Vladimir Skobtsov
Photo: Ivan MAKEEV
“Vladimir Skobtsov: Donbass is ZA with us and God is with us!” This is the name of the program of the cycle “Unceremonial Portraits with Alexander Gamov” with the participation of the famous DPR bard Vladimir Skobtsov. He sang his songs and answered questions from journalists. (Audio and video links below.)
Here are some snippets…
“You don’t need to talk in a formidable bass with Donbass”
These lines belong to the Great Poetess Junna Moritz – they became the epigraph of our program…
– Volodya, – we asked the first question to the guest, – your audience is already used to seeing you in a white shirt. Is it like a talisman? And does it have any special meaning?
– Yes, I especially wear a white shirt during the 9 years of the war that goes through our city, – said Skobtsov. – Because Donetsk is on the front line.
You know, Russian soldiers always dressed clean before battle. Because in this case, the tissue villi that got into the wound did not cause infection. And yet, you stand in the pure before God. And we have been standing before God for all 9 years.
– That is, are you in constant preparation for the fact that you can get injured?
– Yes. We wear clean clothes so we won’t be embarrassed in the morgue. Donetsk people are such people…
You know, almost a year has passed since the special operation took place, all this time the city has been without water. Million City. But we do not have an epidemic, all our people are clean.
The object of my attention is people. These are the same “ordinary people”: militias, soldiers, commanders, pensioners, drivers, public services, workers, teachers, doctors, of course, saving lives. And I see them as blood relatives.
– The song from your words “Donbass is behind us” has become truly popular. And not only for the people of Donetsk, for all of Russia.
– We are one family, we are one people, we are one great Russia.
We are not fighting against the Ukrainian people. We are fighting the Nazis.
Photo: Ivan MAKEEV
“Ukrainian fascism is worse than German”
– You once said that Ukrainian fascism is worse than German.
– I will remember the events of the Great Patriotic War. Before the withdrawal from Donetsk, the Germans brought the Ukrainian national battalion into the city. And the Donetsk 4-Bis mine was littered with the corpses of people who refused to shout “Glory to Ukraine.” They were sprinkled with dust, lime.
My father wrote a book about this terrible crime. All Ukrainian Nazis did it.
And after so many years, the same catchphrase sounds … And in the social networks of Ukrainians, pure surprise: “Where did you see the Nazis in Ukraine?
My friend Roman Razum made the film “Militia”. All the stories were taken from life, from the phones of Ukrainian soldiers. He says that there is so much sadism, there is so much blood, that most of what they saw was not included in the film, because it cannot be shown.
This is for the court.
“Thank God that Russia has entered the Donbass”
– How did you receive February 24, 2022, the start of a special military operation?
– Thank God that Russia entered in February.
All Donetsk breathed a sigh of relief. And now, no matter what they write on the Internet, on the front line, everything is fine.
We are doomed to win.
– Did you have to talk to the captured Ukrainians? humble steels?
– We broke into our hospital on Petrovka (in Donetsk). Which is now being bombed. And a familiar doctor says: they curse us. He says, “I’m saving the life of a captive VSE officer, I’m doing general anesthesia, because I need to get the fragments out of him, and he said the last thing he said before he went into suspended animation:” How? Hate you.
– Volodya, here are the lines from one of your poems about Donbass: “He did not bring anyone to his knees, because he will never get up on his own …”
– What about them?
– This poem is called “My paradise.”
– I have such a happy chance to stay in my hometown and if I leave, I will lose my pulse. And everything you write will be false.
I do not want to offend anyone. People leave for various reasons: some have children, others have sick parents. You can’t blame them for it.
– But there is another category of people, as they were called: “frightened patriots.”
– I want to quote Bulgakov: “Never run away with a rat’s run into the unknown from danger.”
– Volodya – you are a creative person, and creative people tend to doubt. What a stereotype, yes … Tell me, there were throws when you were faced with an election, whose side are you on?
– At the beginning (the tragic clash in the Donbass) there was an obvious choice. Many of my fellow artists are on that side. And they told me – come with us.
