Julia Melamed Two drunk cockroaches About immigrants in Yerevan and immigrants in Constantinople 24.01.2023, 08:18

– What can you do?

– Everyone. Shoot, cook halvah, shoe a stallion, open a safe, forge documents, give birth to a baby, write an article.

This is a dialogue between Colonel Tikhy, the former chief of the former white counterintelligence, and Paramon Korzukhin, now and always former deputy minister of commerce, on the deck of a steamship bound for Paris. a rich man, a swindler, and a scoundrel. What a scene! After the blackmail incident, the blackmailed Paramosha graciously lets the blackmailer eat, and this miserable bald muller jumps on the food, swallows the sandwiches whole, and stuffs the chopped fish into a briefcase with the conciliatory evidence.

Countless articles are now being written about finding jobs for “immigrants” with the same words and intonations. It’s a dissonant word they use. I know everything, I am ready for anything. “Shoot, cook halvah, shoe a stallion, open a safe, forge documents, give birth to a baby, write an article.” The only thing missing is “shooting, editing” – so Bulgakov’s tragic-iron text turns into a real post about finding a job, of which there are now hundreds of them on social networks. The desperate overtones of these texts reveal a tremendous resemblance to Bulgakov’s play The Run.

I am in Yerevan. Pass through. Don’t think about what it is. I’m not a mover.

Words hurt your ears. But they are “ok”. Such language-sensitive people, philologists, philosophers, easily, naturally and routinely use this terrible word as their own name.

He got used to it. Because no one wants to say a much more unpleasant word.
“Immigrant”.

First, second, it lacks that moment of impermanence that is so important for everyone to emphasize here. Many do not see themselves living to death in Yerevan. “Immigrant” is a kind of constant, a fatal value. irreparable. As in the past, in the pre-globalization period, when the borders were locked. What was more serious in the world than state borders? This one word will make you laugh forever.

In today’s slightly globalized world, such tragic overtones are useless. That’s why the heavyweight “relocator” sounds clumsy at least – but still gentler, more fashionable, more modern. More humane.

Second, “displaced” does not include the connotations that have historically stood behind the word. And they stand behind the emigrant. we remember well.

– And you are passionate, Paramosha. This will destroy you.
– Give it to me, I’m the general, I want to eat.
– Went to Peru, you’re bloated, Privatdozent, we’re starving!
– A Russian court game unprecedented anywhere in the world, cockroach races!
– sensation in Constantinople. With the permission of the police. Favorite game of the late Empress in Tsarskoye Selo.
– Cockroaches live in a closed box under the special supervision of a professor of entomology at Kazan Imperial University, who miraculously escaped from the hands of the Bolsheviks.
– Where did you see a drunk cockroach? Janissaries are sober like diamonds.

The echo of the immigrant voices of the past surrounds the whole world.

Despite the complete absence of historical connotations in the word “displaced”, they are felt in the air. Of course, like Bulgakov or Alov and Naumov, this atmosphere cannot be conveyed. There were such characters there … Mad Khludov, in which the same soldier always appears – just one of hundreds of soldiers hanged by him. The bandit Artur Arturych, the king of cockroaches. Two “UG” Seraphim and a Privatdozent, dull, never smiling people, ideal, disembodied. Cheerful half-bandit Charnot in underwear is an illiterate general with an impeccable military background. They interact so well with each other that it’s enough to throw them in a room and leave them alone, as the game will self-write.

One of the beggars greets the other as “Good afternoon, professor”.
“Good morning, general,” replies the second noble uncle, sitting nobly in the dust on the pavement.
At the end of the episode, one prefers belyash over the other.

Not so in Yerevan. But here are the characters that Bulgakov did not invent …
Philosopher-theologian Ivan moved in October.

Why are you sitting at the bar every day? Living beyond your means, borrowing money?
– I need communication. Otherwise I will go crazy.

This guy borrows money to sit at the bar every night.

No, he does not look like a crazy Khludov either externally (like a few earthlings Dvorzhetsky) or internally. Khludov shot himself in Bulgakov’s play. In the movie, no. Much stronger. Shooting yourself is very predictable, simple and natural.

