FROM THE HISTORY OF THE BAND 'OBLACHNY KRAI'. CHAPTER 17: EXILE FROM PARADISE. THE MAYAKOVSKY TRIBUTE

A month passed. My wife got bored and asked to come visit me with our daughter. I reached out to Andrey. Having secured financial support, I found a room right in the city center, on Gorokhovaya Street, near the "Sennaya Ploshchad" metro station. It was a very lucky moment to rent a room in the center for three thousand rubles a month. Natasha arrived with Masha, and that was happiness. I worked with others when paid shifts came up, and in the evenings I returned "home" to my family. We went swimming in Lake Ladoga, walked the entirety of the Hermitage and the Russian Museum back and forth. That happy month flew by like a single hour, like a single moment. When they left, I was overcome with such emptiness! It had been so good, and then suddenly—bags packed, train station, the end. It felt like I was the only one left in the whole world. Alone on the entire planet, in the entire Universe.

I arrived at the studio; no one was there. It seemed like the perfect time—go on, create! But I couldn't. I had grown so used to Masha constantly toddling around, Natasha assisting, and if they weren't there, they were waiting for me at home, half an hour's drive away. But now... well, whatever. There was nothing else to do; I needed to adapt. It was late, and there was a 24-hour convenience store nearby. At the checkpoint, they asked: "What's up, Seryoga, going for vodka?" They hit the nail on the head. In the store, my gaze swept past the port wine for twenty-seven rubles and landed on the vodka. I felt awful! Nothing else would hook me now—neither wine nor beer. I needed a stronger impulse to drive away this pain. I grabbed two 0.7-liter bottles, some sprats in tomato sauce, and some black bread, and carried it all in my hands through the checkpoint. The guys from the private security police laughed:

"Aren't you overdoing it a bit, Seryoga?"

"Well, I'm not going to drink it all in one sitting!"

"Well, alright then. If it takes you two sittings, it's not so bad," the soldiers giggled. They were all veterans of the Chechen wars; they knew life, loved Oblachny Krai, and were well-disposed towards me, even being aware of my struggles with alcohol. After all, Tropillo's official order was still hanging on their wall; they knew it had been suspended indefinitely.

In the studio, I politely opened the sprats, sliced the bread, and set out a 50-gram shot glass. I uncorked the first 0.7-liter bottle. I filled the shot glass... bam! I immediately poured a second. I sat there, looking at it, and thought: "No, this won't do. Am I going to spend the whole night filling and emptying this little shot glass, and then filling it again? When will I actually work if I'm constantly fussing with this tiny vessel..." I took out my beloved faceted glass and filled it to the brim—250 grams... glug!

While I was still somewhat coherent, for about an hour, a sense of calm washed over me. It's not like I had parted with them forever; our little houses hadn't tilted because of it, after all! I came up with a brilliant guitar part for the song "001" and decided to record it right then and there, and I nailed it. So much so that my hair still stands on end when I think about it. That specific hour, literally suspended between heaven and earth, is the absolute best time. That's when the best ideas visit you, when you're not completely drunk yet, but also not painfully sober. I recorded the guitars; now I needed to mix them into a subgroup. I glanced at myself in the mirror: drunk, unshaven—a true knight of sorrow. I set out the little shot glass again; after all, I had already downed the tumbler, so why rush? I filled the shot glass and looked in the mirror again. My appearance made me smirk: I'm so big, and such a tiny vessel in my hand—it looked completely unnatural. So, I grabbed the glass again and, intending to fill it halfway, poured it so much that it overflowed... glug!

I was warmed by the thought that there were still 200 grams left in the bottle, half a can of sprats, half an onion, and a bit of bread. And most importantly, there was another unopened 0.7-liter bottle of vodka. I felt invincible, like I was in a tank. I felt like I could move mountains. It seemed like just one more month, and I would finish the album, return to my family, and find happiness, prosperity, and peace and love. With these thoughts, I wrote some things, erased them, and recorded them anew. I finished the first bottle and moved on to the second. I thought I would fall asleep in the chair, catching a few winks at the console until the next shift. Remembering what had happened with the deadbolt when Tropillo couldn't get into the studio, I decided to check the door before going to sleep... I checked.

I woke up the next morning to Rekshan slapping my cheeks. An enraged Yasin was pacing back and forth from wall to wall. The studio was unventilated, the equipment was hot, the stale stench of booze hung thick in the air, and I was sleeping on the floor in the hallway right next to the door. Beside me was an empty vodka bottle, an overturned stool, sprats smeared all over the floor, and my beloved faceted glass smashed to pieces in the lounge. The mop bucket used for deep cleaning was half-filled with the contents of my stomach... the stench was unbearable! Apparently, I had gone to check the latch, left it open, and crashed to the floor right under the door.

And so, that was the scene. Yasin was swearing, Rekshan was shaking me, and together with some other guy, they tried to pull me up, dragging me to the chair. They called Tropillo, of course. The most important thing was that despite all the destruction I had caused, none of the equipment was damaged. All the plugs were in place; everything was working perfectly. Out of my deep respect for the hardware, I would never have allowed myself to damage the gear. Whether I was here on Tsvetochnaya or at the studio on Petrogradskaya, I always kept myself under control, but I had no memory of what had happened to me that night. It's no joke! Had I fallen two meters away from the hallway, I could have torn out the studio's communications. Microphones are expensive and fragile: smack one with your hand, and it will tie itself into a knot. Yet, in all that time, I never broke a single thing. It's actually strange.

Tropillo arrived quickly. He surveyed the mess I hadn't had time to clean up, looked at my face, and immediately understood everything. Yasin had already prepared him for the worst. He didn't drink himself and couldn't even stand the smell. And this was quite the scene. Andrey immediately said that was it—I had half an hour to find a place to live and to get the hell out. No amount of pleading had any effect. I cycled through my familiar list of phone numbers and got hold of Sasha Oshlakov, nicknamed "The Frenchman," an old acquaintance. We agreed I would come over. Once again, I asked Tropillo for permission to leave my belongings. He explicitly told me that I could only return when he or Yasin was there, and only to pick up my things.

I spent some time at Sasha's place. What I was doing there, I hope, is obvious. I couldn't even recall whether I spent a week or just two or three days there in an absolute fog. We decided, to hell with it! I'd go get my things, and then it would become clear what to do next. We arrived at the studio; I gave Andrey a dry nod and started packing my stuff. And then...

The Akvarium tribute, which had saved me from my first exile, had reached a wide audience. The release was called "Earth and Sky." My track stood out from all the rest, and Andrey liked it a lot. Now he had decided to put together a new tribute, based on the poems of Mayakovsky. I was gathering my belongings, wrapping my guitar in a blanket because no standard case fit my "peppercorn." I was wrapping and taping it up—with devils in my eyes and a void in my head. Tropillo watched me, watched and coughed. The Frenchman was helping me pack. When everything was finally gathered, the three of us sat down for a moment before hitting the road. Andrey scratched his nose and uttered the sacred words:

"Well, are you going to participate in the Mayakovsky tribute? I'll give you his complete works to browse through right now; you can pick a text that suits you."

I looked at Andrey, spellbound. A happy fate had presented me with one more chance, and I dove into his books, frantically searching for a poem for myself. The letters danced nervously across the lines, but the most important thing had happened: the studio was at my disposal, and I was staying tonight. Perhaps not yet completely sober, but at least in the warmth, and with hope.

FOR SPECIALRADIO.RU
Prepared by Alexey Vishnya
Summer 2008
Saint Petersburg