Andrei, you have a separate series of books dedicated to melee weapons. Where does this passion come from?
Andrei Belyanin: About 15 years ago, a reader, a well-known collector of weapons in the Kuban, Nikolai Tverdokhlebov, wrote to me. He opened the first private museum of Cossack weapons in Russia in the village of Ilskaya. Even Steven Seagal comes to visit him. Come, he says, I will give you a token “Abbas-Mirza”, 19th century. I was. I saw rooms full of sabers and sabers. I asked him where you can read about all this. He answers me: “Well, somewhere on the Internet.” No one wrote such an anthology separately. And I thought. And then he wrote the history of the drafts from his birth to 1945. The book became popular. Then there were the stories of the Georgian dagger, saber, and weapons. In the Donbass I gave lectures on Cossack weapons. But I myself did not cut anyone, despite the fact that I am a very nervous prose writer.
This year his new book was published – “PMC” Khersones “. Why such a name?
Andrei Belyanin: I will say right away: it has nothing to do with the abbreviation that is popular today. There was even an uproar on the Web – they say, I am overreacting to this topic! And this book is only about the museum, more precisely, about the private exhibition complex and its employees. A young art critic comes to the Crimea to an unusual museum. There he studied art history. And then he finds out that the museum staff is not quite ordinary people … I imagined everything that happened with the help of psychology. Put yourself in the place of a hero.
What books does Belyanin read?
Andrei Belyanin: I read a lot of different things, because I always thought that I lacked education. I graduated from the Astrakhan School of Art and Pedagogy, then entered the Literary Institute, studied for a semester and ran away. Mom instructed me: “Never say that you have a secondary education, say that you have an incomplete higher education.” So I say. And along the way, I read a lot, even what an ordinary person in his right mind will not read. And I’m a writer, I’m crazy!
Have you read books about the life of Orthodox Jews? What about Bridget Jones’s diary? If you are a serious writer, then you will not fit the concept of a “normal person” in terms of the literature you read. And so, on average, once a month I run away from home for a week. I am going to some city to give lectures on the history of Cossack weapons. I read a book or two along the way. Of the latter – Backman, a Swedish writer, I really liked. “Uwe’s second life”, “Grandma told me to take a bow…”. This is a work of genius.
Do you have a place of power?
Andrey Belyanin: Astrakhan, of course. This is a small and friendly city. The Astrakhans are a peculiar people, extremely mixed. It is more than normal for us when Muslim children knock on my door at Easter and demand eggs. Also, they demand, they don’t know that you have to sing songs. And in the order of things, when on Eid al-Adha a family goes through all the floors of the house and distributes kainars, traditional Tatar pies with lamb. This is absolutely normal. My eldest daughter married a Tatar, so I know everything.
His books have been translated into seven languages. How is the world of your books perceived abroad? Do they laugh there the same way as in Russia?
Andrei Belyanin: I can say that in Bulgaria my books are considered serious science fiction. And once there was an incident. A Bulgarian translator called me and asked: “Andrey, in your book The Thief of Bagdad it says that women in orange overalls were repairing the street, they were laying asphalt. But can’t this be? Isn’t it humor?” – “Why is this?” – Asked. “Well, a woman cannot lay asphalt! She is not in the rules of the European Union.” And in the Czech Republic, my book “Taste of the Vampire” was framed in the horror genre. There were three severed heads on the cover, blood, a dumping orgy in brown and red style. And our book was in the genre of humorous fiction. It is useless to explain.
Mom taught: “Never say you have a high school education”
You said in one of your interviews that in Russian literature someone always has to suffer: the author, or the reader, or the hero.
Andrei Belyanin: So it happened in Russian literature. A girl from the Pedagogical Institute tried to explain to me that this is correct, that this is a “revival of humanism.” Once we stop suffering, “the world will collapse.” But I do not want. I seem to be an anti-humanist in this sense. I was in Mariupol at the beginning of May, where I was supposed to give a master class for young writers from Mariupol. This is not yet a fully restored city with a complex atmosphere. The meeting was attended by women of different ages. There were practically no men. They are at a construction site or out front. When I looked into their eyes, I realized that I couldn’t teach them anything, their pain is not about that. And I began to entertain them with all kinds of stories from life. My living room laughed for an hour. I think if I had loaded them with our literature, the suffering would have multiplied. Why do they need it?
How are your books born?
Andrey Belyanin: In different ways. Sometimes, for example, out of envy. I once read the wonderful writer Glen Cook. Oh, I thought how cool: the world of witches, gnomes, wizards. And a private detective who investigates various crimes still lives in the city. What a thrill! Why don’t we have this? Can we also have a private investigator? Or that it is the usual police in Russian fairy tales. Why not? And so the hero Nikita Ivashov and “The Secret Investigation of Tsar Pea” was born.
Which of your 98 books do you consider the most serious?
Andrei Belyanin: I have only one serious book without humor – this is “Lana”. A little thing that can be described as psychedelic and mystical. I wrote it quickly, in a month. There will be no continuation, I’ll say right away.
Sometimes you have collaboratively written books. How’s the interaction going here? On what basis do you choose a person?
Andrey Belyanin: I am announcing a contest. Once, a few years ago, he announced this. Various people passed by and wrote different books with them. I wrote two books with Daria Mendeleeva, my literary secretary and co-author. She helped me collect material on weapons, she edited some stuff. With Galina Chernaya (Galia Iksanova) my cooperation was the longest, 15 books were written. Unlike the others, it was also the hardest, since she is a Tatar. She has an emotional attitude towards the text. Sometimes we were ready to strangle each other. For example, the book is written, we meet in a cafe, we start editing it. Everyone suggests edits. It usually sounds like this: “Andrey, here it is written here:” the cat ran into the forest “. And why did he run? Maybe it would be better” the cat jumped into the forest “? … “Listen, maybe the cat tiptoeed into the woods?” Sir, I mean, what does it matter how the cat got into the woods… “Yeah, I thought you didn’t care!” And then a scream begins. … A waiter runs in: “Girl, maybe call security?” And now we’re both already yelling at this waiter.
You’ve described the agonies of co-authoring, but do you often have disputes with the publishers of your books?
Andrei Belyanin: Almost never. This fight does not exist if there is a good editor. Sometimes I pray for the editor Tatyana Stelmakh. She is of this level: “Andrei, you wrote that the main character dressed in St. Petersburg in a store, and as a tsarist officer they bought him yellow leather boots. Do you know that in St. Petersburg at that time only the grooms and Did the bride and groom wear yellow boots? The officer couldn’t wear them! – “Tatiana, thank you” I say “I didn’t know” And you are praying for this editor.
What is he working on now?
Andrey Belyanin: I handed over the second part of PMC Khersones to Phoenix. I still can’t say when the release is planned. I met with the artist Ivan Ivanov in Moscow. We made the text part of the cookbook. This idea has been around for a long time. Someone said: read Belyanin’s books in the kitchen, because there the heroes eat and cook deliciously. As a result, I wrote a multi-author cookbook. I also like to cook. I did a separate analysis of wines and whiskey. After all, my heroes should understand them. In the book ” Yazhmag” I describe people who have organized communities on social networks, call themselves “yazhmags” by analogy with “yazhmags” or “yazhots”, give advice. I once saw such “wizards” on social networks. So a series of books about a St. actually a real magician. Unlike other characters in my books, he only drinks whiskey. So I had to register on the forum, study all varieties… You don’t have to try them all, otherwise you will burn out at work.
anthology of works
The most popular are “King Peas Secret Investigation”, “Vampire Taste”, “Red Knight”, “Lana”.
