Interview by Maria Sidelnikova, exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
Interview with producer Bari Alibasov to Vestnik Kavkaza on inter-ethnic relations.
- Nowadays, issues of inter-ethnic peace are becoming increasingly important. What can artists and musicians do to strengthen relations between nations?
- In a world where there are differences, but they are easy to resolve thanks to the fact that we are looking into each other's eyes – these are our republic, in fact, thriving Azerbaijan, stable Chechnya, where until recently it was very difficult to imagine peace, Turkmenistan which today is becoming more civilised and is going to the European level, Kazakhstan which is a superb and modern civilization, and we would like to see things being done in Kazakhstan in our country, in Russia, in Moscow - we have so much in common, we can look into each other's eyes and say that we love each other, say that it is good that we are different, we see the world differently, but we see the world as a whole, and we are the creators of this world, workers and builders. Here, the "Na-Na" ban and any creator, any artist and TV have a lot of work.
- Do you feel nostalgia for the Soviet Union? It was a period when people lived in peace in the world, and a problem such as ethnic clashes did not occur
- Of course, I am nostalgic for Soviet brotherhood and love, the friendship of the Soviet peoples, because no one thought or knew that Polad Bul-Bul oglu was an Azerbaijani singer. He was a Soviet singer, performer. Or Magomayev, Gnatyuk, Sofia Rotaru, Maria Codreanu, Tynis Magi, Jaak Joala, and so on. These were Soviet singers, and there was a factor uniting all of us, a very powerful and emotional factor. The most powerful human factor is the Soviet song, popular song that had such deep multinational roots that there was the genre of "Soviet song." Today I say that Soviet song has left such fertile material that can be used and used for centuries, forever. Today everything revolves around two or three notes of one of the US-European club styles, and the rest of the music world, and especially our Soviet music, is left out, in which each musician can make a name for himself, just digging into this vast storehouse of music created by many different peoples. We were close, and we did not feel any difference at all between us or any superiority.
