Alexey “Professor” Lebedinsky: “Russian patriotism is imprisoned for hatred”

Professor Lebedinsky performs his compositions in a “roaring” voice that brought him fame. Photo: from the personal archive of A. Lebedinsky

The author and performer of the 90's hit "I will kill you, the boatman" Professor Lebedinsky left Russia for the United States in 2014 and settled in Miami. Over the past years, Alexey Lebedinsky was one of the most vehement critics of the Russian authorities and of personally President Vladimir Putin.

Last year, Lebedinsky released a clip "Vatniki", which instantly became a hit on views on YouTube and the subject of numerous disputes in social networks. In February was published second version clip - with illustrations of famous cartoonists Andrey Bilzho and Viktor Bogorad.

In an exclusive interview with ForumDaily, 47-year-old singer, composer and photographer spoke about his attitude to what is happening in Russia and about the changes in his life associated with moving to America. In May, Professor Lebedinsky, who previously chose New York as the main concert venue, will perform in Miami for the first time.

Why did you decide to leave Russia?

I’m tired of constantly feeling the atmosphere of corruption and the inability to change anything, I’m tired of the dirt. Moreover, this dirt both in relationships between people and on the streets - it is absolutely correlated with each other. In general, all things in our lives happen in parallel. In a word, all this accumulated, I worked for people who stole - there were 70-80 percent of them. You have to understand that this is how most Russian artists work, with the exception of those who pack concert halls. And for the last 15 years I have been a corporate artist, and only about 20% of my performances were associated with some kind of government organization. These were celebrations of various cities and various radio stations. But, basically, I worked for people who clearly got their money dishonestly. I don’t feel guilty in any way, because I’m sure that my songs make people better. Even if we are talking about the last criminal, I bring out the purest from him with some childishly funny joke or sincere lyrics. People with a difficult past and an equally difficult present shed tears at my concerts.

I didn’t work for free, but what the state stole from me in the form of unpaid royalties does not make up a small fraction of what I earned from those people who steal money from the same state. Nowhere is there such a person, whose albums were published in millions of copies, received 10-20 thousand dollars, and "pirates" or the same official companies that signed a contract with me for 5 thousand copies, put millions in their pockets.

In fact, they released a wild amount of carriers that were not controlled by anyone. So did all the official record labels that produce discs, including the largest. Moreover, in the basements of these large offices were located production facilities, where they manufactured "left" products, which diverged throughout the country. Naturally, I did not receive any money from this, limited to fees for concerts. It was funny - my songs sounded from almost every window, and from sales I received about 100 dollars per quarter, although I really should have received 2 million a year. In our country at all times theft at every turn.

Heard, by the way, about the latest scandalous initiative in Russia with the creation of a self-regulating organization (SRO), which musicians will have to pay money for concerts?

The fact is that people gathered, among whom are my friends, who decided to create the same “snatching” organization as Rotenberg [Arkady Rotenberg - businessman and friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin - ForumDaily] with truckers [Platon system, after the introduction of which a wave of driver protests took place across Russia - ForumDaily]. Now they are trying to make this very “stuff” official. The state kills culture, like everything else. Mikhalkov makes films with government funds that don’t go anywhere. But we must understand that there are brilliant guys - Zvyagintsev, Bykov, Teacher, who are not “fed” by Putin. And in what terrible poverty did the brilliant actor Mikhail Kozakov die [in April 2011]? The state is happy to kill culture. Why? Because culture can still open its mouth against the authorities. Such people are crushed and strangled.

With the famous singer from Cape Verde, Cesaria Evora. Photo: from the personal archive of A. Lebedinsky

Has the harassment of Andrei Makarevich and many other critics of the Russian authorities affected your decision?

7-8 years ago I called these same officials “thieves.” But everything is clear with them - this is the system. If you go against the system, your children will study not abroad, but somewhere unknown, and they may also end up in prison. If you log out of the system, they immediately open a case against you. The same Zelenin [Dmitry Zelenin - former governor of the Tver region - ForumDaily]. Dima took a photograph of a worm at a banquet in the Kremlin and posted the photo [on Twitter], after which he received a text message from Medvedev: “Well, did you kill the worm?”, and criminal cases were opened against all the people close to him. Many had to leave Russia.

