Andrey Sobolev: "Baku is an example of how we can arrange life"

Tribune’s guest is a member of the Federation Council Committee on Education, Science and Culture, and a bard, Andrei Sobolev. He represents the federal city of Sevastopol in the upper chamber of the Russian Parliament.

- Andrei Nikolayevich, you have a poetic correspondence with the Turkish poet Hüseyin Haydar, who wrote a poem- apology to the Russian people, dedicated to the tragedy of the downed Russian bomber Su-24, the deaths of the pilot Oleg Peshkov and the paratrooper who participated in the rescue operation to evacuate the crew. I will read part of the translation of this poem of Hüseyin Haydar:

There is a lot of forgiveness in destans and song

Mayakovsky and Gorky

And Ivan the Soviet, who protected

His own land from Nazis.

I ask to forgive me the country's heroes

Women, men, children and the elderly,

The 23 million people who died

And Gagarin who performed his feat,

And the Soviet brother, who gave us a hand

In our great national war ...

I am the Turkish poet Hüseyin Haydar,

I admit I'm guilty, turning my head toward the light:

I could not save my country from shame,

Excuse me for this, the great Russian people

I bent my knees, I beg forgiveness from

The mom of Oleg Peshkov ...

What did you write to Hüseyin Haydar?

- I wrote a poem:

The poet knelt and apologized, his conscience is worrying him.

He did not shoot down the bomber, but the poet cannot remain silent.

He asks everybody to forgive him, he appreciates and respects us,

Takes someone else's cardinal sin, another’s shame accepts as his.

The poet lives with his conscience in peace, God whispers into his ears.

They won’t save from trouble, but will settle shame in someone's soul.

Not a diplomat, not a deputy was in charge of his country,

The poet is able with just one of his lines, they say, to stop the war.

And this time he asks whether his words will serve as an example?

Well, the poet repented, but the president with the prime minister are silent.

- In your opinion, will there be any rapprochement? At the beginning of the 2000s Vladimir Putin made the first visit to Turkey of a Russian head of state for 30-40 years. After that, an intensive growth of relations started, in which one of the central leading roles was played by the current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The extent to which we have increased turnover over the years can, probably, be called an economic miracle. We can hardly find another two countries that would build a relationship so intensely. And suddenly a stab in the back ....

- Istanbul, in fact, is a beautiful city, a city of many civilizations, that is Christianity, and the Greeks and Turks. In my repertoire there's a song ‘Guy, I want to visit Istanbul,’ I wrote it three or four years ago. Indeed, it was a place where it is great to holiday.

We were assimilated so tightly with the tourism industry of Turkey that it was impossible to imagine a holiday (especially for residents of northern, central Russia) except in Turkey. It was very convenient and profitable. Turkey received huge profits from it. For some reason we thought, whether by virtue of the Slavic mentality, whether due to the Soviet way of thinking, that good deeds will be answered by good deeds. But when there was a temptation to earn extra money from nationalism (and ISIS is exactly a business based on nationalism), Mr Erdogan became involved in this game. My opinion. There is no crime, which, as Marx said, capitalism would not commit for 200% per annum. There was nowhere to retreat, that is why we have blocked all the threads, made an order and continue to do so. But this is the art of a politician to understand what might be the consequences of this slap in the face.

Now everyone is sobering up. But, as Nekrasov said, 'a deal is durable, when blood is flowing beneath it'. We are not a vengeful nation, but how is it possible to forgive in one stroke of a pen today? Too big changes have taken place in the political sense. I do not want to be an oracle, but it seems to me that while this gentleman is still in power, it is unlikely that anything will change in these people. As long as we do not resolve our issues with the main holder of this ‘card bank’, who has the trump cards, with the gentlemen on the other side of the ocean, until then there will be problems with Turkey. By the way, there will be problems in Europe and in the East.

So we have to work better and better – in fact, we are demonstrating this today, no matter what the pseudo-liberals, the white-ribbon gentlemen say. I travel a lot around the country due to my rank and position, and I see that the government is moving in the right direction, making tremendous efforts. I have not seen any governor whom it is impossible to praise – everyone works. This is the trump card. And the second is our diplomatic mission and our political will.

How short a step it is from love to hatred! The way back is much longer. We fought seven times. An eighth time should not happen any case.

