Eduard Limonov, writer, poet and oppositionist, stars counter-cultural movement, began in March 2020. And soon came the posthumous book of his memoirs about the years in Paris and new York, trips to Italy, France, Spain, Mongolia, Abkhazia, reflections on life and observations of the picture outside the window. The collection is called “old Man travelling”. With the permission of the publishing house “Subject” “Tape.ru” publishes excerpts of the book.
of Russia / Moscow / courtyard / 2020
I Packed in clothes. Men hats are no more. They were succeeded, not hats, but caps. Coat either. The youth jackets are rather short because they don’t wear jackets. Bottom jeans are usually blue, or just two legs of the pants.
Women, if they are not fat, wear tight jeans, those emphasizing their blokowanie or pear-shaped behinds.
Modern clothes rather rude, if we measure it by postwar standards (that’s when I found the “light” of consciousness), but it is the one that was. Or it seems to be easier. The one that was in was spacious, but often wrinkled and dusty. Leg opening of the men were rather dirty, because in the cities were more natural dust and dirt, and asphalt and concrete are very few. As I can remember, I scraped the legs of his pants with a brush, and the brush was oncovirinae dirt with a knife.
Now clothing is worth a penny. Bought, reviled, thrown away. In my day if sewed coat, then a dozen years at least. Costumes worn by almost generations.
Here is quietly, carrying in his right hand a bag, a man of about thirty. He’s of average height, it is short coat, collar raised, his pace is average, he is not in a hurry, but not walking slow. If he has a wife, he needs her to be annoying. But the two old men shuffle, she with a cane, he is more cheerful, but perhaps he’s her son.
People are quite boring, I have no interest in them, so I don’t go to visit anyone about anything do not ask, if asked a short answer, but no more. I do not like to talk, people have distributed to the subordinate story, and listen to them I have no strength. I kept my visitors an hour, then escorted them. And pleasure immersed in loneliness.
For a start, I looked out the window. There is a old lady with a cane, with a yellow package (probably a supermarket Billa) and a white kerchief. Useless. Are bulky ladies. I call them “mother in law”. They have a lot of guts and fat guts. I consider them as a butcher.
Today 19 January, no snow, but all passers-by are sealed in their suits of jackets and jackets. Just noses sticking out.
I am a person who doesn’t like to talk. And, no longer half to hear, did not upset.
“still the greater part of mankind there’s nothing interesting to tell me,” laughing, I said.
Russia / Moscow / courtyard — II / 2020
Stopped. Strong long legs in black tights. Painted in black and green tree white jacket, has a hood, but the head tightly wraps the handkerchief. Cherry lips and strawberry cheeks, excited black eyes, a strand of black hair from under the scarf. Oh, I would have been at least a decade younger! Merde! From her, I warrant smells of damp and hot with courage.
I often remember the answer nonagenarian former St. Petersburg beauty Salome Andronikova when I asked her how she feels, what it’s like to be old? The action took place in London, in the estate of sir Isaiah Berlin.
“you Know, Lemons… And she looked at me, weighing look, but not long looked at, quickly deciding that I deserve an honest answer. — You know, I’m as crazy as thirty, as well ready for the adventure. But my body is like the suit of a diver. It’s heavy, and I can’t easily make all the craziness, which I allowed. It’s heavy like a suit”.
From that day in London I remember the background for the Salome sun, a British lawn, where the lawn sedately walked governess and vzryvchatka running British children.
the Italy / As I ran from the bourgeoisie
They were there for me. I tolerated them, but they all arrived and arrived. Glossy, well-fed, in good clothes, in fine shoes. Both men and women. They looked at me adoringly, not like the Russian bear.
In the end, they accumulated a few hundred, and they stood in line to be photographed with me, as if I was Putin on a plywood plank. It finally hit me when I realized that none of kontrkultury realized that it was the Roman bourgeoisie.
And I wanted away… I said Seleznev: “Get the fuck out of here, Dima, is the bourgeoisie. And they getting on my nerves!”
My publisher Aunt asked me to calm down when I told him that I wanted to go.
— Wait, Edward, was not yet made by the lady of the house. She needs to give a speech.
— It! — I shouted. You’ve not been warned what will happen. I came to watch the film “Pasolini and Lemon” or “Lemons and Pasolini,” but you led me to Terry bourgeois.
He’s, what, Aunt, he and his wife Laura Boyko was selling my books, which is a cubic metre stood in the hallway at the entrance. Due to erosion of the mucous membrane of the mouth I could eat only flavorless cheese, and wine they could not drink at all.
— Come On, Dima! — I have become overcrowded in that room, where they were dumped outerwear appeared.
— Edward! The hostess spent so much effort! Invited guests, prepared meal. Laura was really evil, I could see it in her face.
— Edward, don’t go! The lady of the house, perhaps, a good woman, but in this case the ledge��serves in the role of thurammina, grabbed me by the shoulder.
“Now, now, they will keep me by force,” thought I, completely enraged, pulled my jacket from the pile matted in whom the garments of the bourgeoisie.
— Dimka!!!