Any moment in our life is a scale, it is a choice. It is a choice based on what weighs heavily at any given moment. For example, I have a long way to go, but my shirt is wet because it’s hot. Either I take off this shirt, for example, and walk home naked and get burned, or I continue to walk in this wet shirt. I left in May 2014 because of Ukrainian affairs, when Donbass had already begun. But after that he still came to Russia - in November, for concerts. I have long said that Putin will definitely fight, because he has everything a worldly being needs, but it is impossible to have everything for 15 years and not go crazy. In normal countries, the ruler, president, and prime minister are always changed. But our tsar stayed too long with his retinue, and they lost their minds on greatness and impunity a long time ago. And I saw people shamelessly robbing the country every day, I saw what they were doing, I generally saw too much disgusting during my artistic life, but I don’t want to see it anymore. So the “scales” simply worked - it’s better to sit without a lot of money in a free state than to continue to struggle with the desperate rejection of reality in your home country.

Why Ukraine for you was the last straw?

Everything is woven together into one knot. I love Europe very much, and over the last 5-6 years I began to notice, to my surprise, that I did not want to return. If before I always wanted to go home, then over time I spent all my free time, when there was no work, in Europe. And I still want to go to Europe. I decided to leave for the States because my daughter studied for two and a half years in England and speaks English well. Here in America it is much easier for her. It so happened that I came to Miami and am still sitting here. I perform mainly in New York, but now I thought it was time to perform here too. The concert will take place on May 27, the eve of my birthday. And I don’t really like living here. In New York, for example, there is such a huge number of diverse audiences that it is, of course, easier to find a social circle there than in Miami. In Miami there is a catastrophic “audience”, let the Miamians not be offended by me. Here in two years I have met ten people with whom I can communicate. These are open people, middle class, educated, without quirks or hypocrisy. There are only a dozen people in our circle, but that’s already good.

Do you consider yourself an oppositionist?

Of course, yes, because an oppositionist is someone who is against the current regime. I have a lot of respect for the people who went to protests in Moscow and continue to do so, they are courageous people, but we must understand that it is not people who sit there [in power], but creatures with half their brains turned off, with their humanity turned off, who are completely " give a damn,” why did you come out there, how many of you are there—50 or 100 thousand. The only thing they understand is that you can’t shoot everyone, otherwise there will be an international scandal. The Duma will still pass idiotic, inhuman and anti-state laws. Everything that needs to be done now against this government, this same government calls extremism.

I believe that it is necessary to create an international organization that will take into custody one after the other representatives of the authorities and send to the international court the top of the 300-500 people, accusing them. These are the real national traitors.

They will be obliged to return the loot to the Russian budget, they must return it to the people from whom they stole, in order for Russia to have a future. Otherwise, Russia will spread and disintegrate. Our patriotism is based not on what we do well, but on the fact that we hate someone. Our “spiritual bonds” are bullshit; these “spirits” haven’t bothered to invent the car for 100 years. We, thank God, have invented a spaceship, somewhere we can do something, but we have practically nothing to be proud of for the last 30 years, and the authorities are using the few merits of Soviet times to develop this pseudo-patriotism. Plus, they have practically raped the “great victory of the great Russian people in the Great Patriotic War,” while forgetting that it was an integral part of the Second World War, in which without the contribution of the allies we would definitely have lost. It is also not customary for the Russian authorities and the media under their control to remember that every fifth person who died in this war was Ukrainian.

Do you see any bright opposition leaders in Russia or abroad?

Khodorkovsky conducts individual activities, considering himself completely self-sufficient. I would single out Garry Kimovich Kasparov, with whom I would, for example, work. Again, recently I wanted to go to the congress [of the opposition forces "Free Russia Forum"] in Vilnius, but when I realized that the organizers could not even bring my team, which agreed to come - Bilzho [cartoonist Andrei Bilzho], Orlusha [poet Andrei Orlov], Rybakov [writer Yuliy Rybakov] and a dozen other respected people who hold the same political positions - I refused to go myself. People must be treated with respect. I understand that this is not entirely Kasparov’s fault, but for some reason the organizers did not consider it necessary to see people at the congress whose presence I considered necessary.

With the sensational clip “Vatniki”, what purpose were you pursuing?

The goal was to awaken the brains of those who have been zombified by monstrous Russian propaganda. The clip received 700 thousand views in the first 5 days; there has never been such a boom with music videos in Russian. So, it still hurt. But they [the authorities] took it and closed it after 5 days. Someone complained that his face was allegedly shown in this video, although it is clear that he, the complainant, did it for political reasons. They simply had no reason to ban it; they needed someone to complain about the video material. After the “debriefing” with this idiotic complaint, he was returned to YouTube, of course.

