Chapter 11, Part 1: The Witch

After losing Andrey, I simply couldn't find my place. Any endeavor was in vain, any process led to a drinking session, turning my life into one massive, endless bender with no visible way out. Once again, upon arriving at the studio, Andrey Tropillo looked at me and said: "That's it. This can't go on, you're going to die right here on me. I know a place." – "What place, Andrey? There is no such place, you understand." – "No, there is.

We have this spot outside the city – Komarovo. Lives there a certain lady – Ira. That's your place... she's no ordinary person: a psychic. A witch and a sorceress, she'll cure this crap for you. She masters all sorts of otherworldly arts, you'll definitely get your mind off things there and be able to sort out your feelings."

Indeed, I couldn't create anything useful in the studio, so I agreed with Andrey. We headed to Komarovo. We got into his poison-orange Mercedes – looking like a monkey's ass – and drove off. We stepped out among pine and spruce trees, which compared to the concrete jungles of the Petrogradskaya side, was paradise. A flicker of hope stirred that the fresh air would clear my gloom...

Drawn by the noise of the arriving car and the subsequent slamming of doors, several inhabitants of the two-story tower emerged, led by the hostess. I was taking in my surroundings, and turning around, I saw this picture. I must say, at that moment, I was literally struck by a sudden doubt that this was the exact place I was supposed to be, and these were the exact people I was now meant to be with...

I was spooked, seriously spooked: a mere glance at the hostess was enough; and the more I looked at them, the less I liked the fresh air. Of all the epithets worthy of being applied to Irina, I would highlight just one: a witch. An absolute Baba Yaga in a mortar, with a broom between her legs. I whispered to Andrey, like, where the hell did you bring me, but he brushed it off: "Hello Ira, I brought you a patient, his name is Sergey. Sergey – this is Ira. Ira, Sergey has had a tragedy – his friend died." – "I understand everything, I understand everything, hello, Andrey."

       

She came over, stared intently, and started making circles over my head – with long ones, like the one from the fairy tale "Sinyushkin's Well". The entourage watched this with glassy eyes. I noticed Irina had a huge, freshly cut, recently healed scar stretching from ear to ear.

Tropillo recounted that quite recently, Irina had been attacked by Fedya Chistyakov, who was armed with a kitchen knife. The musician had become convinced that Irina was the direct embodiment of the devil on Earth. That he had appeared to us precisely in her guise, and that it was his duty to rid humanity of this affliction. Taking this mission upon himself, one fine day, Fedya attempted to execute his plan, but something stopped him from doing it, or rather, finishing it... Namely: for this task, he chose the largest, yet the dullest knife in the kitchen. Because of this, the deliverance of the planet from global evil was postponed.

Andrey also mentioned that she had literally been discharged from a psychiatric hospital yesterday, the one in the center, on the Pryazhka River embankment. She spent almost a month there: in turn, comprehending the essence of evil, she came to believe that the cause of all troubles on Earth was electricity, and that if electricity were eliminated and we returned to a medieval lifestyle, humanity would purify itself. And how do you rid the planet of electricity? As they say – "start with yourself." That's exactly what Irina did: she started with herself, or rather, with the Komarovo dacha settlement.

There was a substation, wires went from it to the nearest pole, and from there they branched out in all directions, all over the settlement. Under the cover of darkness, Irina personally sawed down this pole with a hacksaw. It fell, and Komarovo was temporarily rid of electricity, this fierce scourge of the twentieth century. The outraged residents turned to the workers of the national psychiatric field. They did their uniquely understood work with Irina, after which they discharged her home, and right then, Andrey and I showed up – right on cue.

We went inside the house. To describe what I saw there with a pen is difficult. First of all, that retinue that came out with Irina to meet us – they were just little green sprouts on a strawberry field. Inside, there were many more people like them – teeming with them. "Andrey brought me to the wrong place, oh, the wrong place," – I got seriously depressed... Their state might have been similar to mine, only it was induced not by booze, but by a completely different substance, which, of course, contradicted my entire alcoholic nature. I was offered to eat some magic mushrooms, which I politely declined. Smoldering joints were extended to me from all sides, however, I had never smoked – not even weed, let alone anything else, ever.

"How can I help you, Sergey?" Ira asked. – "I could use a glass of vodka, do you have any?" – "Oh, come on, that's filth, we don't keep such things here," Irina winced in disgust.

