Mikhail Efremov: I love Manhattan - you won’t get lost in any condition

Mikhail Efremov after speaking in New York. Photo: Pavel Terekhov

Mikhail Efremov and Dmitry Bykov performed in New York at the Mason Hall. The project was called “Direct Speech”. There was a lot of direct speech, but without a large number of new works - on the New York stage, Efremov read the most famous poems from the famous project “Citizen Poet”.

For each of the performances in America and Canada, the “civic poet” Dmitry Bykov wrote short dedication poems to the cities in which they appeared on stage. The authors promised that they would form a separate series about trips “for the ruble” - that’s what they jokingly call their tours of North America.

Here is Bykov's poem dedicated to New York:

Impressions from the performance remained a bit mixed. It was noticeable that Mikhail Efremov was expecting from the hall more than just a violent reaction to obscene words. On some subtle things, such as a dedication to his father Oleg Efremov or written by Bykov appeal on the anniversary of the death of Arkady Raikin, the public did not actually react.

ForumDaily met with Mikhail Efremov for a blitz-interview after the performance to ask about a trip to the famous Burning Man festival in Nevada, about his memories of Vladimir Vysotsky and friendship with his family and about the future of the Citizen Poet project in Russia.

Mikhail Efremov Photo: Pavel Terekhov

Today is the day of memory of Vladimir Vysotsky, your families were friendly, and you continue this relationship with his children. Your mother played the role of Vladimir’s mother in the film “Vysotsky, thank you for being alive”. Have you met in person, and do you have any personal memories?

Yes, mom (theater and film actress Alla Pokrovskaya - note ed.) studied in Vladimir Semenovich’s drama club with Vladimir Bogomolov, even before college. Then he was also my teacher. Since time immemorial, I have been friends with Arkady and Nikita (Vysotsky’s sons - note ed.). And Vladimir Semenovich himself, I may have seen a couple of times in my life, but I did not attach any importance to this because of age and stupidity.

In America, you are not the first time, even one of the birthdays was celebrated here during tours. What is your favorite city where you could live?

I love New York, all of Manhattan, because here you will not get lost in any state, and Venice Beach in Los Angeles.

During the concert, you announced that you were going to go to the next Burning Man and even came up with an idea - to build and burn a mausoleum on it - the same one from Red Square. Tell us about this experience, how you got there and with whom?

I really liked it, I may go next time, if everything goes well, the stars will fall. This is such a thing that it is strange to talk about in Russian and for a Russian-speaking reader, this should be seen. It’s not even on the video as it really is. I was most impressed by the fact that there, in this huge desert, in Nevada, I did not see a single bullhead, although there were about 200 thousands of people there.

Mikhail Efremov during a performance in New York. Photo: Pavel Terekhov

Returning to your projects ... Performances are getting sharper each time, and the popularity of the projects “Citizen Poet” and “Citizen Good” do not lose. Are you not afraid that at a certain point persecution will begin, as against Makarevich?

It is already over. If it happens, I will say, oh what a fool, I was not afraid. But in fact, I am not afraid, since the persecution of Makarevich was more impressive to third-party people, and not to Andrey Vadimovich himself. And those who poison, it's clear who, why talk about them. We will not throw beads in front of them.

One of the top topics of last week was Kadyrov and famous people who posed with a sign “Kadyrov is a patriot of Russia.” Liya Akhedzhakova said in her interview that they offered money for this, where is the truth here and who is to blame?

Fedya Bondarchuk - brotherly heart. He is friends with Ramzan, and I like that he did not pass. I, like Akhedzhakova, were not offered and, I think, hardly offered.

The “Citizen of the Poet” tour of Russia at the start of the project was financially supported by the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation. Should we expect them to continue? How much they are in demand now in Russia?

This was sponsorship not so much from Mikhail himself, but from his sister’s foundation. In Russia these performances are not in demand now; if they were in demand, they would have taken place there. We are a very expensive project, and people have run out of money. The oil ran out and the viewer ran out of money.

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