But here it is – the Motherland, where my ancestors are buried, people live here, flesh for flesh and blood for blood …
Here it is: the blood of a murdered child. And there are those who still say: “not everything is so simple.”
And I cut everything that was on the other side, I just cut. When there is a big fight, what can be ambiguous… “we’ll figure it out later”?
In my homeland, children and the elderly are killed just because they live in the Donbass. Naturally, I will be on your side.
And the formula of the Russian world is as follows: “There is no misfortune for someone else, there is only misfortune for everyone.” This is how the Russian people exist.
And I think that we are not fighting the Ukrainians – by no means! We are not fighting against the Ukrainian people. We fight demons.
Here, it seems, a man in a human shell, and he speaks Russian, pronouncing Ukrainian words with difficulty, but – this devilishness is sitting on him …
Photo: Ivan MAKEEV
“Vysotsky would be with us”
– Volodya, you often perform in hospitals and at the front.
– Yes. If you want to know something about the battles, go to the hospital to see the wounded soldiers.
I remember 2014, the first military hospital in Donetsk. my performance
And they tell me: you will walk in decubitus. From the inertia of a civilian, I thought: lying down, well, the temperature is high. I enter, and there are people who, in principle… leave. The injuries are incredibly serious.
I see a man who has almost no spine, he was blown away and lies with his face to the wall. And I understand that, as an artist, I have to lift my spirits.
I sing, he holds out his hand to me, shakes it and says thank you. I say thank you. He says: no, let’s remove the pathos, thanks for coming. I say I’m leaving I saw the eyes of death.
And this same man, he is a hard worker, a miner, he says: if I could get everything back, I would go defend my house again.
These are our Heroes. The people who defend their homeland are saints.
You can’t be brutalized, you can’t disperse, you have to remain human.
– The question is how to remain human?
– The entire history of our great country teaches this.
First of all, literature. The key poem of Alexander Pushkin “To the slanderers of Russia” … He was spat upon by his liberal contemporaries for this poem, and there – this: “We did not recognize the impudent will of the one before whom you trembled.”
Without knowing this poem, our militias with bare hands, with clubs, with hunting rifles did not recognize the shameless will of the one under whom the others trembled. This is how a Russian person behaves.
Photo: Ivan MAKEEV
FROM THE INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHORS
We listen to Volodya … How much he reminds him of Vladimir Vysotsky! (And these days they were only celebrating the 85th anniversary of the poet’s birth.) Remember, both in the manner of singing, and in some kind of energy, and even in the timbre of the voice …
That’s why we keep asking ourselves questions like this…
– Volodya, is Vysotsky on our side? You said it before the interview… And now tell me, what does it mean?
– This means that if Vladimir Semenovich were alive, he would be with us, on our side. Undoubtedly.
This was said by my friend (God rest his kingdom), journalist Andrey Babitsky. And I agree with him.
Vysotsky where the truth is. And the truth is with us.
– Tell me more, Volodya, when is the Victory? What date, what month? What does your poetic instinct suggest to you? What song will you sing on Victory Day?
– And we have no choice: to win, not to win, we will, we will not …
Victory is sure to come.
As Vyacheslav Molotov said in June 1941 about the war with the German fascists: “Our cause is just, the enemy will be defeated, victory will be ours.”
LITERAL
“… And a concert in the Semyonovsky regiment”
Producer Vladimir Skobtsov, composer, poet Leonid Zinkovsky also took part in the “Portraits without Ceremony” program. This is what he said:
– Skobtsov not only came to Moscow. We were invited to take part in a benefit concert in the Semyonovsky regiment.
In addition, we have been cooperating with the Vishnevsky Central Military Clinical Hospital for a long time, giving charity concerts. They also performed in Star City in front of the astronauts. And also – in the Union of Writers of Russia.
Also a significant place, because Volodya is one of the founders of the Union of Writers of the DPR. As Donbass merges with Russia, so does the organization of writers from the Donetsk Republic into the Union of Writers of Russia.
And the first Honorary Member of the Union of Writers of the Undefeated Donbass was the Great Poetess Yunna Moritz. Yunna Petrovna is a real fighter from Donbass!