The fact is that “Vata” thinks that no one from abroad can condemn what is happening in Russia, but at the same time they themselves discuss “what’s at Ukrainians”, “what is there in Pindos” and so on. These are amazing double standards, which, in fact, the state itself applies at every step.

We will reveal the criminal activities of some bandit in Africa, but our own in Moscow or Chelyabinsk - no - no. We will fight against Chechnya and its legal leader, Dzhokhar Dudayev, for whom I, by the way, served in the army. He was a division commander in Tartu, he was a decent man, a real Suvorov, that’s how I remember him. And when the state fights with Dudayev, it does this well, but if he is the legitimate president, then we support the “gangs”. And when we support Bashar al-Assad in Syria, then we are against “gangs”. Where is the consistency of actions and policies of the Russian state?

Do you believe in the 86% figure for Russians who allegedly support President Putin? And do you allow the possibility of social protest in the country?

I think he still has about 65% support. And a massive social protest will begin when people start taking property away or when people have nothing to eat. Then the real wild Russian revolt will begin. And the leaders will appear. The revolt is popular, but politicians are people who feel where the wind is blowing. Among the same truckers there are educated people who went there, because you can earn more than an engineer, and they have charisma.

What is the most likely scenario for the future of Russia at the moment?

The fact that the collapse of Russia is inevitable cannot be doubted. From Russia will remain several states, as from Yugoslavia.

The world must understand the danger posed by Putin’s Russia. And not only because the people there are zombied and angry through the fault of propaganda, which is also dangerous. The main danger is that the nuclear briefcase and the armed forces are in the hands of people who are already fighting in the territory of fraternal Ukraine and sticking their noses into Syria. They will do whatever they want without asking their people, although they must serve it.

"Our" Americans, at the same time, are being turned out to get a "green card", inventing political events for themselves, and at the same time they say: "Putin is good." As soon as you advise them to return to Russia, they immediately reply: “No, what are you? We are good here. ”

In a poor and plundered country, in which it is unclear where the gold reserves and pension fund are located, a huge National Guard is being created at a great expense. Now a huge number of military men, FSB officers and special forces have been transferred to the reserve; they have nothing to do. Many of them, frankly speaking, are not the most conscientious; they will not go to work as watchmen, but will go into banditry. The modern prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs are creating greater chaos than what the bandits did in the 90s.

You sang about 90's in 90's, the compositions were already closely connected with the events taking place in the country. How do you see that era now?

It was a wild time of lawlessness and redistribution. Normal government builds policies in such a way that the state ultimately comes to a democratic governance scheme, where all institutions work efficiently and where such corruption is impossible. But the authorities simply did not care about this, and a mass of people fraudulently took possession of enormous wealth that previously belonged to other people. Let’s say that a huge plant that belonged to my great-grandfather ended up in the hands of the communists after the revolution, and in the 90s - in the hands of my acquaintances, bandits, who made me a car there, at my family plant, they had their own auto repair shop there. Funny? Yes but not much. We have, in principle, a bandit state, we still have an absolutely feudal system in our heads, wild servility. Maybe, indeed, as they say, it’s in the genes, but the fact that we are not free and always feel some kind of paw over us, I realized when I found myself here in America.

Alexey Lebedinsky says that not all of his friends and colleagues in Russia were scared off by the status attributed to him as an “enemy of the people.” Photo: Raphael Apriam

Professor Lebedinsky thundered with the song "I will kill you, boatman." How did your creativity begin and why is the “professor” all the same?

I called myself “Professor” when I called a taxi. I came after the army, in the late 80s, then you could wait 2-3 hours for a taxi, and when I said: “Hello, this is Professor Lebedinsky,” the car was delivered immediately. As for creativity, it existed before the 90s, and there were songs recorded in my usual voice, and all my life I wrote and listened to completely different music. And in a growling voice, I first recorded a song for fun, after which my friend Vitya Saltykov brought me to Moscow, and one company signed a contract with me to release an album, which even included a clause that I would not go on stage and I would not be show. Just incognito, under a pseudonym, release cassettes and CDs - they were only interested in my voice and clearly commercial song material. I wasn't going to go on stage with this. It was 1993. Then, when Dima Nagiyev was my guest in 1995, I played him “The Boatman,” which I recorded two or three years before. For the sake of laughter, he played it on the air of Radio Modern, where he then worked as a presenter, and in a matter of days, “The Boatman” begins to scream from every St. Petersburg window and spread at the speed of light across the country with pirated cassettes recording Nagiyev’s radio broadcast. After that, they began to persuade me to go on stage with her. I refused - how am I, “a boy from an intelligent St. Petersburg family”, a pianist by primary education, listening to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Pat Metheny. Will I go on stage with this material? And my friends, classical and jazz musicians, advise me: “Go get some money, you fool.” And I tried it.