Dima was nothing left but to follow me. If it were, it would condemn every national Bolsheviks in Russia. Descending the stairs on foot, we met a lot of bourgeois, late “to lemon”. It was cold outside, blinking garlands of small bulbs, rather it was dark. And calm.
And off we went. Then I spotted a free taxi. We, two foreigners, rushed to the cab across the street and climbed inside, frightened, I think, the driver.
— Well, fuck them, you Dimka! I can’t stand the bourgeoisie.
In Russia, I was at a gathering like this, thank God, is not invited. Communicate with you, male NBP.
— So what happens now? — asked Dimka.
— The return tickets we have, and if Aunt will deny us at the hotel, you and I have the money to pay for a hotel…
a Portrait of the author
Here’s my portrait. The apartment consisted of two tiny rooms (well a small) walking around old skinny boy in training, with a white stripe along the edge of the pants. In the red shirt with the word “Mongolia” and the Buddhist sphere on the shirt. White hair a mess worse than Boris Johnson or Einstein. Outside the window the black trunks of bald by the winter trees.
You what you had in mind? But here I am. Deaf in three quarters. Moving, however, quickly. In prison, their hundreds of steps on the longest route thaiepay, so the legs had muscles. With worse torso: left arm for a year dislocated right polivalenta, because exercise does not allow. And it would be necessary.
The fact that I have no dislocations have something to treat. A cloud of health problems. Not dislocations. A walk from wall to wall learned me to jail. It’s called “hanging out”. Happy those huts where you can hang out at two. In small capacity two not mingle.
How else to introduce myself. Weight, height? How I live — I leave the house only with the guards. So here I live.
And now I’ll tell you what I disliked had a dream this night in the morning. I dreamed that I was hanging outside of the building carefully, so as not to break, knock on the glass. Window frame old as in the kitchen in the apartment where I am now. Obscure, as befits a dream as I was in such a strange situation. I knock that opened it, and I’d climbed (the left hand is then moved in the depth of the apartment, to cling to the window sill), and I shout: “Dima! Dima!” And during the dream I dream also that I have two of Dima in my close environment. Dima Savitsky (dead) and Dmytro Sydorenko (alive). The heart grows cold. Which of the Dim sum behind the glass? And heart goes cold. See the piece of shirt Dima Savitsky. Yay! So, I was not allowed�� in the realm of the dead. Well, I’m back to where I was removed and hung outside the home. And I went back to bed.
How did he manage to die so that you remember everything, and it would be a signal remaining? To manage to die. Death is the main event in a person’s life. About the Japanese soldiers in the Chinese Nanjing: murder is a compensation for his own death. And you’re still trying to figure out why they kill with such brutality. So here it is: murder is a compensation for his own death.
So I do not believe the fable about not giving to sleep victims. More likely a victim is strengthened in his own greatness. This is clearly not the humanism — are your thoughts, Edward.
In fact, people in old age, not sick, and is subject to attacks of death. She bites, smothers, squeezes his fangs, sometimes retreating, and then again bore down. He understands that this is another disease. But it is not a disease it is the death of his twists. She wants her came time for him to go to another form. Oh, how he wants, he’s used to this!
Give, you fool, that body! You it is unnecessary. You will go to higher life forms (or to a lower or anything).
Again: why I travel the country? Well, clearly, the film is about me removed. This form is suggested. And if deeper? Well, I’m sick and looking for my, your, his, hero, death. Worthy of me. But death is not found. So, go ahead in the future? Forward to the future. Which from a few days to several months? Yes, forward into the future, which is not, because it is time to become real. And from the past. Continuous process.
I gave consent to participate in the filming of the movie on me when I found out that the shooting will take place in several countries. Because of a desire to wipe away from the consciousness of the past and replace the boring episodes new. Managed? Managed to completely.
the He thought about his girls…
For the most part they were bad.
Anna was good! Here is the first, Anna, was kind, probably because he was crazy. She fell in love with him then.
Second, Elena was bad, rather indifferent, because above all else love yourself.
Natasha. All somehow believe that he loved her more than others. It is not, it was more the worries and experiences. She was unkind, because I didn’t love myself. Everyone thought that she was missing something. She’s had enough: and beauty, and youth, and talent.
He stopped and thought he was smarter than Tolstoy. He couldn’t have been all my life be freed from the monstrous Sofia Andreevna. He always escaped somehow from his girls.
The actress was unkind, and insensitive, and unintelligent.
Lizka was gone.
Nastya was stupid and didn’t appreciate. Somehow believed he will always be with her. It’s because stupid. Simple, face, simple.
Fifi is also unkind. But at least smart. The Jewish Museum and Marktplatz.��Aya felt the blood. He drew her attention to her Jewish blood. In his girls he had a better understanding than they themselves.
Elena became funny Russian lady. Very old-fashioned and stupid. Imagine how her daughter hates her. Recently, he saw a daughter with a horse, a horse, a horse overcoming a barrier. But mother, when I was young, was tempting, and the daughter too, as if to Express more precisely, standardized production, Board by Board.
Elena is not bad to die, she played a role, delivered the genius of the many torments and troubles, gave him the sorrows of young Werther. Now she’s got a chubby face, chubby face…
It became clear that there is very little human. And they, well, his girls were all human females…
