Nine Questions for ...

Muscovites love their cars – even if they spend more time standing still in them than driving. The status of the theatre in Russia and why many have an almost too positive image of Germany – nine answers from Wolf Iro, the head of cultural programme work at the Goethe-Institut Moscow.

What do Russians love most of all?

Iro: I’ve never really liked generalizations. But, well, when I take a look around in Moscow, the number of automobiles is striking. They are considered an expression of personal freedom, which is absurd since you spend up to three hours a day in traffic jams. Yet, here one thing does not rule out the other – a car is a must. So, there you sit and wait and effect your personal freedom. A second peculiarity is the almost inconceivable number of flower shops. People in Moscow love flowers, even though they are relatively expensive here. Flowers are given for all occasions, but especially on holidays, which are very deliberately celebrated in Russia. Recently, it was Men’s Day, for example. I’m not sure, though, whether men receive flowers that day. I didn’t get any, but I did get all sorts of congratulations from complete strangers.

What topic is being disputed most hotly right now in the Russian press?

Russian television is not very discursive; a great deal less than in Germany. The opinion corridor within one can negotiate is very narrow; you clearly perceive government control. There is more debate in newspapers and the internet. One current topic in the arts, for example, is the new film-funding scheme. The chief result of the new law being prepared for this purpose would be to promote mainly blockbusters and commercially successful films, while the Russian art house cinema, which was just able to put itself back on good standing, would mainly be ignored.
Another story that received huge response overflows from the cultural sphere over into the social. I’m talking about the television production called School, a half-documentary, half-fictional series about a Russian school and all the everyday and not so everyday problems that exist there. There is a script; however the characters are played by real people: I mean pupils rather than actors. The series partially leaves the opinion corridor I mentioned above and is therefore called into question on principle.
A third major topic is the reform of the police system. A survey showed that more than two thirds of the population living in Russia are frightened – not of criminals, but of the police! For good reason, too, for if you follow reports in the critical media, you read almost daily of some violent attacks or arbitrary actions taken by the police against “suspects” or simply very normal, innocent citizens. The debate was triggered by a killing spree by a police major in a Moscow supermarket a few months ago. Two people died. He has now been indicted. President Medvedev called upon the minister of the interior to come up with measures to improve the situation within one month. He made his own proposal: to reduce the numbers of police by ten percent. The debate now centres on whether the reform he demands is at all possible or whether it will not end as so frequently: a loud demand for something that, in the end, results in not much. At any rate, it is something that affects everyone. The police presence on Moscow’s streets is extreme.

What questions about Germany do you hear particularly often?

I’m not really asked about Germany very often. One has to add, though, that Germany actually has an almost too positive image in Russia. It is really quite astounding that a nation that suffered so terribly under the German invasion not more than 65 years ago should have a thoroughly positive attitude towards Germany. Historically, this was always the case, as well. It is described in many ways and with various types of figures. One classical work, for example, is Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov. It is a brilliant, funny, but also sad book. There are two chief figures: the landholder Oblomov, who can’t get his feet out of bed and who battles with his own idleness. Oblomov has a friend of German ancestry who is characterized by a huge degree of industriousness. These opposites have always, so to say, been inscribed in the relationship between the two nations in cultural history. The Russian esteem for supposed German attributes could not even be dented by the catastrophe of the Second World War.

Photo Gallery: Moscow in pictures

What cultural highlight should visitors to Moscow be sure not to miss?

If I take two of them, by all means one is the Theatre School of Dramatic Arts. In the vernacular, it’s also called the “Vasiliev Theatre” because it was founded and built according to the plans of the famous Russian director Vasiliev during perestroika. I have never seen a theatre like it; as a place it is fascinating. It has seven stages and below them also a sort of Shakespearean round theatre. It is circular, the audience sits in various galleries and looks down at the actors. In addition to the variety of stages, it also has what they call laboratories where plays are developed over three, four or six months. It’s simply gigantic and it takes one’s breath away that even in times of economic crisis it received government support. But a Russian friend of mine explained to me that the Vasiliev Theatre is similar to an observatory or a zoo: every city has something like it and no one would ever question it and in Moscow they happen to have the Vasiliev Theatre. The second is the National Centre of Contemporary Art, with which we as the Goethe-Institut also have a great deal to do. It is the very best address for contemporary art in Moscow. So far, it is housed in a relatively small, but very lovely bright red building. They always have excellent exhibitions that rotate every two to three weeks. It’s one of my truly favourite places in Moscow.

What do you still want to experience in Moscow at all costs?

I once promised myself that I would visit all of the city’s theatres, but I’m sure I won’t manage it. I’ve been to many of them already, but there are simply very many – I don’t even know the exact number. In Russia, the theatre is traditionally highly esteemed.

What Russian book should we be reading?

As a Slavicist, I can think of many, naturally. If I could only mention one or two, one of them would be Red Cavalry by Isaak Babel, which I wrote my doctoral dissertation on – out of pure loyalty, but also because I really still believe that Babel is one of the very greatest writers of the 20th century. The thread of the century, so to say, runs through him and his works. He was Jewish and a staunch communist. After the Russian Revolution he took active part in the civil war. He was a member of the “Red Cavalry,” which was made up mainly of notoriously anti-Semitic Cossacks and which was dispatched by the Communist government to the Polish border region, the majority of inhabitants of which were Orthodox Jews, to establish the revolution there by force. It’s an incredible story that he saw with his own eyes that bears in it the contradictions and utopias and the desperate search for a third way. Later on, Babel was killed in Stalin’s prison system. In addition, of course it has to be Dostoyevsky. The question here is always: Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky – but ultimately, I would say The Idiot by Dostoyevsky, which is among the most brilliant works of world literature. He himself didn’t consider it his most perfect book, but the book closest to him. I think that’s what makes this book so special.

What is your dream project?

That the Lettre Ulysses Award could be started up again and this time in Russia. I consider it an absolutely groundbreaking project, but this award unfortunately had to be discontinued three or four years ago for lack of funds. The Lettre Ulysses Award is an international award for political reportage and it was organized specifically as a world prize. That resulted in incredibly complicated jury work that always resulted in an award ceremony in autumn shortly before the Frankfurt Book Fair. Seven authors were shortlisted. Many of these works were then read. For me, that was always a very fascinating experience and well as an expression of journalistic independence, journalistic utopia. If it would be possible to bring this award to Moscow it would, of course, be a sensation. The award is extremely important to me personally. There was never enough money, but maybe it will work out. Here in Russia they always say hope springs eternal.

What do you look forward to most when you come to Germany?

There’s simply a different tone, a different mode there. Simply that you can get from one place to another easily. That is really very mundane, but this issue of traffic jams and transport in Moscow makes a major impact on one’s own life. You constantly have to think about whether it’s a good idea to drive from the institute to the centre, for example, to meet someone. And if you do, you have to link that with two or three other appointments because a drive to the centre always means half a day is gone.

And what do you look forward to when you are back in Moscow?

Before I go to work at the institute, I always take my children to school and kindergarten. We go by public transport, which is always full that time of day, and someone always gets up for us. That, too, is one of these unspoken social agreements: getting up for children. Children always find a seat.