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New Times | Socitey | Victor SHENDEROVICH: "IT'S A DISGRACE WHEN YOU'RE RAPED, BUT PRETEND IT'S LOVE"
• Media
Victor SHENDEROVICH: "IT'S A DISGRACE WHEN YOU'RE RAPED, BUT PRETEND IT'S LOVE"
By Yekaterina Drobyazko
 
After the crisis at NTV what did you feel and what did you believe in?

After the NTV affair everything was not so dramatic. We split, lost friends, found ourselves
on different sides of the barricade. There were deep disappointments, serious differences,
human dramas, etc. The whole story of NTV was a drama, both personal and public.
Everything that followed it was perceived as a farce. Betrayal is good, in a way, because it
can be committed only once; one person cannot betray another over and over again.

Really?

Yes. You now know the real worth of it, I mean the drama, a human, professional and
public drama. In the case of NTV, we realized that we were being destroyed, but were
somehow prepared for it. We – I am speaking on behalf of some journalists, not
shareholders or participants in the political games – started leaving, not going to
Berezovsky, but somewhere we could work. There was only one place to go to – TV-6.
Later, when it was closed down, too, we looked for another place to work with the same
team. However, this time the situation was not so dramatic. It was nothing new, but the
destruction of our team continued.

"There is little      likelihood that the owners of TVS will reach agreement with one
another"


A new organization has been formed – TVS. They are the journalists, the capital of liberal
entrepreneurs plus Media-socium. How will you exist and work in this tangle of three
heads? How will it operate? What role will each one play? How does a free person breathe
in this tangle?

Each person should do his or her job. I work with the producer Alexander Levin, whom I
began the Puppets programme with. He is one of my friends and a member of the team
whom I plan to work with in the future. Alexander Levin is a man who has shown his
human qualities and skill time and again. As for the relations bewteen Primakov and
Volsky on the one hand, and Oleg Kiselyov and oligarchs, on the other, this is something
that I can't influence, and I try not to think about it much.

Are you not interested in the policy of the liberal oligarchs and political commissars?

The thinking is that there should not be just one owner. Because when there is only one
boss, as it was with Gusinsky or Berezovsky, or the government, there is the risk of an
"information policy". Gusinsky, Berezovsky and the Kremlin were different cases, but there
was the threat that journalists would begin serving purely financial and political interests.
But when there are many owners (there are about ten in our case), there is a guarantee of
independence. There is little possibility that Deripaska, Chubais, Abramovich, Kiselyov,
Primakov, etc. will agree on one policy, and that there will be strict rules allowing to do one
thing and forbidding to do another. This is why the present setup seems very stable. These
are general reflections. As for concrete matters, we have no grounds to speak about any
interference or pressure so far. I personally can't complain about this.

Two questions about betrayal

Doesn't your team think that they slightly "offended" Berezovsky?

No, I don't see any reason to think that.

But he has appealed to a court…

Berezovsky is absolutely right, as far as the legal aspect of the matter is concerned. The
TV Company MNVK (Moscow Independent Broadcasting Company) was liquidated
unlawfully, and he has every right to demand that his property be returned to him.
Naturally, I am on his side. And I personally am not guilty of any betrayal. We all worked
for his TV channel, increased its financial assets and contributed to Berezovsky, a person
under criminal investigation, becoming a political figure. It so happened that the interests of
freedom of speech and democracy intertwined in a paradoxical manner with the business
interests of Gusinsky, Berezovsky and some financial groups. The political aspect of the
problem was quite clear: the government wished to destroy the media empires of Gusinsky
and Berezovsky. They were deprived of property, pushed to the wayside, and their political
influence was restricted. And we were used as pawns in the game.

And couldn't you do anything?

We did what we could and should do – continued airing our programmes, the news, etc. I
think that claims and reproaches can only be addressed to definite persons. I cannot say
that we served any information interests of Berezovsky. We worked on his channel for the
whole of society. As to a feeling of guilt for taking part in the tender… Well, in my view, we
were right to have taken part. The purely ethical position would have been this: you all are
scoundrels, and we don't want to play your game according to your rules. N0?

In general that is right.

Well, in that case I should have applied for an Israeli or American passport and left the
country. That would have been the most ethical thing to do. I would not have taken part in
these games and would have remained morally pure. But we are not only obligated to
Berezovsky or Gusinsky, or the other oligarchs, but also to the people. And they number
several million. Their political position is not reflected in the mass media. Besides, there
are millions of people who do not realize that they need us. I feel obligated to work for
them. I did not feel obligated to the sources of financing. I worked for the people who saw
and heard me on the screen, and received a wage for my efforts. The millions of people
who were interested in what I was doing were much more important for me. Such were my
obligations.

