[08:57 - 13:13] Youthful Idealism Amidst Collapse and Yuri's 'Man of the World' Philosophy

Yuri and I had a 15-year age difference. For me, Perestroika and everything that followed had such a 'wow' effect. Because I attended an art university, I had a simply absolutely normal Muscovite desire: give me a fulcrum, and I will move the world. And for me, it seemed so natural, the Moscow Zoo, it gets warmth. We make posters, we make toys, we make jewelry, we collect money for heating the Moscow Zoo and take under our care those animals for whom it's very difficult to raise money, like snakes. Snakes, they're not pretty, few people like them; it's nice to collect something for fluffy animals. And so this was a kind of national unity, we raise money for something, we dig something, we repair windows for some people. So it was such a natural life; it was joyful. It was here and now. And I understand we just didn't finish playing in the Pioneer organization. And we also had our own Timur, our own teams; we ran around the city, around the suburbs. And that was a natural process of that time. But we had no social status. We were like cheerful grown-up dogs. And at the same time, our parents, our older relatives, were losing absolutely everything before our eyes. And what was most important in the Soviet Union? It was your social status. Which gave you respect, opportunities, professional connections, and even household conveniences, because it was a kind of distribution machine. Defective, yes, inconvenient, yes, but there were certain rules through which people survived. Through which people could build something for themselves. And so, Gorbachev, in fact, wanted to bring about a soft revolution, gently letting go and gently changing the rules, so that people would have time to adapt, trying as much as possible to avoid social explosions. And this letting go, like that, that is, truly, excuse me, they untied the rope with a kick in the behind. But that's also not right, because it's also a kind of agony, and it's like only the fittest survive. And what turned out to be, that in parallel, when the intelligentsia went to rallies, these were huge rallies; there were no such rallies anywhere else. In parallel, there were velvet revolutions in the same Czech Republic when Havel came. Yuri, by the way, knew Havel, and he communicated with him. Yuri knew so many people; he had 70-80 business trips a year around the world. So he was a man of the world. And he could, he had a map at home, and, well, he had a favorite game called 'Daydreaming,' because we were very busy: Yuri in his state and journalistic activities, and I, so to speak, at my level with my own things. But Yuri would approach the map and say: 'We'll go there.' He would just point at the map and tell stories about people from those places. Because for him, what was important were not the landmarks, not, so to speak, the historical layers of the moment, but the people. And what was happening with people there. And he told stories about some incredible shoemakers, about some Portuguese performers of folk melodies. About some small bars where there was a man of great destiny who stood near that bar. Yuri remembered all of this. And he would say: not that we'll go and see. He would say: 'We'll go, and I'll introduce you to them!' This is how the world is structured, because we can't possibly not find this person. We too, well, how, I can find anyone here. I have my team, I'll give an assignment, I'll give an instruction, I'll explain, the team, then, will go, find more people, each will form their own team, and we will all find each other. And so, of course, this is romantic politics. But, you know, it's so correct, so correct, within the modern world of computers and the internet, to talk about how the self-description of a community occurs through its understanding of the public good, I won't shy away from this grand statement. This is our future.