Andrey Makarevich: "Feedback from the authorities with the people does not fit into thin folders"

Andrey Makarevich is a Soviet and Russian musician, People's Artist of the Russian Federation, composer, founder and the only permanent member of the Time Machine rock group. For his great contribution to the development of musical art in 2003 he was awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree. One of the few music performers who actively expresses his political position: in 2014 he condemned Russia's actions in Crimea and signed an appeal against the policies of Vladimir Putin, which caused a wide public outcry and was forced to cancel the band's concerts throughout Russia.

On the negative attitude towards Vladimir Putin:

• I see what is happening and I understand that less and less of what I approve of remains. What to do? I am not ready to give you such instructions. Time heals everything. Sometimes it does it too slowly, because it really wants to live up to this, and your chances are less and less.

On feedback from the state and governing the country:

• I don’t think it exists in our country. The fact that the population of the country hears their power is understandable, because the power constantly speaks out to the people. Can the population hear the authorities? This does not always happen, because not in all countries the entire population has the opportunity to speak out so that the authorities hear. Not in all countries of power it is interesting to listen to. I suspect and may be wrong that our president does not use the Internet at all. He sometimes watches the main federal channels, and he receives information about the country and the world from the portfolio files that are brought to him every morning on the table. Portfolio files should not be very fat, because he will get tired, so the information there is concise and incomplete, and you can inform either this way or that. Therefore, in fact, the country is run by the people who make up these folders, and not he. This state of affairs does not suit me. He must keep his finger on the pulse of the planet.

On the power of state propaganda in Russia:

• The first time, when all the power of Russian propaganda fell upon me, was unpleasant. Before that we were loved and praised for quite a long time. After President Medvedev met with the musicians, including us, for several years on tour, each mayor or governor considered it his duty to come to the concert and be sure to tell how he grew up on our songs. Then it quickly ended, one day, apparently, the installation was given. Now they are even afraid, but sometimes they come. Nice, of course.

On the liberal opposition in Russia:

• I know some people who fall into this category. As a rule, these are deeply decent, educated and conscientious people. On the other hand, it upsets me very much ... We rehearsed the play "Damn, Soldier and Violin" at the Theater of B. A. Pokrovsky, and there was such an old watchman at the service entrance, and they are all, as a rule, from former security officers retired. I have already passed and I hear him reporting somewhere: "Opposition leader Andrei Makarevich has come to our theater!" Well, I started to respect myself, of course. It's all so boring.

About love for the period of "perestroika":

• I could live until the end of my days in a large pioneer camp called the Soviet Union, see nothing beyond Bulgaria, think that the Americans dream of blowing us up with an atomic bomb. This is a terrible melancholy. [ with perestroika ] ... I got the opportunity to feel like a citizen of the world, which I continue to consider myself. I traveled over 100 countries, communicated, worked with people from various countries and learned a lot about their life. I realized that we are much more related than it separates, no matter what lies to us on TV. This is incredibly important. People should be together and not build fences between villages.

About "friends and foes":

• I do not divide into my own people and strangers, although I am very unsympathetic to some regimes, for example, Iran. I cannot call them my own, but to feel some kind of negative for them, to beware of them - no. As a rule, people who experience this know very little, more often they do not want to know anything, they only need those myths that have grown in their heads like mushrooms.

About late baptism:

• I had a friend, a Baptist preacher, Father Samuel, who was a fairly modern young man: unlike Orthodox priests, he spoke normal Russian and went to concerts. And he advised me to be baptized. He brought in a young Orthodox priest. He was very tough, because his whole humanity was divided into two categories, Orthodox Christians and Chekists. First, he found out if I was a Chekist, if my parents and this father were Chekists. Then they almost put me in a basin of cold water, and they started a theological dispute over whether a godfather could be a Baptist during Orthodox baptism. I froze and asked them to stop everything. But it was an interesting learning experience.

About faith in God:

• This question is tactless and does not imply a definite answer, it is serious and philosophical. But God and the Church, especially today, are so different things that the second just does not suit me. And the first suits me completely, if I were completely sure of its existence.

About death:

• The samurai displayed miracles of fearlessness precisely because they believed they were already dead. You don't have to think that you have already died, but in my view, if we proceed from logic, one can be afraid of something that may or may not happen, this probability scares you. And what is inevitable - so why be afraid of him? It will happen anyway. This is not constructive.

The Legend program is aired on Wednesdays and on the RTVI YouTube channel.