As for Berezovsky, we worked till the very end, we did not betray him or change our
position, despite any pressure. I am speaking of those who have not switched over to other
channels, including the government-owned one, for a higher wage. We stood our ground
to the very end. On January 11, according to the court ruling, our TV channel was blacked
out. Then we were faced with a simple choice: either to refuse to take part in the tender,
which would have meant that we would have had to abandon everything and leave, or to
do our job outside the TV network.

There is another question about betrayal. Gusinsky has sold his controlling block of shares
to different companies. Nothing has been said about freedom of the press. Don't you
regard yourselves betrayed and used?

No. We have to separate the aesthetics, freedom of speech and the interests of business,
although they are intertwined. In this case Gusinsky has simply disposed of his property as
he deemed fit. One has the right to dispose of one's flat, car, or anything else as one
pleases. The shares Gusinsky sold had no political influence. He acted absolutely
correctly. His money, be it in the publishing business or NTV, or elsewhere, had no
influence on information policy. And he had the right to place it anywhere, for instance, to
invest in the creation of a Russian TV station abroad, This is a good idea, may God help
him…

Had only one person left NTV, he (she) would have been right

So did it pay to leave NTV? Can NTV be compared to TVS?

At present we cannot compare anything to TVS, because we have just started working.

NTV has existed for many years and has augmented its worth. We have played a part in
that. NTV continues to work and is doing well in all respects. But the situation has changed
principally. Previously, there were the federal channels and NTV. And everybody knew that
in critical moments it would be better to view NTV, which would tell the truth about
Chechnya, corruption in the Kremlin, etc. According to the latest data, the Vremya
programme is the leader among all news broadcasts. NTV has become one of the federal
channels. It is quite good, and has highly-skilled professionals doing the news
programmes. I won't discuss other programmes – some are better, others are worse. On
the whole, the channel is working quite well. But I repeat, the NTV affair has changed the
overall picture. Previously, there were government-owned mass media while NTV worked
quite separately. Now the latter is much closer to the former.

We are in a more difficult situation. Some of our colleagues have left for other channels.
TV is not only the journalists on the screen. There are editors, cameramen, sound
engineers, light technicians, and many others. Quite a few people have quit. It's only
natural. Nobody has the right to demand that people display heroism and sit without pay
for half a year. Of course, we have been scattered, our opportunities to broadcast to the
regions have diminished, and many of our indices have fallen. Nothing can be done about
that.

When people were leaving NTV, it was important to see who quit and who remained.
There was a kind of competition of names. But then we understood that, as Sveta
Sorokina said, the main issue was salvation and dignity, whereas rating and popularity
were of no importance. Even if all the people had remained on the NTV channel, when
Jordan came to head it, and only one or two persons had left, these one or two would have
been right, in my view. It's not like in sport: the loser – the winner. It was necessary to part
with NTV. As time passes, I see it ever more clearly.

As Alim Yusupov said to Oleg Dobrodeyev on April 14, 2001, there were things more
important than one's profession. Those who understand this are my fellow-thinkers.

His words could be interpreted in another way: power, money and politics are more
important.

What he had in mind was not power or money. When we were enticed to stay on NTV, you
may rest assured that we were offered good money. We mean certain moral principles. In
the spring of last year each person acted and behaved as he or she saw fit.

When you are raped you are not to blame. It's a terrible misfortune. But it's a shame when
you are raped and you pretend it's love. And you ask money for telling all and sundry that it
was love. This was why there was nothing shameful in our departure from NTV. We were
right in quitting.

More than just colleagues

There was the "Itogo" ("To Sum it up") programme on TV-6. And now there is another
programme – "Pomekhi v efire" ("Interference on the Air") on TVS. Why did you change
the programme?

I simply started a new programme, and it has nothing to do with being on a different
channel. We devised it before the New Year and announced the termination of the Itogo
programme on January 9. And on January 11, the day of recording the last programme,
the court ruling came on the liquidation of TV-6 channel. It was a coincidence. As for the
new programme, we were simply fed up with working on one and the same programme for
so long.

And is the team almost the same?

Almost. True, some people have left for objective and subjective reasons. Several new
persons have come. But on the whole, the backbone remained.

What about the news programmes on TVS. Are they original, independent and different
from those on the other channels?