- Thank God there are such people as Hüseyin Haydar. We remember a flashmob, when students read his poems both on Taksim Square, and on the Bosphorus embankment. This suggests that there are normal people, who aspire to normal human relations.

- God selects poets to tell people the truth. The main poetic task is not to lie. There are poets, writers, writers who are telling the truth in every nation. Sometimes politicians should distract themselves from affairs and listen to the preachers, whether in the walls of churches or poets in public spaces. Let's live the bard slogan: "All power to the poets." Let's listen to those who are able to present an idea clearly and predict the situation

We were talking about America today, without mentioning it, so I want to sing a song ...

I had luck, my friends,

Fate played with me.

I went overseas,

And then came back.

But this is the only case

The conclusion of which suggests this:

It would be better, it would be better, it would be better,

If I were there with you.

Everyone asks me,

Sometimes I am getting tired of it.

What was useful in your trip?

How's the Yankees’s food?

Do not torture me with your questions,

Do not ask about nonsense.

There is better, there is better 

It is better there, always and everywhere.

And they say that nature

Is very beautiful here.

And it is more healthy here.

Though the winter is colder.

Perhaps the nature is better,

And there is nothing greater than our winter

It is better in any way

Because you cannot borrow money from winter.

But everyone smiled at me there

And I was smiling to everyone those days.

And no matter who I am and where I am from,

I was a friend among them.

I was gloomy for a month

Since I finished my overseas trip.

There is better there

But my homeland is here.

- Andrey, I know that you have a song about Baku.

- Yes, it was born at one of the festivals in Baku. It was a wonderful event held in the Rashid Behbudov Theater, he had a famous voice, a tenor. He sang a song based on the music of an Armenian composer, written by a Russian poet, translated into the Azerbaijani language. It was a phenomenon of the Soviet Union. Nobody asked what nationality Rashid Behbudov was, he was loved by all the women of the Soviet land.

There was a KVN team from Baku, Yuly Gusman was the captain. His brother works at TASS. This is all in Baku. Kara Karayev, Rostropovich, Irina Allegrova, Larisa Dolina, who, by the way, caused a strong reaction when she called songs sung by Baku residents not quite Azerbaijani. Baku was a friendship laboratory. It was a cauldron where everything melded. There was a Naval Academy, many of today's large naval chiefs studied at the Caspian college. I'm not talking about the oil workers, who went to Tyumen and drilled the deposits of natural resources. It was Baku. I will not mention the cuisine, I'm not talking about our favorite Polad Bulbuloglu, after this [Azerbaijan in Moscow], his voice was heard on every radio station.

Muslum Magomayev was a symbol. I remember his performance at the festival in Sopot, Poland. A whole bunch of entertainers performed entirely amazing pop songs, rock and roll, and then Muslim came out and sang "Along Petersburg" ... What was going on with the audience, the Poles!

When I arrived in Baku, I saw it all with my own eyes, everything stirred up in me, all of this proved to be true! Today Baku is an island of a nostalgic example, not just to cry ‘it was great’, and look at what we have lost, and to draw conclusions how to organize life. Everything is fine there with the architecture, nature, public catering, and people basically cheerful and joyful, Baku is an epicurean city.

The song was born at the festival, and it is dedicated to Javid Imamverdiyev. He is a famous KVN player, writer, director, singer-songwriter, who lives in Baku, a very nice man.

We will write more songs

This is an easy task for us

And we recall the former country in our songs,

Where we used to live,

And were very happy there,

And this was the best time –

Unfortunately, we have lost this country,

Only the songs remain ours.

There will be so many of them in the future

Some will sink into obscurity,

But the songs that we sang with you in Baku

Will not stop sounding in our hearts.

We live for love with you always,

We paid our love with songs,

And dedicated so many songs to our lovers 

During all these years

Sometimes those songs are like millstones or scars,

But it did not hurt,

Sometimes we considered love as a game,

We wrote the songs playfully

There will be so many of them in the future

Some will sink into obscurity,

But the songs that we sang with you in Baku,

Will not stop sounding in our hearts.

Life continues, and we sing with you

We will not be apart from the songs,

And love will call us again to follow.

The world will see a new song.

Where will we sing our songs,

At what mooring –

Each song has its own road,

God grant it will coincide with ours!

There will be so many of them in the future

Some will sink into obscurity,

But the songs that we sang with you in Baku

Will not stop sounding in our hearts.