In my memory countless verses and lines by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and two of his books, both autographed. Early, “Shosse Entuziastov” given to them by the student of College, my grandmother-the teacher. And last, given to me a few months before he died. “With the blessing of your life,” he wrote. He added: “God Forbid all, but only that, for what then will not be ashamed.”

photo: Oleg Klimov

That is right and who is sincere. Or Vice versa: he sounds sincere, who insists on the innocence.

The desire to insist on and to keep up with the time extracted from the same place and his bright campy outfits. He wanted to stand out, to be first, he called himself the most famous poet in the world. Hence, friendship with the leaders of the planet, the subjugation of women, millions of fans. He was good. Happened. Was a sign of the time, the character of our history .

He created the style of the era, but his world fame was determined by the fact that he’s an Ambassador of a superpower, where millions of ordinary people know by heart classic and contemporary poetry.

A headstrong loner, he could not do without communication. He became a mirror of the other.

For me, Yevtushenko at best he’s ever written — always very lively. And clean. This purity today obsolete. (as written in the dictionary). But it also has a direct and a timeless magical effect. The bitterness of his departure to reinforce the idea of how unusual he was alive until the very end.

He was not afraid of drama and at the same time simplicity in the slogan and morality, in a conversational tone, inaccurate in catchy rhyme, even where such freshness was perceived as stengazeta or samoperedelny.

In my opinion, he was able poems about women — they always flickered something authentic, natural and wild things.

And yet he was kind, good, sympathetic person. The slogans might change, but all his life he preached humanity and all life passionate and hot tried his humanity to prove it.

Yevtushenko is not only the sincerity of a stage, but the sincerity and genuine, including any contradictions.

A couple of years ago, when I wrote a book about the Ride, called Evgeny, at the time lived in Peredelkino, to ask about something. He began with irritation, said, little time, but suddenly began to respond so generously, starting from the every minor details and swirling around her in a dizzying motley dance that spoke for several hours. It seemed to be carrying some kind of natural wave. I canceled my schedule got out of the car and just walked the streets, listening to stories about Brezhnev and Picasso, Dali and Salvador Allende, the Gagarin and the beatniks…

Finally a few months ago, was found at the same table at the writers ‘ Congress of Fund of Dostoevsky.

Vulnerable. In the armor and at the same time as if without skin. Alert and inquisitive look in his eyes. Who wants to chat.

— Then girls want to be photographed with you, — bent poet Bakhyt kenjeev.

Only if every heart will read in my poem… — categorically waved away with a gesture of rock-star to in a minute mercy, and then loudly to mint: — Bakhyt, you insulted Che Guevara! He was an honest man!

Rings. Bracelets with stones. Cane with carved knob. Patterned tie. Plaid pants. Icon thin face.

— You have a beautiful pants! I said, and he, all beaming, white-toothed grinned widely.

The young assistant took him in a wheelchair. In his farewell wave was either a blessing, or a stubborn diapersthe Boyarina Morozova. He seemed still to live. And he, you know, planned to live and travel.

We agreed to a full interview, but long conversations were not so much words…

Did you know Che Guevara?

— We talked for seven days… it was his confession about how he wanted to devote himself to medicine, but decided to help people more widely. It was amazing generosity. I recently remembered Comandante wrote: “His severed hand I feel on my shoulder”. I would compare Th with Vysotsky.

And Fidel I knew, and I told him to watch our Siberia. During the trip he asked me to stop the train near the station of the Winter, where I was born and about which he wrote poems. Castro’s laugh was big baby. I would like to write about this novel!

I rethought a lot of things over the years. Sin of naivety, but not false. From Cuba did not surrender. Cuban revolutionaries, barbudos, overthrew Batista, a dictator. They did not attack anyone, they freed their land. When Chernobyl happened, Fidel said he would treat the affected children. And treated free of charge even after there was no Soviet Union. He saved twenty-six thousand kids! You know what was there before the revolution? There was a miserable Bungalow… And there were high-quality medicine and education. And it’s in the unforgiving conditions of isolation. By the way, tell you a secret: during the Cuban missile crisis in Cuba was not our missiles. It is now possible to say about it. Were dummy missiles. But since then, Cubans have never touched.

You important was the glory?

— I in my youth thought. Just wanted to write good poems. I’m not vain, selfish, what I suspect some. I always tried to help everyone — risking and despite the circumstances, — those who are weak and are persecuted. Even Brodsky said about me wrong, like I was connected with the KGB, and somehow they have advised in his account. I fussed over him as they could. And I through the Italian Communist handed over the letter to the Central Committee, calling for his release from exile. I am very glad that I was able to publish a huge anthology of poetry, and keep so many names, and resurrect forgotten, it’s a poetic world, ten centuries of Russian, five volumes. Thanks for the book about the Kata, your attention to Soviet literature correctly. She was different, but so often beautiful. Ulitskaya dislike for the fact that she casually kicked Fadeeva. Supposedly he was the executioner. What do you know about him, about time, about the lives he protected and saved? He helped me out. I have lived in Moscow and meeting with students Fadeev, when discussing the vitality of the young, stood up and said: terribly afraid of the pain and not withstand the torture. All rustled, began speaking that I should be expelled from the pioneers. But there Fadeev said, “I’m also afraid of syringes. Who else is afraid?”. The guys laughed, raised their hands…

photo: Oleg Klimov

— What is the idea that you remain faithful?

— I think it’s important Christianity is in its main significance. To help other people. And even in modern literature, I do not have enough transparency. Transparency is the quality of the person. Transparent man is vulnerable, it is possible to catch the word, to make fun of… And yet that’s what allows you not to lose humanity. We demand from the government transparency, and where our?