It depends on the newscaster and the reaction of the audience. Take Mikhail Osokin, for
example. When he anchors a news programme one may rest assured that no views or
even pressure "from above" will influence the order of news items or change its substance.
Viewers will see and hear the news as we give it to him. Mikhail Osokin is a self-sufficient
person, absolutely independent from any "instructions from above". Another person might
waver…

Do you mean somebody on your channel?

I say it as a general observation. This is a question of human professional dignity. I don't
divide journalists into those working on our channel and those on other channels. You will
not hear from me that our journalists are the best and others are bad. But quite a few
people on our channel have demonstrated their firm ethical principles and high
professionalism during the past two years.

Is there any meaningful difference between the titles TV-6 and TVS? Why did you replace
the figure with a letter?

I don't know. Ask those who did it.

And who changed it?

Our bosses. But this is absolutely unimportant.

What does the letter 'S' mean?

When it was necessary to have our company urgently registered, someone came up with
the name Spektr (Spectrum). Nobody knew what our wise bosses had in mind. Thank
God, the name has been reduced to just one letter – S. TVS is a good abbreviation. But, it
is of no importance to me. The main thing is how we work. If we work well and make no
blunders, people will like us, and our audience will grow as time goes by.

I mind my own business. If something outrageous, politically and ethically, happens on our
channel and I feel that my stay there is incompatible with it, I shall leave. Only an idiot can
like everything. But everyone does his job.

There are dozens of projects on our TV channel. Some of them I like, others I don't.

In short, what is the TVS channel?

The people I meet in the rooms, studios and corridors are those who have shown their
human and professional decency. They have behaved as I thought proper. I understand
many things just as they are understood by my colleagues – Sveta Sorokina, Liza Listova,
Alim Yusupov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ashot Nasibov, Alexei Kondulukov, and others; we
are like–minded people. We have a similar attitude to what's good and what's bad, what's
permissible and what's not. And we needn't talk about all that, we simply feel it. After
everything that happened at NTV we have become closer to each other. Previously we
were simply a group of colleagues working on the same NTV channel, then the
demarcation process began. Some good professionals stayed with us, others – also good
professionals – left. Each had their own reason. I have my personal opinion of each
person and I am not going to force it on anybody. But those who have acted just as I have
are more than just colleagues of mine. The people I like – that's TVS to me.
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We won the war but lost peace on the way

“THE KGB WERE NO FOOLS”
“They forgot nothing and learned nothing” – this could be the name for the series of memoirs by prominent functionaries of the Soviet era. The fire and water Vladimir Semichastny, the former head of the Komsomol and KGB chief, had lived through had no effect on his views laid out in his book

THE STRONG MEN FROM STOYALAYA STREET
“The barge haulers’ capital” of Russia and its role in the fate of Marilyn Monroe

GENNADY AIGUI: “A POET IS NO DIFFERENT FROM OTHER DOGS, EXCEPT THAT HE IS A TALKING DOG”
Vyacheslav Sergeyev talks to a Russian poet about artists, writers, terrorists, rhythms, television, avant-garde, postmodernism, and other hog-wash

THE MAID-SERVANT OF A CHIMERA
Spying, sneaking and informing on people broke the life not only of those who were ratted on, but also that of the informers and provocateurs themselves. Here is a true story of one personal letter to the higher-ups

AN ATTEMPT AT A FILM FESTIVAL
The Moscow public does not want to see films about Chechnya

ALICE WOULD BE BORED...

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION TOOK PLACE YESTERDAY
On holidays on calendars, on Daltonism in reverse and on historical hypnosis

RUSTY MYTHS
Two different perceptions of the Great Patriotic war persist in Russians’ minds

“GOATS”, “ELEPHANTS” AND “PECHENEGS”
Ivan Fyodorov, Russia’s first book printer, would have been amazed to learn the changes in Moscow’s attitude to books within just one century, the 20th

DR. CRISIS
The great many surprises of the book publishing business

‘MONOPOLIS’
Yury Luzhkov in the role of an “equally distanced” oligarch

THE PAST AND PRESENT OF A MONASTERY
The Trinity-Sergius Lavra is full of the history of Russia, its joys and sorrows, its rises and falls

THE FLOCK OF THE DECEASED

A DISEASE THAT CAUSED A STIR FROM DAY ONE
The great battle over the cats and dogs that should not be eaten

Thinking on an Outer Space Scale
Two space events of 2003 have changed the situation in this field of man’s endeavours: the American shuttle disaster and China’s first successful launch of a man into outer space

GETTING RESULTS BY ANY MEANS
Russia has the champion it deserves

Vladimir Voinovich: “Russia has been unable to cope with freedom”
The country will not go back to the Soviet system. But it could return to a more distant past, even to monarchy, says the author of “The Soldier Ivan Chonkin” and “Moscow-2042”.

