the thing is, Ukraine is Europe, and Ukrainians are not to blame for this. They are simply closer to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which once was, they are closer to Poland. A completely different story. Moreover, notice, the more eastward, the more backward. I don't know, maybe it's the influence of China, maybe it comes from the so-called Tatar-Mongol yoke. I'm not going to delve into it. I'm just saying that we still live by our beliefs. My belief is that everything is determined by geography and religion. Moreover, religion is also a derivative of geography. Christianity, as it turned out, can also be different. And here Christianity in Russia, Orthodoxy has degenerated into the current wonderful patriarch, who with a censer blesses intercontinental missiles.
Let's return to Glukhovsky. He really enlightened us, without any jokes. What is our task? First, to preserve ourselves. You will laugh, but in Maxim's position from the novel, there is nothing incredible. And he is not faceless. He tries to protect his son from the war, he tries to preserve his wife. He constantly emphasizes that in this environment, there should be at least some piece that allows being on the skewer of common sense.
He manages to do this, but the guy overdid it. That's another matter, I don't want to spoil the novel, let people read or listen to it. Therefore, the first task: one died, the other will die too. It won't be for us, it will be for the children. Maybe it will be hairy, not bald, hairy — bald, I don't know, but it will be different. And a new broom sweeps in a new way. That's the first. The second: I think that in the end, a so-called center of attraction should appear.
Why don't Russians protest? Although many decided to vote for «Yabloko». That is, as soon as some center of attraction appears in Russia, people flock there.
Therefore, no one puts a cross on anyone. But you will have to wait. Protests can be when you know that the end of this protest will not end either with your death or prison, even by 1%. There used to be tricks, they held a blank sheet of paper, and so on. The authorities said: «Guys, well, we are smart, we understand everything, leave it. We have a war with Ukraine, don't interfere with us». People understood this. It's very simple. But as soon as someone else comes to power, this other will have to solve problems. Putin does not solve problems. He wants to humiliate Zelensky. That's why he mockingly said that he is ready to give Ukrainians only one day to vote, not two months.
Putin's Worst Nightmare
Yevgenia Albats: Yes, Zelensky said that if Russia does not bomb Ukraine for 2 months, they will hold new elections. To this, Putin replied that no two months, one day is enough.
Matvey Ganapolsky: Here, you see, an interesting story. His approach has changed. He wanted to remove Zelensky to negotiate with someone else. And now, when it started with these reactive drones, he decided that here it is!.. As Tolstoy said, but not the Tolstoy who is smart, but the one who is the vice-speaker of the State Duma: Ukrainians must raise their paws.
You see, they absolutely believe in this. He wants to finish off Ukraine with Zelensky, precisely with him, and not with some other president. Zelensky must either shoot himself or resign, accompanied by shame and spitting, so they somehow think there. Now they are holding a wake for Zelensky, Putin's heart sings, and he also has a friend who plays along with him from America. They are having fun now. But Zelensky, the bastard, holds the blow. I watched his interview with ABC, he is absolutely calm. You know, it happens like this: people get nervous, and when they realize they will die, absolute calm suddenly sets in. He probably had such calmness twice. The first time when in 2022 he was offered to flee, and he said: «No, I will not run».
Yevgenia Albats: Yes, the famous video: «The president is here, the prime minister is here, the head of the administration is here». I will never forget this stunning video.
Matvey Ganapolsky: And now the same thing. None of the Ukrainians even think that he will somehow leave. Moreover, it is clear that the situation is very difficult, everyone understands that there may be some kind of Brest peace. But if Comrade Lenin somehow survived that «obscene peace», then Ukrainians will survive.
And Putin does not want elections now because the worst nightmare for him is if Zelensky leaves and he has to talk about some conditions with some other person. He needs a clean victory. He needs a trampled Zelensky, who tears off his military uniform and says: «I am restoring «Kvartal 95», and now I am just an artist», you understand? That's what he needs. Well, man proposes, and God disposes.
Yevgenia Albats: Do you think Zelensky will go for elections?
Matvey Ganapolsky: No, he can't.
Yevgenia Albats: Can't?
Matvey Ganapolsky: Can't. Although there are options. Many do not understand. If they gave 2 months, 60 days, he could hold elections, and Ukrainians would elect him again because they need to show a fig, a middle finger to Trump and Putin. But here many Ukrainians do not agree with me. They say: «No-no, they won't vote for him». So what — will they follow Putin and Trump? Do you want to say this? And Ukrainians will say otherwise. «Ours are being beaten».
Yevgenia Albats: And how dangerous is the situation with Minister Fedorov for the unity of Ukraine?
Matvey Ganapolsky: Not dangerous at all. Absolutely everyone is doing their job. I can tell you, there are far fewer traitors than it seems.
Video Version
* Yevgenia Albats, Matvey Ganapolsky, Dmitry Glukhovsky are declared «foreign agents» in the Russian Federation.
** FBK is declared an «extremist organization» in the Russian Federation. Alexei Navalny remains on the list of «terrorists and extremists».
Photo: «Radio Liberty».