But to keep Khludov, the murderer Khludov, the executioner, the insane Khludov, the eternal Ahasuerus Khludov alive in journeys and torments, in a walking sick conscience, in a walking defeat of old Russia – this is a big deal for some reason. was the idea. It did not occur to Bulgakov.

Sergei graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy. He dreams of becoming a priest not just anywhere, but in the neighborhood of Constantinople. Too many intersections. No, it’s not Khludov. He’s sane. Sufficient. Sufficient. There are plenty, adek quilted jackets. antivatnikov

There is no job here. The country is small, at war, the business is only for itself. Even IT workers are unemployed.

But none of the white immigrants became couriers. They are sitting in bars. Sergey is reading a series of lectures on philosophy tomorrow. Lessons without tickets – for donations. Many are leaving. I can’t anymore. I’m passing here.

But my comrade Dimka, the same Naumov, who once directed “Running”, we studied together at the film school and escaped from it together. To a director who is not better, but at least younger. A little less swearing. The second master in our workshop had a cold white beard and was typical.

Font is essential for artists and non-artists inside and outside the cinema. And this white beard looked very much like the director. We live in a world where truth is stronger than truth. In general, we bought the hippie beard.

Naumov was very old by then and spent all day poisoning movie fables without even trying to pretend he was going to teach students this skill. Later I got the impression (possibly wrongfully) that “Running” was the work of the late Alov. In general, we both escaped from Naumov.

Dima was the brightest, most promising child of our workshop. I haven’t seen Dima for ten years. I didn’t know after that.

It didn’t go up. It’s possible. He stayed where he was. He has aged sharply.

Now Dima is in Yerevan. I have a shitty outlook on life with him, a translation background, a professional interest in language. Weird and bizarre, autistic, refined, tasteful, lost, alcoholic, educated, inside and out. And pity, cute and uncomfortable with it. And it’s a displacer. Predictable.

And nostalgic. This was unexpected.

Such attitudes are dangerous. Watch out for longing while walking around!

Dima likes to have only one view out the window and to look sharply to the right and to the side at only one hour of the day, in the darkest but deepest night, because Komitas Street at the intersection where he lives reminds him of Leninsky Prospekt. . Here you go, Dimka. Komitas is one of the two largest streets in Yerevan. Sayat Nova is just bigger. Armenians believe that the great Armenian composer Komitas invented music. Either music didn’t exist before the 19th century, or it’s a metaphor or a genre of modern Armenian music, but the phrase goes like this: Komitas invented music.

To see through the window what Dima still likes in this foreign city: a view of a big city – you have to wait for one in the morning, go out to the balcony and stick your head to the right. He does this at night. Why not Khludov in the finale of the movie?

We’re running to a place far, far away, I can barely keep up with him, until we’re running to a popular bar called Dostoevsky. Pipes are burning. Why among branded drinks there is only dirt called “Boyarsky”? Well the show…

On the way, Dima explains everything, which he has time to explain and what he can focus on.

– At night, the windows of many houses are lit up to the horizon, and the view of these tall houses facing the horizon is familiar to me. But at night this way Yerevan looks like a big city. I don’t like the state. He’s not used to it. The older you get, the more you like something familiar. I’ve always lived in Moscow in Sokol. On the third floor of a house with three-meter ceilings. Now I live on the seventh, this view is equal to our third.

Conducting a speech is a metaphor for our lives and interactions. And our failed connection. I guess I didn’t understand much.

Chances are, there’s just too much new and moving stuff for a relocation – at least you need to check out something familiar. Hence nostalgia.

Those Russian immigrants were losing their identity, their Russianness. They were cut to the ground. The homeland they loved and saw themselves as identical “withered in three days” before their eyes. All they had to do was shoot. Or do not shoot literally, as did the real Khludov, the insane general Slashchev – to return to the USSR.

Those who moved are not like those fugitives. Not so now. At least thanks to the internet, the bond with the homeland has not been broken. The connection with the motherland remained. They are easier. And the time of great tragedies has passed. Everything is smaller, simpler, quickly forgotten. In general, the current game is called “Run”, not “Run”.

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.