At this point, Tropillo hurried: "Alright, Sergey. I brought you here, I need to go, people are waiting for me." – "Wait," I stopped him, "wait-wait-wait! You don't get it, there's absolutely no way I can stay here. At the very least, to pull myself together I need at least, well... a couple of bottles, I'm not staying like this... what the fuck is this, Andryukha, I'll catch delirium tremens like this."... He seemed to agree, but it wasn't easy – to find anything like that here. Ira pointed her hand in the direction where Tropillo could buy something for me. He drove off, and I stayed behind.

During the half-hour that Andrey spent looking for booze for me, I rejected several more offers: "Well, okay, smoking – you don't smoke, but you do eat, right? You probably like mushrooms, don't you?" – "Yes," I say, "I love mushrooms, especially with vodka!" – "No, you should try special mushrooms – here they are – eat up, here!"

I refused again, but then the sound of a car was heard, the door slammed, and Tropillo appeared on the porch with two bottles of champagne. Well, at that moment I couldn't care less, as long as it wasn't mushrooms or weed. Within an hour, I drank those two bottles – I felt better: my head cleared, and I felt good inside. Andrey immediately started gathering his things to leave, but I realized that was it... if he left without me – I would trudge back to the city on foot, into my native studio element – whether Andrey liked it or not, which is exactly what I told him.

"Alright, I'm going-going-going, Seryoga, let me through, I'm leaving." – "You know," I say, "you're going to get in the car and drive off right now, but I will follow you, down the dark highway, on foot, drunk." – "What are you talking about, is it really so bad for you here? Look: the nature, the air, such good people..." – "The people might be good, but as Vysotsky sang – 'it's nice there, but I don't need to go there', do you understand, Andrey!? Enough talking, let's get in the car right now, thanks for the lovely excursion and for introducing me to these interesting people, but now please take me back to the exact place you picked me up from," I stated firmly. – "Have you made up your mind?" – "Firmly and absolutely."

We went inside, said our goodbyes, and declined the offer to stay until morning. My heartbeat only returned to normal once we made it out to the highway. "You made a mistake," Tropillo sighed, "this is exactly what you need right now, it would have pulled you out, made you feel better – I give you my word – it's been tested."

Tropillo brought me back to the studio, however, things were still not going well for me at all: I kept remembering Andrey, and everything kept turning back into a damp, temporal slime. Dropping by the studio once again and seeing me in such a depressed state, he scratched his beard and said: "It looks like I know how to get you out of this state – I've got an idea, let's go!" – "Are we going to Komarovo again?" I asked. – "No, much closer – let's go."

We got in, drove up to a music store. He got out, I stayed to wait. He comes out – places a box on my lap – a Yamaha FX-900. "What's this?" I mumbled. "This is exactly what is bound to pull you out of this shitty state you're in," said Andrey. "In this field, this is Yamaha's most recent development right now, so you are going to study it, and you should have no time left to drink."

What can I say – at that time, the studio didn't have a single reverb unit, and this processor housed several devices within it. Andrey wasn't mistaken: it was this exact device that did its good deed – it pulled me out of my bender. This was exactly the kind of sound I had been missing. A desire to record something urgently appeared. Seeing this, Andrey cheered up: I was genuinely saved by him, rummaging through endless sound presets. There were over a hundred of them, and just as many custom combinations could be created, which is exactly what I did without leaving the studio. In those days, many, many different ideas came to me, some of which were successfully brought to life later, in 1999, six years after the events described.

The studio on the Petrogradskaya side existed for 10 years. During that time, Andrey Vladimirovich somehow managed to never once pay the owners of the premises for rent. Not just a person, but an entire Institute of Analytics and Psychoanalysis was extremely saddened by not recognizing in time what seemed to be lying on the surface: Andrey never took money for the studio. Anyone who recorded with him always claimed to be as poor as a church mouse. And, despite the fact that musicians often arrived in nice cars and pulled expensive instruments out of expensive cases – no one had any money for the recording. Rarely did anyone who could actually pay for at least something compensate us for our work on time. Therefore, if anyone did drop by – thank God if it was just to buy some tea for the studio, some sugar, or some doctor's sausage on black bread. So no one could have ever dreamed of paying rent in their worst nightmares.

For Special Radio

July 2008
Recorded by Alexey Vishnya