The first few concerts, to be honest, felt like a complete idiot. Not because I was joking, but because the people reacted to this as a masterpiece. Later, after years, I realized that the song was really difficult and hit-making - by meaning, by energy and everything else, but people, most often, do not hear the meaning that I put into it.

This is a song against betrayal, in which a little boy sails with a grenade to end the revolution, so that the Aurora does not shoot, and this boy is betrayed by the boatman. This song is not a call for murder at all, it is a cry against betrayal, but people hear “I’ll kill” and they don’t need anything else. I came to my mother and said that I couldn’t go on stage with this, I didn’t have the right, and my mother replied: “Well, in vain. Those who know how to think and understand the true meaning in everything, regardless of whether it is the song “The Boatman” or Immanuel Kant, are only about 2%. And for the sake of these two percent of your listeners, you must sing. And let everyone else understand it as they want, there’s no escape from it.”

The song "I'll Kill You, Boatman" became a hit in 1995. Photo: screenshot from the clip / YouTube

Then, in 90's, there were a lot of different artists. If you take your segment, you can call Bogdan Titomir, the Kar-Men group. Was there any competition between you?

Then there could be no competition, because no matter how bad times were, there was always enough money for artists, unlike the times that have come now. I don't play the music that I would probably write if I had a different voice. I basically have no voice, if we talk about real vocals. If I had a voice that could be called vocals, I would write completely different songs for it. And I can no longer break out of this manner of performance, to which the public is accustomed, from my stage voice, that is, I cannot sing any long pieces without pauses, there are definitely limited properties of such a “growl” [growling voice], which I accept in attention when I write my own original songs or do remakes. And the genre... I don’t know what to call my genre. I have Russian-chanson songs, purely pop songs, near-rock songs, and blues songs - completely different styles.

You worked with many artists, performed with someone, as with the Russian Size group, someone in your videos was shot - Litsedeev, Roman Trakhtenberg. From work with whom were the most unforgettable impressions?

I love the “Litsedeev”, my wonderful friends and colleagues, it’s always a pleasure to work and communicate with them. I was the first to show Roma Trachteneberg to the people in my videos “Dubak-January” and “Tired Toys Are Sleeping.” With “Zhukami” we recorded two wonderful songs – “Mosquitoes” and “Stripe”, the second one has not yet been released. And musically, it was best to work, of course, with Vitya Bondaryuk from Russian Size, with whom we did many wonderful remakes. These were real times of youth, rock and roll as a lifestyle. We recently talked to him, and we'll probably go on tour together. The name, in the end, was appropriated by a person who has little relation to the group, because 90% was done by Vitya. And his project is now called “Size Project”. Vitya and I have recorded several more songs that have not yet been published. our joint project last year, but we did not celebrate the anniversary. I thought that we would do a big joint concert somewhere at the Sports and Concert Hall in St. Petersburg, but I had already left the country and there was no time for that. So, we’ll make it 25 years. I hope Putin’s power will disappear by then.

We haven’t been able to sing a duet with Tanya Bulanova for 20 years. Six months ago I said to Tanya: “Do you understand that many journalists and idiots from the Russian media who are corrupt to the authorities call me an “enemy of the people”?”, and Tanya replied: “I don’t care, you are my friend, and I want to sing with you.” Moreover, the duet will not be my song. I have long wanted to sing Vysotsky’s “Trouble” in the second person, which was sung by Marina Vladi, and I realized that it should be a duet with Tanya.

And of those with whom you have been friends before, many have deteriorated due to your political position?

Vitya Saltykov, who brought me to Moscow and with whom we were friends for many years, recently told me such things on the phone that my brain almost boiled - “the crests are completely crazy!”, “Putin is great.” Naturally, after this I don’t want to talk, although we have been friends for so many years. I hardly communicate with creative people from pop music. In America, of course, I feel very lonely; I miss my friends who remain in St. Petersburg and Moscow. I have very few of them, but I wanted to do something here.

I started to go out, I walk every day, but before that it was not like that. Not because there was no sun, but because I did not want to see the faces that were tortured by this regime. I call them faces, not faces, because they radiate both grief, and aggressiveness, and disorder in one bottle. You go to the store and feel that the tension is hanging in the air.