HERE IS TO THE FEW TRUE FRIENDS

A MOlE WHO INFLUENCED THE COURSE OF HISTORY
Alexander N. Yakovlev is 80. Non-jubilee remarks

THE MESSIAH WE HAVE LOST
Solzhenitsin’s dream has come true: the authorities seek his advice

A DOSE OF DISCORD
The government vs. the State Committee for Drugs Control: checking the possible level of resistance

CAN THEY STOP A GALLOPING HORSE?
The Roland Garros final turned into an all-Russian affair

IGOR STRAVINSKY. MUSICAL PROTEUS
Sound analogue of Pablo Picasso

GOD'S FOOL PARFENI ET AL.
To appeal to the state as the supreme authority is to act, in part, like a God's fool

DAYS OF OPEN MURDERS
Though there are not many of them and they are poorly organized, the fascists have become a force only because they meet with no rebuff on the part of the state

ON THE BRINK OF A COMMON GRAVE
The recently published results of the All-Russia population census for 2002 make it possible to judge the demographic future of Russia

Yury ANDROPOV. A POET OF THE ERA OF DINOSAURS
He lived in fear of death and of violence and horror in the face of a civil war. It determined his life and career

RUSSIA IS RULED NOT BY RESPONSIBLE POLITICIANS, BUT BY IRRESPONSIBLE BUREAUCRATS
The drawbacks of democracy stem from the Constitution -- such is the conclusion of Mikhail KRASNOV, the assistant on legal matters of the first President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin. Mikhail Krasnov, D. Sc. (Law), is now the Vice- President of the Regional Public Foundation Informatics for Democracy (INDEM). Lyubov TSUKANOVA, an NT political analyst talked with him recently

MISHAPS OF HISTORIC REAL ESTATE
The Moscow Mayor’s Office and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation are fighting for the right to own architectural monuments in the capital

THE VIRTUAL FEAST OF THE VICTORS
It is not important whether we deceive television or vice versa

A LOUD SILENCE
The mass media bosses secretly share the views of Bishop George Berkeley

A NATION OF WIDOWS AND MAIDENS
Great changes in family and love. How the GULAG affected the ratio of the sexes. Who finds it harder to meet the other half

COMMISSION FOR ADMISSION TO THE METRO
“The root of all evil lies not in reform itself, but in the incomplete reforming of the educational system”, says Anatoly PINSKY, the director of the School Development Centre at the Higher School of Economics

HOW TO RAISE A PRODIGY
The unique experience of the Knyazev family: Diana and Angela have earned a Master’s Degree by the age of 16

A RECORD IN BOOK PUBLISHING
At the 17th International Book Fair in Moscow the visitors could read the delightful Koran and learned that Russian is the main language for Jewish culture

TELL ME WHAT YOU READ...
and I shall tell you who you are. On the eve of the 17th International Book Fair in Moscow, noted writers, actors, cinema producers and a voyager talk about their favourite books – those which they read or have read again lately, which made them laugh or weep, influenced their fate, and perhaps even sharply changed their life

THE REFLECTION
We all are mirrors of each other, and we select these mirrors ourselves

A MUG OF BEER FOR A FREE MAN
The ban on advertising beer has caused no less of a stir than the abolition of privileges. Why did our parliamentarians deem this matter so timely?

THE LAST LINE OF DEFENSE
How I defended the Central Telegraph building

EVERYTHING’S FINE, MY BEAUTIFUL MARCHESA

AN INSTRUCTION FOR SALIERI
Yuri Luzhkov’s historical mistake

OKHOTNY RYAD DOES NOT LEAD TO THE TEMPLE

THE RUSSIAN QUESTION – THE JEWISH ANSWER

RUSSIANS ON THE MOVE
Who will pick up the baton after the Kremlin Cup?

THE ROAD TO MOGILEV
Some little known pages of Russian Jewry’s history in the reign of Nicholas I

THE FORMER ABOUT THE FUTURE
The Forum of World Politics: Mikhail Gorbachev gathered his political generation in Italy

THE TRIUMPH OF RISK
Rest in the mountains has turned into an extremely risky sport

LIFE WITH A BIG LETTER “M”
How to ride the Metro with the use for oneself and without harming others

Konstantin RAIKIN: “AUDIENCES SHOULD BE SHOCKED AND SURPRISED”
The Moscow Satirikon Theatre has opened its new season with a work which we all know only too well, but have not seen in a dramatized version on the stage for a long time. Konstantin Raikin about “The Country of Love,” theatrical passions, good taste, his audiences, about fathers and sons and the prices of theatre tickets