Conscience is important. Poor understanding of the writers who considered themselves above ordinary morality. The artist should not give yourself a discount, to hurt others, justifying the talent.

Lately, I often repeat the words of Emerson, American poet: “Every wall is a door”. This is the main lesson of life. There are no desperate situations. Everything can be solved by human beings.

If you are on the so-called ideology, then I close the word “convergence”, which maybe doesn’t sound very good. Once used it Sugars. Convergence. Interpenetration. A combination of ideas. Any party archaic because it limits freedom. More important than the battle of ideas or a combination of both.

Alas, convergence failed when it was possible to preserve the good that was in the Soviet Union, but add more freedom and market mechanisms. The Soviet system was always set up. For example, Robert Kennedy told me in the bathroom, turning on the water to have not heard that the names of Sinyavsky and Daniel gave our CIA and the distracted world public opinion from the war in Vietnam.

You don’t have to curve about Sakharov. Believe me, Bonner is not what he is. He told me that in the difficult years of the intelligent young man was sent on logging, and then went through the potatoes with half-starved people and imbued with their sorrows. He loved the common people.

— I have the feeling that the image of Lenin in your youth now replaced by the image of Sakharov.

— Understand that Sakharov was not an enemy of his country, and an insult to the many that have happened must not be transferred to him. He wrote a reasonable appeal. He was not against socialism, but against bureaucracy. Have not heard it. He knew a big secret, but did not pass, though enough hunters. In 1988, he flew to America, but was silent about everything that could damage the security of our country. By the way, and the hydrogen bomb became the world. Truman wanted to bomb us, and Sakharov’s invention stopped him.

— How is it to be more than a poet?

— Thirty-five thousand students came to performances. You certainly know how me and my friends got from the government. But remember: during the Cuban missile crisis called Khrushchev when in Moscow was the poet Robert frost, who wanted to talk with him. The Secretary General was in Pitsunda, joined in 25 minutes. The next day, he and frost met…

But it was a special time everywhere. Remember how the same thirty-five thousand gathered beatniks in Italy.

— And then what happened?

It was the summer of 1979, the international poetry festival Beatniks on the Beach is a wild beach near Rome, where he killed the Director Pasolini, which I loved. He was a loyal friend and helped me one night to steal out the daughter of one Western Ambassador. He wanted me to remove the image of Christ, but the Soviet Union has not released the shooting. And on the beach in Italy we played with Allen Ginsberg, which I translated, Burroughs, Patti Smith. The anarchists rushed to the microphones, so that fewer Americans spoke!

— Talking about you: left Home…

— I have been flying to Russia, I go on it endlessly, recently, the Church from the pulpit of my poems read, and I was happy… will never leave you. As for other countries — the land where a lot of friends, always partly yours.

— The Soviet Union could have been preserved?

Whether it was the subjunctive mood. But it was not necessary to tear down. Too much has done the same. When lowered the red flag over the Kremlin, I stood in red square and cried. The same flag that was over the Reichstag… It was a tragedy, hundreds of people stood in the square crying. And then I wrote a poem “Farewell to the red flag”. When I read it, tears welling.

— What is important when raising children?

— Most important of all — finding a common language with them. Maybe sometimes I myself before them to blame. For example, my Mitya indoor and outdoor… I Know, I’m friends with all of his wives. My current wife Masha brought all my children… How to raise children? I, perhaps, brought up the final lines of my poem “Picture of childhood”:

And if a hundred howling rabid

someone has, even for the cause! —

one hundred and one I’ll never!

My father was a geologist, but all his life he wrote poems and opened my poetry, thanks to him, I was six years old could read and write. And always felt his love. Parents separated when her mother found in his suitcase, the silk stockings are not her size. But said, “the Door to our house is always open.” It turned out, they are not officially divorced. The divorce his mother never gave. With my father, we talk all the time, he knew: “Jane writes poetry,” and I knew and loved all his new women and his lover in black hat, which is signed in letters to him: “Your gonna”. Mom kissed him in front of two wives in the hospital before he died.

— And love is what is important?

Love is a child. Child. Someone has to give. And boring if the two are the same. It was a poem “Dream”, beautiful, Bella Akhmadulina. It’s about me, it’s her attitude towards me. Her husband Messerer then it was deleted… It was all so kitchen counterrevolutionaries.

— How?

— Kitchen counterrevolutionaries. When he’s in the kitchen raised a toast to Pinochet, I stopped to go to them. He hid, removed from her memories this episode: she met Nabokov in Montreux. He never wanted to communicate from the Soviet, and it was filled. He loved it. And at some point he confessed to her: “Sorry I didn’t stay in Russia.” Bella said, “But you could easily die.” — “And maybe would have survived. Maybe it would be better I went through the GULAG. And it would be a very different writer.” By the way, I don’t like Nabokov for a cold heart, though, I admit. All of my American friends said: he writes as if he wants to prove that it knows English. And Marc Chagall wanted to return, he told me when I took on Villa in the South of France. His home disapprovingly listened to it. But he said he wants to give to Soviet government its picture, and even if they are now not allowed to put — put up then, if only he was given a house in his native Vitebsk, where he wanted to die in peace.

— What is your favorite poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko?

— “The dove in Santiago”. About life and death, and Chile before the coup. By the way, her perfectly translated into English.

Not immediately a person dies,

and particles from other diseases

such as indifference, cruelty,

quietly killing it…

And if I die — only for a while.

I’ll be everywhere. Will all of them. All.

— When you write?

Write at night.

— Insomnia?

— No, I sleep well. My conscience is clean.

— Often written last time?

— Lately every day…