Here, I can even go into the store in a torn shirt and no one will pay attention to me, but in Russia they will immediately point a finger, and even kick someone. Just because the man is not so dressed. A man sits here, wherever he works, and he knows that tomorrow he will have the same thing, and we do not know us - even if you are in a state office, at least somewhere else. What laws do we have? Wild laws, inhuman, idiotic. People turn off business, the old people have a shameful pension, there is no money in the country - everything is stolen by the authorities, and the products are crushing - the country is full of beggars who have nothing, but they are crushing [sanctions] products! This bastard.

As a photographer, Lebedinsky worked with Chris de Burgh, Phil Collins, Brian Adam, and other western celebrities. Photo: from the personal archive of A. Lebedinsky

And how about a traditional American smile? Don't you think of her other extreme?

This is the extreme, which is simply called politeness. This is not a special, ostentatious, hypocritical smile, but an element of politeness so as not to spoil your mood. And this is a great plus. We can talk with 100-percent certainty that most of these smiles are unnatural, but this is from about the same series when you smile, and the mood itself rises. I feel a fake very much, and if I smile fakely, it will rather ruin my mood. I will feel sorry for a man who is forced to smile.

What else attracts you to the USA?

There is, of course, a wonderful feeling of freedom here. You have the right to do anything, wear anything, go anywhere, that is, do anything that does not interfere with other people. But there are also pitfalls here, because people everywhere are approximately the same in terms of the set of elements inherent in nature; their behavior is changed only by culture - the social and governmental structure, the atmosphere. There is a culture of respect for ourselves and each other. For example, two black men were killed by police in New York, people take to the streets, and I was present at such a procession last year and photographed it. This is a real sense of self-esteem, which is absolutely not characteristic of our people. Where can self-respect come from if you are not valued at all? These are human rights and the value of human life, which in Russia is zero. Here people can still change something themselves. If I say that they are cleaning the square poorly and take people out into the street with a poster, the very next day the authorities will clean this square exactly as we ask. And no police will touch us unless we start breaking the law, for example, destroying other people’s property. Is this possible in Russia? No. And they won’t go out into the street, and accordingly, no one will clean anything up. They will simply take you to the cops without any reason.

In America, you are actively engaged in photography. How did this passion begin?

When I fell into terrible depression and catastrophic disappointment in life and in many people in the late 90s, it was photography that helped me get out of this state. I found a new life. Photography is a wonderful thing, fantastic. My dear friend, the wonderful photographer Sergei Maximishin, called my style “minimalist genre” and claims that I have a designer approach to photography. He is probably right in this definition. Yes, I subconsciously like to “fit” human objects into a “minimalist” setting. I don’t like “garbage” in the frame. If it is present, it must be there for a reason, and not just like that. And “it’s better to have too little than too much” - this is true everywhere, in any form of art.

In Russia, selling photographs sometimes brought me more revenue than concert activity. Here the photo art is much more in demand than in Russia. Local galleries are ready to exhibit and sell my works, which is very nice.

Photo: Alexey Lebedinsky

Photo: Alexey Lebedinsky

Photo: Alexey Lebedinsky

Photo: Alexey Lebedinsky

You did the cover art for Chris de Burg's album, took photos of Cesaria Evora, Phil Collins, Brian Adams and many others. Musical connections helped?

In the case of Chris de Burgh, one of his tour organizers was my girlfriend, and I showed his producer Kenny Thomson my photos. Then Chris and I walked around Moscow for two days, I photographed Chris, after which we were supposed to do a studio photo shoot in London, but they had enough material shot in Moscow. In the USA, of course, it is much more difficult to approach famous people in order to take a photograph; here everything is very monetized. When I wrote to my beloved Donald Fagen [co-founder and vocalist of the rock band Steely Dan - ForumDaily], who brought me so much warmth and light with his music, I came across information on his website that for less than 10 thousand dollars, it’s better not to approach neither with photographs nor interviews. On the other hand, I understand him: there are so many people around. I experienced this myself for many years in Russia, although I never refused to photograph people with them. This is part of my job and part of my raison d'être as an artist - to bring pleasure and joy to people.

In addition to photography, I opened a company here and started shooting advertising, because this is my third profession, since 22 I have been engaged in creative writing and advertising production for years. And, of course, now I want to travel around America with a camera. It's time to see her in all its glory.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Yuri Shevchuk: “It is important not to“ unhumanise ”before Armageddon”

Star troop in the United States: who of celebrities will come with a tour in May

Yuri Shevchuk sang in Miami about the Russian reality

Ilya Lagutenko: starting life from a clean slate is easy, because “first is love”

Go to the page ForumDaily on Facebook to keep abreast of the latest news and comment material.