Viktor Shenderovich about new Russians in exile and Putin's bluff

Shenderovich came to America with “Brain Blockade”. In the new book, the satirist, by his own admission, for the first time acts as a “chronicler of the end” and describes the catastrophe of the Putin regime. ForumDaily met with the author in New York, from where he went on a tour of sixteen American cities. The well-known publicist and simply beloved “puppeteer” among the people spoke about who the “new Russians” are now, how the “sausage emigration” ended, why Putin is bluffing, and why you can’t be a stranger in New York.

How often do you visit the States?

So there was life, that once I was not deafly visiting, today, in a sense, not entrance. Therefore, in the usual way I travel to Paris or New York, Munich or Vancouver, but the poster concert in St. Petersburg, Moscow or Yekaterinburg is out of reach for me today. There is some funny paradox.

Do you appeal to the Russian-speaking public, or to the “non-Russian” Americans too?

Well, of course, to the Russians. There were a couple of funny cases when, for example, the Los Angeles Times interviewed me, and the journalist, having learned that I would have concerts, advertised. It was not indicated that the evening would be in Russian. And an elderly American couple came there. For them it was a strong anthropological experience - they found themselves in the middle of Long Angeles among a huge number of Russians. We sat with great interest and respect for two hours. But such a story is more like an anecdote than the norm.

Your attitude towards emigration: cowardice - they say, it’s good to criticize your homeland and teach your compatriots to live from afar - or a forced step? Have you thought about leaving yourself?

To say that these thoughts do not come to me is impossible. Because I regularly get threats.

Both the state and his guardsmen are squeezing me out of my country.

Of course, this has been going on for many years. But my genre is satire, a civil society one. A satirist living abroad is a little inaccurate. The lens shifts, the angle of view on which the landscape depends. And when you live inside, you better feel the temperature, the nerve of this day, even the prejudices of this day. As for my loved ones: my daughter is a Polish scholar, a specialist in Poland, writing a dissertation and living between Warsaw and Moscow, I live in Moscow, my father, my wife and many of my friends also live in Moscow. I now live such a strange life, I can calmly, at least for now, go, travel and see something.

But I want to reserve the right to return home. I do not want any political bacteria that have stuck to me from all sides, indicate where I live, decide whether I can go to my Sokolniki park in the morning or I can’t.

Who are the "Russians" in America? How has the portrait of an emigrant changed? Who is running now?

I must say that the Russian emigration now is to a large extent more Russian than it was before. This is a noticeable shift from the Jewish theme.

My viewers of today are not necessarily Jewish emigration.

To a large extent, these are people who left recently, during Putin’s fifteenth birthday. This is political and cosmopolitan emigration. This is not “sausage” emigration, this is not “Jewish” emigration, these are people who left the political system, from Putin.

I am used to the fact that the Brighton public is very specific: elderly, Jewish. Often shtetl. But the last time I was there, I was struck by young faces in the hall.

Do “Russians” in America share a common worldview, political views?

A very strong crack was laid, especially in the last year, between Russians in exile. On my last visit to America, it turned out that there was no unity. But in a couple of cities, in Seattle, for example, in Vancouver, where a very strong Ukrainian diaspora, I was specifically asked not to concentrate on this topic, because even families are falling apart.

And I was struck by the number of pro-Putin-minded immigrants. They watch Russian television, they look at the world and at events through the eyes of Kremlin propaganda. And it works, and it is absolutely amazing.

I have repeatedly advised these people to somehow participate in the construction of the Russian world.

And it is rather strange to live in Seattle, on the neck of the American state, and support Putin.

Why do people who escaped from the USSR, and later from Russia, sit in Putin’s information swamp? And they confidently repeat about the Nazis and murdered Jews on the streets of Kyiv? While over the past year, almost 5 thousand Jews left war-torn Ukraine, and about 6 thousand left peaceful France.

But propaganda is always effective. Only strong intellect, ability and habit of analyzing, checking sources, not believing the word, questioning everything, as Descartes ordered, can withstand the propaganda. But these people are always and everywhere in the minority, and not only in Russia. Kozma Prutkov said:

People are like sausages, than to fill them, they carry it in themselves.

So people wear what they are stuffed with. And they are completely sincerely convinced that they have beliefs. In fact, they simply speak in ready-made phrases from Putin’s TV. But there are others - who are already in America, Australia, Europe and Israel, unfortunately for Russia, fortunately for themselves and their children. And this “spare Russia” could constitute Russia’s hope. Young, educated, integrated into the world, without signs of xenophobia, without an inferiority complex and without aggression - the new Russians in the original meaning of the word.

How much money does the Kremlin propaganda machine devour: all of Russia Today, the bots, the “young United Russia”, the church, and so on?

Of course, we are talking about tens of millions of dollars. A few years ago, when everything was just beginning, the budget of Russia Today was 30 million. There is also closed funding, semi-fascist semi-legal entities that also feed from the Kremlin. This is a computer center near St. Petersburg, where, literally, people go to work to make shit on the Internet.

It seems that the army of Russian bots has recently been instructed to incite anti-Semitism. On the leading news sites are typical posts that "the war in Ukraine provoked the Jews." Why?

It is clear that anti-Semitism exists everywhere. The next question is: to what extent is this state anti-Semitism? There are a huge number of anti-Semites in Ukraine, people with extremely nationalistic views. But the elections in Ukraine - free, fair, equal - showed that these people are marginalized in Ukrainian society. But for propaganda, including international propaganda, this is a very powerful trump card.

It is clear that the anti-Semitic map lies next to the oligarchic, and Hitler also used this. People who play on this, use two themes: nationalistic, racially in parentheses, and class: take away and divide. And if the oligarch, and also a Jew, is absolutely perfect for combing blood.

What awaits Russia, and with it the Customs Union, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan? Is there any chance that Putin will leave, will it happen peacefully?

If the war in Ukraine is stopped, Russia will be rejected. This means the complete political defeat of Vladimir Putin. He went all-in and lost. This means that at the exit we have Russia with a collapsed economy, with collapsed ratings, with collapsed currency, thrown out of all the world "sevens" and "eights"; Russia in the status of a rogue state, near the borders of which are NATO troops; a country that lost even its closest foreign lands, which managed to make even Ukraine the enemy; a country from which even Kazakhstan and Belarus have already distanced themselves.

The only chance to maintain neurasthenic excitement among the people, to distract people from exchangers, from the dramatic state of the economy and the country is war.

Of course, this is no conquest, no campaign against Kyiv, this is a bluff. Maintaining this hell, a constant knife in the throat of Ukraine, constant blackmail with nuclear weapons, this is the little that constitutes Vladimir Putin’s toolkit today. And he will use these tools, no doubt. Putin’s final retreat means admitting his complete defeat. As we know from experience, between his own political defeat and the blood of civilians, Putin chooses the blood of civilians. He is very focused on aggressive options for exacerbation. This is his only chance - unfortunately, I am not a big optimist in this matter.

Shenderovich about his favorite places in New York - Starbucks and Central Park

When I lived in New York, I would go to Starbucks near Central Park for breakfast. And this feeling: you are a newcomer, but you are not a stranger. In this Starbucks, everyone is equal. They start the day with this cup of coffee, with this unimaginably disgusting muffin. A worker who will then go to a nearby construction site, and a person who will then take the A-Train and go to Wall Street. It's okay if you speak English with an accent - everyone here speaks poorly and with an accent.

New York has a very special atmosphere; you can’t be a stranger there. You belong because all the newcomers are just like you. Here you are at home. Humanity has gathered here.