A WONDER OF THE WORLD IN THE HOUSE OF MUSIC
An organ inaugurated under the music of Bach

THE GOLD OF SWAMPS

SEARCING FOR A CRATER
Vasily Aksyonov has become a laureate of the Open Russia Booker Prize for 2004. This is the first Russian literary prize of this veteran writer

CORRECT TECHNOLOGIES OF ARTHUR HAILEY
A writer has died who could not write and had no imagination whatsoever. His books are read by millions of people

CAPITAL STYLE
How Moscow Is Turning Into a Big Potemkin Village

THE WHOLE WORLD CAME TO THE GREEKS
The scores, seconds and centimeters of the Russian team

SPECIFIC FEATURES OF NATIONAL CHILDBIRTH
Doubling the GDP is not going to double the birthrate

WOMEN’S LOT-2

THE STORY OF REST
Group and individual tourism from Soviet times to our days

THE EPITAPH SOUL STYLE

HOW THE CONSCIENCE OF A NATION WAS TEMPERED
Even the very best persons listen only to their own suffering. Letters of an anti-Nazi from the Nazi army

CONFLICTING DREAMS
The theory and practice of anti-Semitism. From “Bundist scum” to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

THE PATIENT IS INCURABLE AND IMMORTAL
A particular case of human madness

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS FOR CONSUMPTION OFF THE COUNTRY
President Putin felt ashamed of anti-Semitism in Russia. But this feeling was not strong enough to share it with his fellow-countrymen

HUNTING DOWN THE WANDERING JEW

“FOR ME, MAN’S EXIT INTO OUTER SPACE WAS NO MIRACLE”
Half a century of man’s odyssey in the outer space: have the great visionaries’ forecasts come true? Will humans or robots explore the Universe? When will extraterrestrial settlements appear? Such are the issues discussed by NT correspondent Valery Sharov and one of the initiators of the space medicine and biology, who had trained many people and animals for space flights, Academician Oleg GAZENKO of the Russian Academy of Sciences

IN THE HILLS NEAR MANCHURIA
Some stories about who contributed to our victory in the last war and how

TRIPLE CANNON
Free press which depends on a tycoon thrown into prison by the authorities

SKATING RINK WITH MUSIC
People are awaiting the restoration of totalitarianism – some with fear, others with hope. But there’ll be no restoration. It’s too late. Besides, there’s no money for it

AN UNKNOWN OCCUPATION
Horror in the eyes of babies

“THE DOCTORS’ CASE”: IGNORANCE OR MALICIOUS INTENT?
The court’s ruling has not eliminated the threat to doctors and science

CROSSMODERN
World development is like a lumpy old squash

VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS
Almost all Soviet intelligence agents warned Moscow of an imminent attack by Germany, but Stalin did not believe any of them

ICON OVER THE REICHSTAG

HOW CHECHEN BOOKS WERE PERSECUTED
A horrible method was devised in Soviet times: first total genocide was announced, to be followed by bibliocide, that is, the withdrawal and subsequent destruction of entire editions of books and other printed matter of a nation

“AS A POET I FIND PLEASURE IN FEELING MARGINAL”
Bakhyt KENZHEYEV talking about tragedy and drama, Moscow and Montreal, Brodsky and Pasternak, authoritarianism and dictatorship, about Sasha Sokolov and Sergei Dovlatov, with the author Slava SERGEYEV

LIFE IN THE CUPS
Drunkenness is a form of Russian excess and a form of genius

THE FATAL TRIANGLE of the PEOPLE, BUSINESS, and AUTHORITY

A NEAR-FATAL SPACE MISSION
The historic space flight of Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyaev could be entered into the Guinness Book of Records for the number of emergencies they had

WAS THERE REALLY A TRIAL?
It is already for two thousand years now that the accusation of Christ’s death has plagued the Jewish people. Although they are not a bit to blame for that fateful execution

THE LITTLE ONES CRYING WITH LIFE
Children write to God

FREE FROM JEWS
The destruction of books, “bibliocide,” is almost always followed by genocide. How “Jewish” books were suppressed in Soviet times

A DIVIDED VICTORY
Was the defeat of Nazi Germany the ultimate aim of our army? What role was prepared for Hitler’s corpse? When did the Cold War begin?

AN ACT OF GOD IN THE HEAVENS
Almost nothing goes as planned in space. Vladimir Lyakhov, who has flown in spacecraft three times, knows this personally

METAMORPHOSES IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION
Education and science between communism and technocracy

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