Nikita Dzhigurda: “I’ve had an agreement with KGB and FSB since the Soviet era”

Top performance in religion

You’ve already been to Kazan. Could you say what you liked in the city, local culture the most?

A talk about culture for me, a secular person, who has studied the history of religions… I think if the Christian civilisation continues using its values in the same thoughtless and non-pragmatic way, it will disappear. And Islam will survive, and in this respect, it refers to both Kazan and Tatarstan.

What’s the difference between the two world religions in a deeper sense? One of them, Islam, says that the top performance is to show mercy, forgive the enemy. But if you can’t, and if the enemy goes rogue, you must protect your family, your ideas. And Christianity and the one who was called Jesus Christ showed another game level. He said to love your enemy, if someone slapped you on one cheek, turn the other, most importantly, don’t kill. Jesus Christ and philosophers of his level knew this life was just a part of life in the universe.

Why was he crucified? He goes to people and explains them the truth, which churches take money for, in an understandable language. He says that one can instantaneously reach another game level if they learn how to control themselves to such a degree that when you are attacked and you will be beaten, you won’t reply not because of weakness but because it is the power of spirit, knowledge, willpower and body. You can resist the evil with no violence.

A talk about culture for me, a secular person, who has studied the history of religions… I think if the Christian civilisation continues using its values in the same thoughtless and non-pragmatic way, it will disappear

The problem is that Christianity violated the teacher’s instructions. Show me where Jesus Christ took up arms. He expelled traffickers from the church but he didn’t kill anybody. Show me that level of belief in Christ nowadays.

How Dzhigurda came to an agreement with KGB and FSB

Which case do you mean? Maybe clashes because of church construction…

Russia in 1917, before the coup. This is what happened: churches are everywhere, all public workers compulsorily go to put candles as well as everyone… What did it bring to? It brought to millions of dead people, mostly Christians. When the Civil War began, Christians began to beat Christians, hand popes, destroy churches because internal aggression didn’t have a place to go out. The pot exploded.

I was in such a situation when the top performance is to solve a problem peacefully, while one was at the edge. I really wanted to take revenge because the outrage they committed… If I learn that my child’s godmother (it is businesswoman Lyudmila Bratash) has been killed and it is announced across the country it has been an accident… I was promised to be killed, the pointed the gun at me so that I will admit that Bratash’s heritage belongs to illegal realtors. Despite the warning, I filed a claim in the police. Former security officials are in service there.

It is Golunov’s case.

Yes, yes. Though no, politics was the case then. And I have had an agreement with KGB and FSB since the Soviet era: I don’t call people to walk the streets in protest, I don’t use my talent to fight against authorities.

I have had an agreement with KGB and FSB since the Soviet era: I don’t call people to walk the streets in protest, I don’t use my talent to fight against authorities

“I walked the streets in protest, and I got my fingers broken and I was sent to the funny farm too”

While you declared your candidacy for Moscow mayor a year ago.

Yes, but it’s a game! It is a performance, I don’t feel any aggression against all our rulers. I differ from destructive opposition. Authorities know that Dzhigurda is peaceful opposition. They can come to an agreement with him: don’t walk the streets in protest and don’t urge the youth. And I can, I have both a voice and everything. The case is that I went through it as a youngster. I walked the streets in protest, and I got my fingers broken and I was sent to the funny farm too… But going through it, I totally understood that I improved the world by improving myself. I don’t have to walk the streets in protest any more.

In the light of this, there is now a protest linked with the election to the Moscow City Duma, candidates of the opposition aren’t registered there. What do you think is happening there? And what should the protestors do then?

They are heroes. When Aleksey Navalny just appeared, I was asked to cooperate with him, I was also invited to be with Khodorkovsky… as well as Tyagnibok [Ukrainian far-right politician) did to Svodoba party. But going through this fight against Soviet authorities, I understand that it is an illusion. What the guys do like heroes, I went through it and understood that I improved the world by improving myself. Leaving the political fight, I began ten-day fasting first, then it was thirty days long. But not to look like Lyuba (Editor’s Note: Lyubov Sobol, opposition candidate in the election to the Moscow City Duma who went on hunger strike after a refusal to register her).

Now, this all is done to detect the instigators and remove them so that the pot won’t explode. I did know it, and I didn’t go outside and urge anybody to go outside in 2012 because I knew this all would end with a defeat. Authorities wouldn’t allow stirring. If you like, like in Ukraine, it will be worse. There will be a civil war. And I change my consciousness. And I don’t have to go the square for this purpose. I can fast for a couple of days or dive into esotericism.

Fasting and philosophy as alternative to rally

Should people on the square try to fast too?

Why not? I’ve not eaten meat, fish for seven years, I am completely vegetarian, and with mediation, prayer. It is what you can spend your time on. You, of course, can be indignant, up and get a bash on the bonce, aggression, be held on remand… And one should also go through it. The question is to experience it in a homoeopathic dose and understand you won’t change anything. To kill the dragon is to become the dragon yourself.

Those who fight authorities don’t think that if they come to power now, this opposition will also start stealing and sharing bribes in the same way because it is the temptation that only insiders can resist it, and there are few of them. So this fight, the illusion weakens the youth. People will go outside, there will be chaos, and that’s it.

But I am an optimist, and I urge young people to take philosophic works in their hands. When thinking about them, I distract myself from class struggle and don’t make the mistakes our opposition will make. I know that on certain mysterious days a small group with certain thoughts can send signals to the noosphere, pray, meditate, thus changing the world. Bloodlessly. Otherwise, we will die as a civilisation.